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 their former employers, 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 long-hidden figure to justice.''

Dramatis Personae
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 twenty-nine hours days, Erdenet's night cycle was particularly long, though 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 around it. 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 let out 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 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 had since childhood - 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 through the hazy glow of the infared. When she felt she could prolong Jill's suffering no longer, Violet activated TEAMCOM and gave a terse statement.

"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 a 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 shout 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 body.

"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 that 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. As her last 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 powered armour. 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."

Overture
As his shift drew to a close, Private Jal Mizan wondered - not for the first time - if the talk of an illustrious and exciting career in the Marine Corps his recruiter promised him might have been a lie. Sat in the cramped booth by the base's main gate, he had spent the last four hours staring blankly at a row of empty monitors linked to security cameras around the main entrance while trying to fend off drowsiness. Barring a post at one of the many far-flung outposts dotted across the more remote colonies, Erdenet was about as quiet as it got. Even the monthly excursions into Bulgan's nightclubs were not enough to placate the terminally bored Marines around here, especially non-drinkers like Mizan.

"This is One-One," Mizan tiredly thumbed his COM pad for the hourly check-in. "All quiet."

There was no reply. When he'd first been assigned to nightly guard duty, the Private voiced his concerns that the system was somehow broken, but as it turned out, silence was an affirmative on this base. He'd only get a reply if anything actually happened warranting an alarm, and aside from a stray cat triggering an exterior motion detector a week ago things had been completely and utterly silent. Mizan sighed, and stretched in his chair. The only reason he wasn't occupying himself with a book or browsing Waypoint on his datapad was due to rumours of a base AI monitoring those on guard duty to ensure their attentiveness, and he wasn't about to risk getting chewed out by Grant Base's legendarily ornery commandant.

There was a sudden clank as the booth's door slid open, letting in a welcome rush of cool night air. Picking up his helmet from the nearby table, Mizhan eased himself out of his chair and turned round.

"You're early, Yana. Not that I-"

The Marine's eyes widened as a uniformed corpse slumped forward into the room, and he found himself facing down the muzzle of a heavy-duty handgun. Mizhan's hand was halfway to the pistol at his belt when it fired with a suppressed thunk, striking him right between the eyes. He toppled backwards into the chair, blood pouring down his face. Standing in the booth's threshold, a figure in grey powered armour lowered the gun, and slowly closed the door before turning away.

***

"Control, this is D'Artagnan. Preparing for breach and recovery."

In spite of its high walls and imposing automated security system, Grant Base had been ridiculously easy to infiltrate. Twenty minutes ago, its camera network had been hacked to show a looped recording of a particularly quiet hour of footage, while the entire motion sensor array's friend-or-foe recognition software had been rewritten to read everything as authorised personnel. After that, it had simply been a matter of scaling the outer wall and clambering through the barbed wire that lined it, which might have been an issue were it not for the MJOLNIR armour the intruders wore.

"I read you, D'Artagnan. Pickup will arrive at the predetermined coordinates in twenty. Control out."

As the COM channel went silent, D'Artagnan emerged from the corner he'd secluded himself in and set off at a jog around the base's main warehouse building, feeling an unusual sense of trepidation over what they were about to do. Anxiety was something he thought he'd gotten over many years ago, when life seemed remarkably simpler. Crouched ahead of him, half-hidden by shadow and a large, humming generator, were his team. Glancing over, Porthos swiped two gauntleted fingers across the front of his visorless helmet.

"Took you long enough," he remarked playfully. "Any trouble?"

D'Artagnan's reply was curt. "Front gate security's down. Two guards."

"Sloppy. Athos is taking care of the interior for us."

Beside him sat a man in an unusual spherical helmet, dotted with tiny sensors. Two wires snaked from a device on his gauntlet; one into the generator, and another into a tiny conduit built into the wall. He seemed to barely acknowledge D'Artagnan's presence, and looked up only when Aramis, the team's fourth member, gave him a gentle kick.

"I'm ready," Athos spoke monotonously. "Package is in the centre of the warehouse, marked X-83. Can't miss it."

"Resistance?"

"Four in a security office down the hall, but they won't notice us until we want them to."

Athos inclined his head towards D'Artagnan, who towered above the others. "You know, if we wanted to, we could have been in and out without killing anyone."

"Control's orders."

With a grunt that could have indicated acceptance or disgust, Athos detached his wires and stood up, drawing a suppressed M7 submachine gun. Aramis and Porthos did the same, readying a pair of rifles. There was a moment - just a few seconds - of absolute silence between the four as they prepared themselves for the mission to come. Tonight, they would finally emerge from their concealment and take their first over steps on the galactic stage. D'Artagnan turned towards a nearby door, already plotting out his route from scans of the facility's layout he'd memorised earlier. The others fell in behind him, and as they approached, Athos cut the power with a swipe of his fingers.

"Let's get this over with, team."

Strange, D'Artagnan thought. I nearly called us Spartans.

The exterior door gave way with a single armoured kick. Within seconds, the four intruders were already sprinting down the corridor, weapons at the ready. Athos and Porthos broke off at an intersection, heading into the storage warehouse, while D'Artagnan and Aramis moved towards the barracks. With the power - including backup generators - now completely out, the Marines stationed here would realise something was wrong. What they didn't anticipate was the speed with which some individuals would react, as a tall, middle-aged man in an officer's uniform rounded the corner ahead of them with a Magnum in hand.

"What in the goddamn-"

The Colonel's body hit the floor in less than a seconds as a neat burst of gunfire ripped through his chest. Several others - the security station personnel - had the presence of mind to draw weapons, but not the speed to fight back. D'Artagnan and Aramis barely slowed their pace, taking down one Marine after the other with terrifying accuracy. One yanked at an alarm cord on an office wall, but nothing happened before he fell too. A long corridor separated the base's barracks from the armoury, intersected by another leading to the security room. By the time the first few men and women of Grant Base realised they were under attack, a pair of supersoldiers stood between them and every piece of gear they needed to even put up a passable fight.

What occurred next was not a battle. It could not even be considered a fight. Readouts before the mission had estimated Grant Base's personnel count at ninety-four, with a dozen or so support staff. Not much for a base, but Erdenet was hardly a high-priority military asset for the UNSC. D'Artagnan and his ally kept a slow, steady pace as they butchered their way through room after room of frightened soldiers. Most tried to flee, tugging in vain at barred windows or trying to claw through steel security doors while a few brave souls attempted to fight their executioners. Had they charged en-masse, they might have had a chance, but fear overcame them; the dark, imposing MJOLNIR armour overcame any rational thought from these Marines. D'Artagnan halted for a moment to reload his BR85, and a young man pounced forward with a combat knife in one hand. He was fast, but a gantleted hand swiped away the weapon before delivering a solid punch that caved most of his face in.

"Frag out!" Aramis yelled over TEAMCOM. He primed a grenade, tossed it into a crowded bathroom, and waited for the blast to sound before advancing again. Blood from a dozen bodies seeped across the cracked white tiles.

"This is Porthos," another voice sounded in D'Artagnan's ear. "We've secured the package aboard a forklift truck; it'll take too long to carry out on foot. What's your status?"

"Cleaning up. Shouldn't be too long."

"Should re proceed to the rendezvous point without you?"

"Go ahead. We'll catch up."

Now out of ammo for his primary weapon, D'Artagnan unholstered the submachine gun from the back of his suit and continued his work, which now mostly consisted of executing those pretending to have died. All resistance had quickly been put down, and aside from the din of echoing gunfire the only sounds he heard were from the dying. Aramis emerged, his armour streaked with red as he flicked some gore from the end of his personal close-quarters weapon: a machete of Jiralhanae design. Panting slightly, he patted D'Artagnan on the shoulder and quietly made his exit while the older man slipped a large brick of C-12 from his utility belt. This alone would be more than enough to level this entire wing of the base, and saved him the messy business of dealing with stragglers. Kneeling amidst a sea of corpses, he set down the explosive charge, linked the detonator to his HUD and quietly exited the barracks.

Neither man said a single word as they ran back through the base, retracing their steps towards their entry point. Porthos and Athos had already departed, leaving Grant Base's main gate wide open. From here, it was a ten-minute jog down the road and into the surrounding forest towards their rendezvous point. Situated on a rocky overlook with a fantastic view of the distant Bulgan, the site was guarded by the other members of D'Artagnan's team by the time he and Aramis arrived. Between the other soldiers was a wide, metal box, lined with various warnings about security clearance and stamped with the distinctive black and white symbol of the Office of Naval Intelligence. By the look of things, they had decided to keep the forklift.

Porthos looked him up and down, "You get much trouble?"

"Nothing we couldn't handle."

"Can't have been easy for you."

"They were unarmed."

"That's not what I meant."

Before they could continue, there was a rapid series of low beeps across their COM channel, signalling that evac had arrived. D'Artagnan turned away from the others and looked skyward as the bulky shape of an Albatross dropship made its way towards them, thrusters blaring at maximum power as it slowed down to drift slightly ahead of them. Athos hopped back into the forklift and steadily trundled forward into the ship's waiting vehicle bay, and was soon joined by his comrades. Casting one look back at Grant Base, D'Artagnan activated the C-12 charge. An explosion rocked the nearby trees, and a a plume of black smoke soon rose up to cloud the murky predawn sky. Moments later, it was joined by a second blast; Athos had set the generator to overload. With that, he stepped on board as the cargo bay slowly rose back up into the dropship, securing with a loud clunk before the Albatross rose into the sky.

"Well," Aramis was first to break the silence, pulling off his helmet to reveal a pale, square-jawed face with a crop of close-cut red hair. "We're finally doing this."

"It's a big gamble," intoned Athos.

At this, Porthos sighed, sitting back against a wall. "Yeah, winner take all".

D'Artagnan ignored the others as they conversed. Those three had known each other a lot longer than he'd known them, and had what could only be described as an amazing conversational rapport. Sitting by the crate they had journeyed all this way to create, he opened up a direct COM channel back to headquarters, and spoke the moment his connection was approved.

"Control, this is D'Artagnan. Mission complete."

Though he could not see the man he was speaking too, it was very easy for the supersoldier to imagine the self-satisfied grin of his superior before the usual measured, well-spoken reply.

"Excellent work. With this, we've finally made our first move into the light. What follows will require quick maneuvering if we are to succed, old friend. Once you're returned the package and rested, I'll require your immediate redeployment."

"To Erdenet?"

"Of course. If we're to win this game, then there are a couple of pieces I'll need your team to pick up. Understood?"

"Yes sir." His reply was automatic, though after a few moments of hesitation, he spoke up yet again. "Also, I'd like to propose that we revise our callsigns in the field to something more appropriate for operational efficiency."

"You don't like D'Artagnan?"

"I preferred it when I was a number, sir."

Digging
Freshly-disturbed dust and sand swirled around the stone tunnel as a pair of heavy boots hit the ground with a loud crunch. A tall, armour-plated man stepped forward through the gloom, assault rifle raised. He moved carefully, measuring each step down the narrow passage until he came to a metal blast door. After four days of searching, they had finally found the main entrance.

"Clear!" Marco-035 called over TEAMCOM.

Moments later, there were two loud thuds behind him as the rest of Sigma Team descended into the tunnel after him. They quickly moved to catch up with their comrade, and the three stood in silence for a moment before the door.

"This must be it," Kane-098 announced, scanning the entrance with a device mounted on his TACPAD. "I'm surprised it's held all these years."

Beside him, Jax-007 rapped the metal with the butt of his M90 shotgun. "They built these things to last, glassing or not."

For the past three days, the SPARTAN-II's of Sigma Team had been stuck in Sansar's orbit alongside a small group of advanced ONI vessels, scanning the ruined planet for any signs of life. Unsurprisingly, there didn't seem to be anyone here. Even the usual salvaging vessels and unscrupulous corporate expeditions that picked over glassed worlds like vultures seemed to be absent, so when faint signals were caught by a surveillance probe that matched up with a missing ship Sigma Team had been pursuing for nearly nine months now, an investigation had been immediately launched.

"Hear that?" Marco tapped the side of his helmet. "There's still power."

Straining their ears to listen, the Spartans could indeed hear a faint, almost imperceptible hum from the blast door. Kane nodded, glad that they wouldn't have to blow it open, and edged past his teammates. By the side of the door was a tiny panel, to be utilised only by technicians. He wrenched it open without much difficulty - most of it had already rusted over - and removed a small chip from his belt pouch. Standing behind him, Marco could hear Jax's sigh of annoyance as Kane slotted it inside. Seconds later, a tinny, nasal voice sounded over the COM.

"Hey, what's up with this?" came the bewildered voice of an AI. "A little warning before you shove be into a system, eh?"

"Iggy," Kane's reply was absolutely deadpan. "We need access to this facility. Can you unlock the door?"

There was a brief pause, then a click. "Yessir. Rest of the system's gonna be a hassle, so if you don't mind letting me ride up top, that'd be swell."

Kane complied, and removed the chip before slotting it back into his helmet. To aid in their investigation, ONI had been kind enough to grant Sigma Team a fairly new Smart AI named Iggy. Since Marco had grumbled about it and Jax had surprisingly refused point-blank to have one in his head, Kane had been given the necessary neural implant upgrades for SPARTAN-AI cooperation. So far, they had found Iggy to be rather annoying in spite of his obvious capabilities. The blast door chimed for a moment, then slowly slid open to reveal the interior of a surprisingly well-maintained UNSC facility. Were it not for the fact that it was illuminated entirely by dark red emergency lighting, the Spartans could have easily assumed people were still living here.

"Any idea on what this place is?" Jax asked, taking point.

Marco shrugged. "ONI said they didn't know."

"ONI lies, Marco."

"Point taken. Still, if they aren't..."

"Then it's probably an Innie base."

Iggy suddenly spoke up. "Not likely, fellas. Managed to get a quick reading earlier and this place is military."

"You could tell all that while you were opening a door?"

"Oh yeah," the AI scoffed. "It's the little architectural things, y'know?"

The Spartans moved in as quickly as they dared, wary of any hidden traps or countermeasures built to deter intruders. Most bases built by the Office of Naval Intelligence tended to have dozens of emergency protocols designed to ensure a facility's destruction and asset denial; the fact that this place seemed to be in relatively good condition was baffling by the organisation's standards. Sweeping out as the corridors began to branch off, they soon found evidence of habitation: recently-stocked food supplies, a barracks full of personal effects and a surprisingly unlocked armoury that contained weaponry that had only seen widespread usage since after the war.

"Found the control room," Kane announced, pinging his location to Marco and Jax.

By the time they arrived, their leader was crouched before a holotable, inserting Iggy's chip into the machine. Wires ran across the walls - a sign of recent maintenance - and above the table, a flight of stairs led to an observation deck overlooking a massive underground hangar bay. Jogging up to the window, Jax whistled appreciatively.

"Damn, you could fit a pair of frigates down there."

"Yeah," Kane replied. "Or the UNSC Kuwabara."

That got their attention. Suddenly, the entire room lit up as Iggy brought the base's primary power grid online. Monitors covering the walls sprung to life, displaying sensor readouts from completely different star systems and scrolling news reports right from the heart of UEG space. Marco and Jax joined Kane around the holotable as a model of a Halberd-class Destroyer flashed into existence before them. They could tell at a glance that it had been intensively modified, boasting a cluster of advanced sensor arrays by the stern and stealth ablative coating around the hull. Marco grunted in annoyance.

"And here I thought we were looking for a Prowler."

"That is a Prowler, actually." Iggy's avatar, that of a balding, middle-aged man in a scruffy suit with a mess of frizzy hair at the back and bizarrely oversized sunglasses, appeared on the table by the vessel. "Technically it'd be a stealth destroyer, but hey, semantics."

"So who's ship is this, then? Why isn't it on any registry?"

Last August, Sigma Team had participated in a dangerous operation against a group of militant slavers in independent space following a series of colonist kidnappings. While successful in rescuing the prisoners, the SPARTAN-II's had also recovered someone else: A former ONI operative, emaciated, amnesiac and missing his tongue. In the brief time they had been given to question the man before turning him over to the loving hands of Section Three, the only thing they had gotten out of him was the name of this very ship: The UNSC Kuwabara. However, no such ship appeared to exist in any military record - official or unofficial - outside of an old IFF transponder signal and the prisoner's sudden death weeks after his transferal had left Sigma with quite the mystery on their hands.

While not participating in their usual counter-insurgency operations, the Spartans had searched tirelessly for leads, poring over military logs and service records of missing personnel and even looking through ship manufacturing logs for any sign of the Kuwabara's existence. Were it not for the discovery of several discrepancies in these records that listed some personnel as having died or participated in battles they could not have possibly been present for then the case would have been closed entirely.

"Unknown," Iggy concluded glumly. "However, there's a wealth of information still stored in these databanks. Encrypted, naturally, but give me some time and I'll-"

The AI stopped mid-sentence. His avatar, which had been happily strolling across the holotable with a finger raised, suddenly span to face a single monitor behind the Spartans. Kane, Marco and Jax all span round to see that the slowly-rotating image of Sansar pre-glassing that had once occupied its screen was gone. In its place was a single brown eyeball, looking at each of them in turn.

"Well now," a voice, clearly modulated, sounded over the speakers. "It seems that the foxes have entered the henhouse, but the hens are all away. That won't do."

"Identify yourself!" Kane barked authoritatively.

The voice chuckled. "Soon enough, Spartan. Activating emergency purge protocol Theta Six-Three."

The image of an eye vanished, and the facility's power shut down once more, leaving the room bathed in an eerie red glow from the emergency lighting. A moment later, all doors leading into the command room slammed shut, shuddering as their locking mechanisms kicked into gear. Jax raced towards one and attempted to kick it down, but could barely leave a dent in the reinforced Titanium-A.

"Shit," he sounded more annoyed than worried. "Facility's gone into lockdown."

Kane reached over to the table and extracted Iggy's chip while the others scrambled to find an escape route. Shoving it into his helmet, he shuddered slightly as the AI connected with his interface and decided to yawn loudly in his ear.

"Iggy, did you get anything?"

"In what, the twelve seconds I had to look at everything? Of course I did, what d'you take me for?"

The Spartan sighed in exasperation, privately wondering what he had done wrong to get saddled with such an annoying little construct. "Fine, now we need a way out. Everything's been locked down."

"I know. You took me out before I could say so myself, actually."

"Could you have done anything about it?"

"Nah. Whoever built this place was really into their compartmentalisation as far as systems went. Guess they didn't want an AI poking around."

"Well they've barred the doors. You've got the layout, so is there anything you can do?"

"Window's not barred."

Three helmeted heads turned towards the observation deck. Silently cursing his initial lack of awareness that allowed the AI to act smug, Kane raced upstairs and took a flying leap at the glass, activating his thrusters at maximum power as he smashed right through into the hangar bay. Two simultaneous crashes a moment later signalled Marco and Jax's exit from the command room, and the trio soon found themselves sprinting along the cavernous chamber after hitting the ground below.

"By the way," Iggy flashed a timer up on Kane's HUD. "The base reactor's being overloaded."

"I guessed that Iggy, thank you."

"You're welcome. Two minutes to boom time, by the way."

As this hangar had been built to accommodate something as large as a destroyer, it had to have an exit of sorts. Sure enough, half a mile ahead lay a great pair of steel doors. While they seemed to be closed from afar, Kane realised as they drew closer that the metal was horribly warped and bent inwards, likely as a result of the Covenant glassing decades ago. As such, all they could do was close about halfway, giving the three supersoldiers plenty of room to exit. The timer ticked down much faster than he anticipated, until it became clear that they wouldn't be outside in time. That was bad.

"C'mon, move it, move it!" Marco roared, pumping his arms and legs as fast as they could go as he pulled slightly ahead of his brethren. Jax and Kane did the same, moving quicker and quicker until even their own augmented limbs began to scream in protest from the exertion.

Then, the timer hit zero.

From far behind Sigma Team there was a great rumbling as the base's reactor finally exploded with a blinding flash, atomising most of the underground area in an instant as a roiling fireball spread out into the hangar. The trio couldn't afford to hesitate as they reached the edge, leaping out into the canyon below. Tongues of flame licked overhead, draining their shields through sheer heat as the Spartans plummeted away. Attempting to slow their descent with timed thruster bursts, the Spartans skidded down the rocky cliff face with gauntleted fingers clawing for handholds before they came to a sudden halt at the foot of the mountain, ploughing into the dirt in a a tangled heap. Battered but unhurt, the red-armoured Jax was the first to sit up and cast his gaze towards the black smoke pouring out of the mountainside above as he pushed Marco off him.

"Okay," he nodded, panting slightly. "Someone really didn't want us leaving that base."

"Yeah, but who?" Marco lay on his back, staring up at the dusky sky as he slowed his breathing.

"Ex-ONI, I'd imagine. Or worse, current ONI."

While the two pondered over who had just tried to kill them, Kane picked himself up and walked away, wiping some dirt from his TACPAD before signalling for their dropship pilot to come and pick them up. His mind raced, thinking over what they had just gone through and how next to proceed. Eventually, he turned back to his comrades and snapped his fingers to get their attention.

"We're taking this data to command." He paused for a moment. "And getting a copy for ourselves, too."

"Insurance," Iggy chuckled over the COM. "Nice."

Kane ignored the AI, having momentarily forgotten about his existence. "As far as we know, this may be an internal issue, in which case we stick together and only relay information to trusted personnel. Depending on how deep this goes with the Kuwabara, we may have to pursue the target ourselves until we've uncovered the culprit."

With nods of silent agreement from the others, the three Spartans of Sigma Team set off together towards their landing zone, now eager to begin their hunt.

Truel
As she walked through the streets in the pouring rain, umbrella in hand, Violet-B039 began to feel worryingly at peace. With nothing but a 'wait for orders' transmission sent from command since their operation the other night, Jill had chosen to use what she interpreted as a day off to finally explore Bulgan's famed inner city. Ahead of them was a sea of market stalls, covered by a web of thick tarpaulins as vendors peddled everything from food to car parts. Passing into it, the Spartan retracted her umbrella and shook it as Jill pulled down the hood of her tacky yellow raincoat, evidently enjoying herself. Over the din of the market, they could barely hear the rain as it pattered against the plastic above.

"Hungry?" Jill asked. With her shoulder-length hair no longer tied back, she'd lost her usual hard-edged agent look.

"I suppose. Know any places?"

"I've never been here before. Let's look around."

The Spartan shrugged and followed her companion through the crowd, ignoring the occasional stares and remarks from strangers passing by. Even without her MJOLNIR suit, Violet was nearly seven feet tall, though the uncomfortable feeling she had was more from being out of her armour than standing out in public like this. To her, they were civilians. Little people. They lived their own lives doing things she couldn't imagine, while she immersed herself in the exclusive world of undercover operations. They soon came to a row of stands providing just about every sort of food imaginable, from sizzling frankfurters to bubbling pots of stew. While she disliked this meandering, Violet followed in Jill's wake with her hands in her pockets until the agent turned to face her.

"What do you want? I'm buying."

Violet was glad that she didn't have to tell Jill that she'd never actually had to use money before; Spartans like her lived solely at the military's expense and filed requisition orders if they needed anything. Looking round, she felt spoilt for choice; usually she'd take what was given and wouldn't complain. After some hesitation, she pointed towards a nearby row of tasty-looking kebabs and after a brief transaction on Jill's part was soon handed three skewers, partly wrapped in greaseproof paper. She took a bite out of one almost immediately, realising that she had no idea what kind of meat was in them. It didn't really matter.

"Good?" Jill asked.

"Mmhmn."

"Great. I'm gonna grab a bowl of soba. Meet over there?"

She pointed towards a small area lined with picnic tables. While most were already occupied, Violet spotted an empty one by the side of a building and took a seat. In front of her, an advertisement for cheap interstellar flights flashed up behind a store window, listing prices to Earth, Escala III and Barrier. She ignored it, and returned to her meal. She had almost finished by the time Jill returned a few minutes later, clutching a steaming bowl of noodles in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other. Seeing that the Spartan wasn't about to start a conversation, the ONI agent broke the silence.

"I haven't had this in years. There used to be a place back home that sold soba that I'd have in college. Don't know why, but it always tasted better than any other place I've eaten it."

"That so?"

"Yeah." Jill watched as Violet tore into another skewer. "You ever have anything like that?"

"Food's food. We'd get a nice dessert if we did well sometimes in training, but nothing special."

Jill sighed at Violet's noncommittal approach to conversation and focused on her own food. A couple of minutes passed with nothing but the sound of the market and the distant rain to accompany their meal before she realised that the Spartan had sat a little straighter in her chair, and was staring right at her. Past her.

"Vi, what's-"

Violet whipped around, drawing an M6P pistol from her coat pocket and firing a round in one fluid motion. Several metres away from her, a man shrieked as his hand exploded. A handgun hit the floor a moment later and skittered away. The Spartan was already on her feet and closed the distance in seconds as he doubled over, staring in shock at the ruined limb. As Jill ducked down, struggling to fish her own sidearm out of her belt holster, Violet jammed one of the empty skewers into the attacker's jugular and slammed him into the floor. The body shuddered slightly, then fell still. As nearby civilians scattered and screams went up from the nearby crowd, the shooting began anew.

Jill ran towards her protector as fast as she could, narrowly avoiding a spray of rounds that streaked across the pavement beside her. Violet snapped to the left and fired a second shot, which struck a distant, submachine gun-toting figure in the head with another burst of blood and gore.

"Jesus, Vi!" Jill let off a couple of rounds with her own M6K. "What was that?"

"Saw his reflection behind you. He was going for his gun."

"What did you hit him with?"

"I've got this thing loaded with high-ex. Four rounds per mag, so I'm being careful."

It took Jill a moment to realise that Violet was speaking with a mouth full of food; she'd crammed the rest of the meat in there in seconds, and was currently holding her two remaining skewers like combat knives. Considering what she'd already done to their first attacker, the Spartan intended to use them that way. Taking a deep breath and a moment to lament her half-eaten bowl of soba noodles, Jill began to assess the situation. While the general haziness of the market and distance of their attackers made things difficult, she could count at least three sources of gunfire coming towards them. They clearly knew what they were dealing with, since they were keeping themselves as far away from Violet as possible. After a momentary lull as both parties reloaded, the Spartan snatched up her initial assailant's handgun and sprang away as the shooting picked up again in earnest.

Letting her superhuman companion take care of things, Jill reached over to check the blood-drenched corpse lying next to her. He seemed to be in completely average civilian clothing, save for a ballistic vest underneath his hoodie and a tiny COM device in his ear. The lack of a neck tattoo ruled out a CPIM assassin, though it was still possible that their attacker had Insurrectionist ties. Perhaps he'd seen Violet and correctly assumed that she was a Spartan from her stature?

"Jill, move!"

She snapped out of her musings to see Violet nearby, having tossed her M6P in favour of the standard M6H2 the first assassin had carried. Judging by the lack of shooting, she had taken care of their remaining attackers. The ONI agent poked her head out carefully from behind the stall before jogging over to the Spartan, who was stalking across the blood-spattered concrete at some speed. The other gunmen were dressed similarly to the first, and had been taken out efficiently with shots to the head or upper body. A cracked, hacking cough from nearby caught the Spartan's attention, and as she moved over to execute the survivor Jill grabbed her arm.

"Hold on, I want to question this one."

She seemed to sneer at the idea, but relented after a moment as she shook off Jill's hand. "Make it quick."

Lying on his side behind a food stall was a tall man with his side blown open by one of Violet's high-explosive rounds. Blood pooled around him, and from the sight of his exposed guts and several blown-open ribs, Jill could tell that he wasn't going to last very long. Ignoring the woman's approach, the assassin tried to reach for his nearby submachine gun, and had almost grasped the weapon's edge when Jill plucked it away and pointed it at his head.

"Who are you working for?!" she demanded, crouching with the barrel mere inches away from his face. "Start talking and I'll get you help."

The dying man attempted a defiant laugh, only to seize up from the pain and double over in another coughing fit. He glared up at Jill, dark blood seeping through gaps in his teeth as his eyes met yours.

"I could ask you... the same thing." As Jill raised an eyebrow in confusion, he made a grab for the weapon's barrel. She squeezed the trigger and put a round through his head. As she stood up, she saw Violet watching her from afar.

"We've got to go!" she called over to her partner, who nodded sagely.

"You're right. Could be more about."

The pair swept through the now-deserted market as police sirens echoed in the distance. It was a twenty-minute walk back to the MCV, and they'd be sitting ducks if they were caught like this. Violet suddenly halted, and grasped Jill's shoulder with impressive strength. She stopped in her tracks, staring in confusion as her companion closed her eyes for a few moments.

"What?"

"Listen!" Violet hissed.

They remained still for a few moments, and sure enough Jill heard something unusual: a loud roar, drowning out the heavy rainfall above. As she tried to work out what it was, the Spartan suddenly grabbed her and pulled her away as the tarpaulin above them completely collapsed and the heavy form of a Pelican dropship descended into the marketplace, rear doors wide open. Crashing into what had once been the kebab stall, Violet and Jill kept down low as eight heavily armed individuals emerged. Straining to get a good view of them, the agent's eyes widened in surprise as she saw them clad in the distinctive black armour associated with Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. They spread out in a semi-circle, ignoring the rain plinking off their suits before one of them waved the entire team towards the location where Violet and Jill had first been attacked.

"The hell's going on," Violet murmured, checking her ammunition count as quietly as possible as she edged away on her back.

"Are they here for us?"

"Could be. That's an acquisition team if I've ever seen one, so they're not here to play nice."

"Should we surrender?"

Jill was disheartened to see Violet visibly wince at the suggestion. Before her companion could answer, likely with some venomous retort or a comment about never giving up, there was a loud bang from nearby as one of the vendor stalls exploded in a hail of wood and metal and a second firefight immediately broke out. Getting a better look at the fighters as they crept away, Jill and Violet were surprised to see the ODST's trading fire with what looked like a second team of plainclothes attackers. Two of the armoured troopers were already down from the surprise attack, and as their Pelican attempted to lift off, a rocket whizzed across the marketplace and struck its windshield with a fiery blast, sending the dropship careening into the side of a nearby building. Momentarily taken aback by the situation, Jill could only stare at the proceedings until Violet began to physically drag her away.

"We're leaving."

"Yeah, right."

While simply leaving the scene on foot seemed like a good idea, it wasn't long before the bullets began to fly towards Jill and her Spartan bodyguard from both sides. With only pistols to defend themselves, all they could do was keep low with the barest minimum of suppressing fire to ward off their foes as they neared the edge of the market. Peering into the long, rain-soaked street ahead, which lacked any form of cover, Violet could only click her tongue in annoyance before she sighted a pair of headlights and something very large trundling down the street towards them.

"Wait," she instinctively reached to pull Jill out of the way again. "That's our goddamn MCV."

Sure enough, the disguised truck surged through the market entrance at some speed and span round, utterly demolishing dozens of stalls as its heavy tyres screeched across the damp concrete. It was a miracle that it didn't fall over, and after cutting off the two sides with its sudden appearance, the truck's side door clanked open. A figure in MJOLNIR armour stepped forth, took down another three ODST's with precise rounds from his DMR, then activated his loudspeakers.

"Urbach, Violet, we've come to get you out of here!"

In spite of Violet's hesitation, Jill broke from cover and ran towards the truck, slipping slightly as she sprinted towards the Spartan. He waved for her to approach before turning back to continue firing, and looked expectantly towards Violet. With a few muttered curses, the SPARTAN-III followed Jill, helping out her savior with a few loosed rounds before clambering aboard. Moments later, the Spartan moved inside and the truck immediately set off, screeching out of the corpse-filled marketplace as rounds pinged harmlessly off its side. Utterly drenched in sweat and rainwater, the two women sat side-by-side on one of their metal couches, wondering if they had been saved at all.

"Close one," the unidentified Spartan spoke eventually, sealing the outer door. "I'm glad that we made it here in time."

Violet looked longingly towards her own suit of armour lying disassembled by the Brokkr system nearby before scanning the newcomer. Lacking a traditional visor, his helmet possessed single eye-like camera embedded on its right side, which made it easy to recognise as GUNGNIR-class MJOLNIR. He seemed to notice, and gestured towards the machine.

"If you're more comfortable while suited up, then be my guest. You've got a long way to travel."

Violet stood up rather cautiously and let her coat drop to the floor before making her way towards the locker where she stored her techsuit. What followed was several minutes of total silence as she stepped into the changing room, changed clothes, and stepped back out and into the machine. Jill could only stare at the floor as it buzzed and whirred, affixing pieces of silver-grey armour to her body. After almost a minute, the procedure was complete. Violet-B039 stepped forward, put her helmet on, and felt whole once again.

"There," she sounded almost happy. "Now you can explain who you are, and what just happened."

The other Spartan nodded, and stepped forward. Jill realised that he was noticeably taller than Violet, though he seemed more conciliatory than aggressive as he approached her, whipping out a datapad.

"What you have just witnessed is the start of a series of operations coordinated by high-ranking members of the Office of Naval Intelligence to radically destabilise its power structure through targeted assassination and the closure of numerous divisions whose heads are non-compliant."

"What?" Jill sputtered. "So it's a coup?"

"Not exactly. You can't force out the current CINCONI though brute force, but if it is made abundantly clear that they cannot effectively control their organisation then the UNSC Security Council and ONI's own Section Chiefs can remove them eventually. That's why subterfuge is required."

"But why us, though? Why were we attacked?"

The grey Spartan sighed, and swiped two fingers across his datapad. After a few moments, a video of security camera footage appeared, depicting a MJOLNIR-clad supersoldier advancing through the corridors of a UNSC facility. Marines, many of whom were barely armed, died in droves before the Spartan as they fled for their lives or tried to fight back. The footage cut between several different cameras before settling on a still of the attacked from the front. It was Violet.

"Wait," she clenched her fists. "That wasn't-"

"Wasn't you? I know. This massacre took place on the same night you were to eliminate members of the CPIM in this very city, just a few miles outside of Bulgan. An entire Marine outpost was razed to the ground that night."

"But we didn't hear anything about it."

"Nor were you allowed to. Now, this footage was recovered from what remained of the base by ONI's Section Two, and in less than a day has been heavily doctored to make it look as though you had carried out the massacre. After all, you are the only Spartan on Erdenet, and this was Spartan-grade murder."

At this, Violet could only shake her head. Jill, who had remained impassive throughout the explanation, suddenly spoke up.

"So I take it I'm implicated in this as well?"

"Naturally. As far as ONI is concerned right now, you were an accomplice to a massacre."

"But this doesn't make any sense," the ONI agent sat back down again, placing her head in her hands. "If they were just going to kill us, then why go to the trouble of wiping out an entire military base?"

The Spartan shrugged his shoulders and put the datapad away, glancing towards the driver's compartment. "We're not sure. If I had to guess, your involvement with the BRUTUS division may put that organisation at risk. We've already been getting reports that other agents are being hunted down across multiple colonies."

Jill grew pale at the thought of it. She had never been particularly close to any of her colleagues within BRUTUS, but the thought of being hunted down alongside your entire organisation was a chilling one. Noticing her distress, Violet gave her a surprising pat on the shoulder, clicked her tongue, then retrieved her Gunfighter Magnum from her personnel locker.

"So the question is," she held the gun loosely at her side. "Who're you supposed to be? I've not even gotten your name."

Sure enough, the mysterious Spartan hadn't said a thing about himself. While saving them from a dangerous firefight was one thing, he hadn't explained where they were going or what he intended to do about this situation.

"My name is D'Artagnan."

At this, Jill snorted loudly. "No it's not."

"Excuse me?"

"I've read my Dumas, and you look like a Spartan, not a Musketeer."

At this, he couldn't help but chuckle. "Operational confidentiality doesn't allow me to reveal my actual name under any circumstances, I'm afraid. May I at least tell you who I work for?."

"Go ahead."

"I'm part of a group within ONI's Section Zero, known as 'Red Cell'. We hunt down internal threats within our organisation and by extension, the UNSC. When we discovered this plot, my team were dispatched to extract and relocate you as soon as possible."

"Relocate us where?" Violet asked.

As if on cue, the MCV halted in its tracks and D'Artagnan thumbed the release catch for the vehicle's outer door. Stepping outside, Violet and Jill realised almost immediately that they were within the cargo bay of a massive transport ship. Their vehicle had been parked neatly inside a fairly spacious shipping container, with one end still open. As he neared the edge of it, D'Artagnan turned to face them.

"This ship is bound for Biko. As far as the manifest goes, your vehicle is a JOTUN crop duster, which will be taken from the spaceport once it arrives by our contact. We've got a safehouse prepared there for you to stay in until further notice."

Violet didn't like this one bit, and stepped forward until she was almost visor-to-helmet with D'Artagnan. "We're not running."

"This is a matter of survival, Spartan. Until we can eliminate these traitors and clear your name, ONI will be after the pair of you. As far as they're concerned, you're a rogue Spartan, and you know what they send after rogue Spartans?"

"Yeah. More Spartans."

"Exactly. My team's got to leave the planet elsewhere, but we'll be in contact with you as soon as possible."

A loud clanking from behind the pair caught their attention as three Spartans in similarly exotic armour exited the MCV, having apparently been hiding in the driver's compartment this entire time. Judging by their weaponry, they had been standing by to take down Violet had she attacked D'Artagnan. They barely gave the two fugitives a second look as they marched out of the container in single file, heading down a ramp towards the cargo bay's exit.

"You'd better!" Jill called as D'Artagnan joined his comrades. "I don't like being kept in the dark!"

If he heard her, he chose not to reply. Now alone, Jill and Violet suddenly felt very isolated as the reality of their situation slowly dawned on them. For Jill, this potentially meant the end of her career. At worst, she would spend the rest of her life on the run from the organisation she had put her life into working for. As easy as it would have been to panic, she took slow, deep breaths to calm herself before turning to look at the Spartan beside her. Violet, solid as ever, seemed to mull things over in her head for a second, clicked again, then turned back towards the MCV without a word. Somehow, that made Jill feel a little better.

***

With all the hubbub over a massacre in Bulgan's market district, it wasn't hard for Red Cell's Albatross to gain landing access with false clearance codes. D'Artagnan stood with his arms folded, watching the Biko-bound ship take off while his younger compatriots looked over local newsfeeds for trouble. Their operations on Erdenet had gone off without a hitch, surprisingly. As the Albatross touched down nearby, a beeping from the supersoldier's long-range COM signalled the start of a transmission from Control.

"Have our friends left for Biko?" a familiar voice spoke, brimming with satisfaction.

"Yes sir. They'll arrive within three days."

"Excellent. That means we've got some breathing room. Losing the bunker was a troublesome setback."

"Did any information get out?"

"If it did, then it's well-hidden. I can confirm that our intruders did make it out alive, however."

"I'm not surprised. They're survivors."

"True, but so are we. Return to the Kuwabara ASAP. We've got to set the stage for our next act."

Bedlam
Hurrying along the corridor towards the meeting room, its doors flanked by black-armoured guards, Captain Alexander Redford realised that this was not going to be a pleasant experience. Clad in his usual black uniform and single glove covering his prosthetic hand, the head of the BRUTUS division slowed down slightly, running a hand across his neatly-combed grey hair as he prepared to face whatever it was the head of ONI had called this emergency gathering for. With a curt nod towards the pair of motionless sentinels, he swiped his card on a reader and stepped into the chamber. A wide, circular table dominated the room, lined with enough high-backed chairs to seat twenty people. Currently, three were occupied, though only one other person was physically present.

"Captain Redford," the holographic form of Annabelle Richards, head of ONI's special operations, smiled politely as she indicated a nearby chair. "We were waiting for you."

"My apologies for being late, ma'am," he replied courteously as he took his place at the table. "I was halfway to Callisto when I was notified of this meeting and had to turn back."

Glancing across towards the other holographic presence, Redford recognised Commander Abbas Cuaron, a young but reputable officer responsible for coordinating several covert action teams within the Delta-6 Division, including the notorious Spartan Fireteam Thor. While they had never met in person, Cuaron presumably knew who Redford was as well, and nodded his way before his eyes wandered back down towards a personal datapad. Sitting directly across from the venerable agent, and the only other person actually in this room, was Commander Elena-071, looking uncharacteristically grave.

"Captain," the SPARTAN-II gave the barest hint of a smile. "It's been some time."

Redford returned the gesture. "Indeed." Privately, he began to wonder why Elena was present at all. Her own duties seemed to zig-zag between the dangerous field operations that Spartans usually took part in and a surprising amount of tactical assessment and planning on behalf of whatever division within ONI seemed to need her. She had proven herself as a valuable ally to BRUTUS in the past, though she certainly lacked the political clout within the organisation that Redford and the other attendees possessed. Before he could inquire further, a chime sounded from a panel at the centre of the table, and an emitted within one of the empty chairs lit up. A few moments later, the form of a tall woman in dress uniform shimmered into existence. As her dark eyes roved around the table, everyone sat a little straighter in their chairs.

"Now," Admiral Serin Osman spoke at last, tenting her fingers in front of her. "Let's begin."

The meeting table shone for a moment as it began to project image after image, displaying interstellar news reports from multiple outlets, though each bore similar headlines regarding the recent massacre on Erdenet. The next few were classified reports, marked with the distinctive ONI logo and signed off to several different groups. They swirled around, too fast for Redford or the others to properly read them, before coming to a halt in the centre of the table. The last were casualty reports; three separate lists detailing the names, rank and cause of death of a number of military personnel. The Captain did not speak a word, knowing that this slew of data was being displayed for effect. None of the officers said a word, and merely waited for Osman to continue.

"In the past four days, we have had an entire Marine Corps base massacred, and two of our special operations units made to kill each other in broad daylight in the middle of a heavily-populated city. Meanwhile, two assets belonging to the BRUTUS division appear to have vanished. All on Erdenet. Explain."

Richards cut Redford off as he opened his mouth to speak, leaning forward with a datapad in one hand.

"Ma'am, the account from surviving members of my retrieval team stated that their deployment orders came down from my office. I can assure you that I authorised no such mission."

"Nor did I," Commander Cuaron said, looking rather annoyed. "While none of my operatives survived, I was given a copy of their own orders: a sanctioned assassination mission. It was forged."

Osman surveyed the pair carefully, though she evidently knew the details already.

"Your agents?" she asked Redford.

"Their last check-in was on the 20th, shortly after completing an assignment against a prominent leader of the Colonial People's Independence Movement. After that, their command vehicle's tracking beacon was disabled and this whole affair took a turn for the worse."

"Do you have any idea why not one, but two groups within Naval Intelligence were dispatched to kill Agent Urbach and Spartan Violet, Captain Redford?"

"Ma'am," Redford kept a respectful tone, but didn't like where this was going. "I am aware that BRUTUS makes few friends due to the nature of our work, but an attempted assassination in broad daylight by another group within ONI makes no sense whatsoever. This must be the work of an enemy infiltrator."

"While I hate to admit it, I agree. Someone or something is working against us within our own organisation, and we need to snuff it out. Everyone currently in this room is clear of suspicion, but otherwise this is an entirely internal matter that must be handled with the utmost care."

Instead of relieved, Cuaron seemed rather perturbed. "Surely our AI would have discovered something by now?"

"They aren't infallible," Elena-071 finally joined the conversation. "And my reports would suggest that this isn't some new threat, either. It's long-term infiltration."

Osman raised an eyebrow. "Share your findings, Commander."

Elena input a series of commands into her datapad, and began to speak as it connected to the table's built-in holotank.

"Findings by the Spartan Sigma Team during an operation on Sansar suggest that there may be a force within ONI operating outside the conventional command structure, but without any oversight from CINCONI or other high-ranking personnel. Said group is likely small, but well-funded and equipped, and currently operates out of a missing Destroyer, the UNSC Kuwabara."

"And how did these Spartans discover all of this?" Richards asked, looking sceptical.

"They've been tracking the Kuwabara for months, Captain. They recently discovered faint signals that matched what few records remain of the Destroyer, which seems to have vanished shortly after its construction. Once there, they uncovered a still-functioning and recently-used ONI facility, and were able to extract a fraction of the data held there before the facility self-destructed."

"Self-destructed? How?"

"From their report, they were briefly contacted by an unknown individual who recognised their presence and overloaded the base's reactor. Sigma were lucky to escape with their lives."

Redford gave a wry smile. "I weren't aware that you were Sigma's handler, Commander. How did you come by this information?"

"I'm not, Captain Redford. They transferred a copy of the files and their report to me because I'm someone they can trust. They suspected - and rightfully so - that their data may have been intercepted if they tried to report in via the usual channels."

"And this Kuwabara? Where is it now?"

"Sigma is currently tracking a list of potential locations based on what they recovered from Sansar."

This seemed to satisfy Osman and the other officers. As a veteran SPARTAN-II team, Sigma were perfectly capable of operating for lengthy periods of time with little supervision from command. If anyone could track down a missing ship, it would be them. All that was left to discuss now was what they could do internally.

"Regarding your missing team," Osman turned back to Redford. "This morning, we recovered fragmented security records from Grant Base, on Erdenet. While the validity of such data must be questioned, considering the circumstances."

The holographic screens floating over the table blinked for a second before turning to display what was clearly security camera footage. Though rather flickery and disjointed due to damage from the base's destruction, enough footage had been cut together from what remained to give a clear picture of what happened. Marines, mostly unarmed, ran for their lives as a single power-armoured figure stalked through the hallways, killing everything in their path. While a few tried to fight back, none could even come close to hurting the supersoldier as the Spartan moved from room to room with ruthless efficiency. They watched in stunned disbelief for some time, until the recording ended with the perpetrator turning to face one of the cameras with a wave.

"Based on armour configuration and the fact that there was only one Spartan on Erdenet that day, I believe that Violet-B039 was responsible for this slaughter."

Osman spoke with a grim sense of finality, letting the implications sink in. There had been several others in the past, though considering the extensive indoctrination and training of the earlier generations and the heavily intensive vetting procedures associated with the newest group, it would always come as a surprise for a Spartan to turn traitor. Suddenly feeling rather embarrassed, Redford rapped his prosthetic fingers on the table before speaking.

"SPARTAN-B039 has never been anything but loyal in her psychological reports, barring the usual trauma associated with being a SPARTAN-III. Are we certain that this footage hasn't been doctored or even wholly fabricated in some way?"

"It's entirely possible," Osman conceded. "However, were she innocent, then B039 would have likely turned herself in immediately so we could confine her until this mystery was solved. Instead, she and her partner disappeared. I won't question your organisation, Captain, but all signs point towards her betrayal."

"If it's not a set-up," suggested Cuaron. "Someone managed to send two separate ONI teams to Erdenet with orders to kill these two and any allies they might have. Now, we don't know who was responsible for taking them away, but they have clearly gone into hiding."

As this, Richards perked up. "Then we track them down and find out what really happened."

There was a murmur of assent from the others, though Osman seemed rather pensive. She seemed to mull things over for a moment, mentally calculating the risks associated with bringing them in alive at all. Whether or not Violet and Urbach were indeed defectors or simply pawns in a much larger game, capturing and detaining the pair of them was essential if they were to get to the bottom of this. At worst, she would have to have hundreds, if not thousands of individuals questioned for connections to whoever was spreading misinformation, cleaning house in numerous departments. The Section Chiefs would complain - if they weren't already working against her - but that would be that.

"Thank you," she said at last. "Going forward, we must be cautious, but effective. Use only those you can absolutely trust, and report in as often as you can. I'll have secure lines of communication forwarded to you and have Section Two scour everything we have for more information. We'll speak again soon."

With that, Osman's hologram disappeared, and the meeting drew to an abrupt conclusion. Cuaron and Richards vanished a moment later, leaving Redford and Elena as the room's sole occupants. The SPARTAN-II stood up and crossed the room slowly, making it clear that they had to talk. The pair exited side-by-side, walking past the guards without a second glance and continuing on until they were in the base's black-tiled atrium.

"Be honest with me, Redford," Elena crossed her arms. "Do you really think that one of your Spartans would wipe out a military base, then turn traitor?"

Redford turned to see her staring intently at him, and found himself considering his words very carefully. Honestly, he cared more about Jill Urbach's status as a BRUTUS agent than the actions of some Spartan. He'd trained the woman himself after she'd been plucked from some OCS by his predecessor, and had seen her as something akin to his protégée. Any betrayal reflected badly on the BRUTUS division, and highlighted his own failings as someone meant to instil absolute loyalty.

"I believe there is something larger going on than the potential treachery of two of my agents, Commander. If this theory about some organisation sabotaging ONI from within is true, then they may be only a small piece of a wider conspiracy. For now though, I think we should consolidate our resources and work to uncover any plot."

"Agreed. I'm going to see what I can dig up from the archives myself. Section Two's good, but I prefer a hands-on approach."

"And what of Sigma Team? Aren't they corresponding with you?"

To his surprise, Elena smirked. "Oh, they've got their own way of doing things. Don't worry about them."

Bait
"You could really do a better job of fitting in, buddy."

"Iggy, I swear I'm going to break your chip in half you don't shut the hell up."

When their fragmented list of contacts pointed them towards the tropical world of Sundown, Marco had expected a swift, probably violent raid on some remote safehouse. Instead, he and Jax were in a crowded bar on one of the popular colony world's more expensive resorts, trying their hardest to blend in amongst dozens of happy tourists. Sat at a corner table with his back to the wall, the Spartan tried not to grimace as he sipped at some foul concoction his comrade had ordered from the bar; a lurid cocktail served in what appeared to be half a synthetic coconut with a feather sticking out, for some bizarre reason.

"Jeez, chill out," Iggy's wheedling voice bored into his right ear. "Our guy's gonna be here soon."

Marco sighed, and looked over towards Jax, who could at least pretend like he wasn't waiting for armed men to storm the bar. Two heavily muscled men standing at nearly seven feet tall tended to attract a lot of attention in a place like this, and he was certain that his more jovial companion's cover story about them being en-route to some interstellar weight-lifting tournament wouldn't last all that long. Pretending to stifle a yawn, Marco muttered something only the minuscule microphone attacked to the inside of his lapel could pick up.

"Kane, what's your arrival time if things go south?"

In the penthouse suite of a nearby hotel - discreetly paid for by ONI, of course - Sigma Team's leader was standing by with a clear view of the bar with his heavily-customised SR99 rifle at the ready. By virtue of being their superior in rank and the least capable of the three when it came to interacting with non-Spartan personnel, Kane was to be their backup if this meeting turned out to be a trap.

"Up close?" Kane took a moment to reply.

"Yeah."

"A minute, tops. Should be able to jump from the penthouse and land on the bridge. Assuming any initial fire support is ineffective."

"Copy that. Don't miss."

This got a rare chuckle out of SPARTAN-098. "When do I ever?"

As the COM cut out, Marco stood up, stretching slightly. While he'd tried his hardest to ease himself into a civilian environment before in the brief periods he'd spent on Earth after reuniting with his biological family, he could never shake the feeling of unease he felt while out of armour. As his eyes roved around the room, each happy patron was assessed as a threat, every door and window marked as a potential entry point or avenue of attack. While Sundown and its resorts held a very strict policy on firearms, the two Spartans each carried an M6K pistol for emergencies. Though disdainful of the compact weapon's fairly mediocre stopping power, Marco was just happy to have a firearm handy. He picked his way past tables, attracting a few lingering glances from tourists as he made his way towards Jax at the bar.

"Hey big guy," a young woman in a sparkling blue dress sidled up to the Spartan, grabbing his arm. "What brings you here."

While all his instincts called for an immediate and lethal counter-attack to someone touching him, Marco merely fixed her with a blank stare and made what he hoped was a polite smile as he offered a few terse words.

"I'm on holiday."

"Oh?" she looked him up and down. "I'm from Mamore. You?"

"Earth."

"Oh, homeworld man? Would you like to join us?"

The woman gestured towards her table, which was occupied by a group of similarly-aged girls. One of them waved at Marco, who kept his expression as neutral as could be. In his mind, they were probably rebel infiltrators, sending one of their own to lure an off-duty Spartan into a false sense of security so they could drug and torture him. Probably. Either that or they just happened to be into unnaturally tall, heavily scarred men in their forties. He shook his head slowly and gestured towards Jax, who he now noticed was watching the scene with some interest.

"No thanks, I've got to get back to my friend."

Seeing Jax, she let go of Marco's arm, rolled her eyes, and wandered back towards her table with a curiously annoyed sigh. Marco shrugged it off, but made a mental note to keep an eye on that table for any signs of weaponry being drawn. The other Spartan gave a nod as Marco approached him, and flashed a cheeky grin that his friend knew would precede the childish ribbing he'd never quite lost over the years.

"Looks like you blew it," he raised his eyebrows with a glance toward the girls' table.

"Wasn't interested."

"I think you really had a chance there, too. She liked you."

"Like you'd know."

Jax could only sigh at Marco's complete lack of humour on an operation like this. Unlike his gruff partner, he'd been rather talkative with this bar's clientele, exchanging jokes with some of the bartenders and even trying his hand at a single karaoke song during the busy lunch hour, all while Marco had slowly nursed his drinks and counted down the minutes to their scheduled meeting. This was of course, all an act. Jax was a Spartan, raised to be a soldier and kept in that strict military tradition for his entire life. Everything here was done in imitation; his attempt at pretending to be a 'normal' person.

"At least I try."

Marco softened his tone a little. "Yeah, you're better at blending in than I am."

A slight cough from Iggy into the Spartan's earpiece diverted his attention away from Jax and towards the bar's entrance. The main doors swung open as four newcomers entered, garnering little attention as they moved towards Marco and Jax. Three of them were large, muscular men - clearly bodyguards - with poorly-concealed SAMP-10 machine pistols tucked into the waistbands of their tracksuits. Their leader, on the other hand, was a short, middle-aged woman in a rather out of place business suit. She stopped a few feet away from the two, sizing the Spartans up, then gave a polite cough.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen," she smiled, her voice plummy and formal. "My name is Melissa Aldenkamp. If you'd like to come with me, we can discuss the specifics of our meeting."

Marco let Jax take the lead, holding back as his more affable companion approached Aldenkamp with a handshake and a smile. Surprise flickered across her face for a moment before she took it all in stride and waved for the two men to follow her. The bodyguards remained at their employer's side, and Marco lagged behind just enough to ensure that none of them could move to surround them. As they neared the exit, his eyes flitted towards the table of young woman, who watched their little party with some interest. Moving out into the cool night air of the resort, Marco's thoughts on whether or not they were indeed rebel infiltrators remained inconclusive.

"How are you liking the resort?" Aldenkamp kept up the small talk as they wandered down the gravel path, passing through a small village of faux bamboo huts. "I'm told we're one of the most popular in the Inner Colonies."

Jax nodded, taking a refreshing breath. "It's very relaxing. The climate agrees with me, too."

"Oh, that's good to hear. And what about you, sir?"

"I like it," Marco lied.

"We do pride ourselves on excellence, after all."

Once Aldenkamp had finished what seemed like a company-mandated sales pitch, Jax took the opportunity to ask her a few more questions while his partner checked to ensure that they were still within range of Kane's vantage point atop the penthouse. While he didn't doubt their leader's marksmanship skills, they were now a fairly extreme range for supporting fire.

"So, I take it you're with the management?" Jax asked.

"I oversee most of our imports," their host's voice suddenly took a very businesslike tone. "We had to lobby hard for a private spaceport, considering the amount we have to bring here from the colonies. That aside, I have a background in corporate security, which is how I became acquainted with your employer in the first place."

Now they were getting somewhere. "Ah, so you've been dealing with us for a while, then? We've mostly handled field operations until now."

"Two years. I must say that you're more talkative than the last fellow they sent along, though."

"Who'd they send?"

"A man named D'Artagnan. He didn't seem French, though if you're not from Earth I suppose these things don't matter as much. He was overseeing some shipment they wanted to transfer to Barrier as Navorca meat, as I recall."

"And where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm a Martian, myself," Aldenkamp seemed very at ease when talking about herself. "Though I'm told my grandparents emigrated from a place called Haiti, on Earth. Strange, isn't it? As much as we claim loyalty towards our birth planet, there's always some great attraction towards the homeworld, don't you think?"

For a moment, Marco could've sworn that she was getting misty-eyed with some odd nostalgia. Aldenkamp sighed wistfully, and dabbed her forehead with a handkerchief before leading them up a narrow wooden staircase towards a rather ugly stone building, half-concealed by a thicket of palm trees. This was obviously some kind of administrative building, kept out of sight from the resort's regular patrons. As Jax opened his mouth to reply, Marco interrupted him.

"I suppose that most people like knowing where they're from, ma'am."

Aldenkamp did not answer, but closed her eyes contentedly for a second before continuing on. With only a flimsy chainlink fence and a few locked doors around it, the building hardly looked like the headquarters of some secretive smuggling operation. She swiped a panel with a keycard and the main door clanked open, allowing them inside what seemed like a fairly innocuous storage building. Over half the main room was filled with crates emblazoned with the resort's logo, stacked halfway to the ceiling and sealed shut while a few others sat open and unfilled. Their guide turned to face the Spartans, and clapped her hands together.

"Well then, what is it that your employer needs me to move?"

***

With a small grunt of annoyance, Kane-098 conceded that even he wouldn't be able to angle any shots through the far-off building's tiny windows. Putting down his SR99, he thumbed the safety on and walked over to the monitors he and the others had set up after their arrival in the hotel. With a very limited window to act after their mission to Sansar, Sigma Team had transferred most of their findings to Elena-071 and immediately set off for Sundown. In the limited number of dossiers extracted from the bunker by Iggy they had discovered a string of transactions between this rogue ONI cell and some of the resort staff, diverting UNSC military equipment and other items through the resort's delivery services and sending it to outposts on multiple planets. With the help of their AI, they had gotten into contact with Aldenkamp's people, pretending to be members of this cell looking to oversee the transportation of an important device as soon as possible. Kane knew his comrades were hardly undercover specialists - Marco's brief stint as a supposed rebel had ended in a great deal of bloodshed some time back - but the situation called for it.

"Iggy, can you find any discrepancies in delivery logs from this resort?"

The AI materialised above a nearby datapad, his hands in his pockets. "Yup. Someone's skimming off the top here."

"How so?"

"Well boss, there's always room for loss in the transport business. Packages get delayed, banged up or even lost, but any corporation worth its salt can write off a couple of losses here and there. Couple of percent at most. Now, when I look at crates being moved under this Aldenkamp's supervision, things get interesting. Every so often, some Navorca meat goes bad unexpectedly or some wood rots in transit. Not often, but hey, it happens."

"And these packages are the smuggled ones?"

"Exactamundo," Iggy tapped the side of his glasses. "They've been careful about it to avoid detection, but I'd wager that they weren't counting on anything more than some accountant to check over things, let alone a wonderfully talented military Smart AI like yours truly."

Kane ignored Iggy's smug posturing and picked up a small device from a nearby table. He clicked it once, and the penthouse suite's skylight slid open. As the beautiful colony world's perpetually dusky sky gradually darkened into night, a shimmering aurora borealis grew brighter and brighter above. Even the rather dour Kane paused for a few seconds to appreciate the display before kicking open a nearby crate. Inside sat a heavily modified ARGUS drone - a disk-shaped unmanned vehicle designed for bomb detection and if necessary, destruction. While Sigma Team's arsenal was limited due to the hasty preparation for this operation, they had acquired this piece of kit some time ago and had been itching to use it for months.

"Iggy, what's the situation on their end?" he lifted the disk-shaped UAV out of its box and set it down on the floor.

"They're just talking right now. Jax is feeding them some crap about wanting to transport a tank."

"They won't buy that. All the other items were nowhere near as big."

"Yeah, well he's saying they want it done piece by piece."

Only Jax would come up with such an audacious story, but if it was keeping their hosts occupied, then so be it. What the Spartans really needed was a list of locations. If they couldn't find the UNSC Kuwabara, then Sigma would have to hunt down and destroy every single safe location this group had until they were forced out of hiding. Like his comrades, Kane disliked the politics involved with ONI. He'd been their assassin before and knew what it meant to operate in total secrecy, but at least he knew he was working at the behest of an organised command structure for some greater purpose. There was something about this entire scenario that blurred those lines, which bothered him immensely.

"I'm sending in the drone. Iggy, inform Marco and Jax that I'll have them covered from above, and to stay away from any exterior walls."

"Got it." The AI vanished.

Kane sat down on a nearby couch, which audibly creaked under the weight of his armour as he established a connection between the drone and a nearby monitor. His fingers moved deftly over the keyboard, inputting commands and syncing the machine's optics with his armour's own heads-up display. With a faint whirr, its engines kicked into gear and the ARGUS slowly rose into the air. While these devices were usually only a metre or in length and possessed a small stock of Lancet micro-missiles for long-range detonations, this one had been designed to include a miniaturised anti-matériel rifle based on old design documents from the long-defunct M99 Stanchion. While much larger to accommodate the extra weapon, it was still relatively fast and quiet.

Materials Group really came through for us on this one. The Spartan felt a rare sense of pride. Now to see what it can do.

***

Marco had to give Aldenkamp credit for going along with Jax's request for the slow transportation of an M820 Scorpion to an offsite facility for so long, but even he could see how she was becoming exasperated. Before his friend could continue, he stepped forward and raised a hand to silence Jax.

"There's one other thing, ma'am."

Recovering her slightly befuddled look after Jax's eager speech, Aldenkamp turned to him with a bright expression. "What's that?"

"We've had a situation recently regarding some of our delivery points. We're going to have to check your private logs and compare them with our own, since one of our last shipments didn't make it through."

She seemed rather taken aback by this. "I wasn't informed of this at all. Once our money comes through we know a job has been completed."

He'd misstepped, but forged on regardless. "We confirmed the arrival of your last package, but the delivery site was compromised. A further inspection revealed that one of your crates had been tampered with."

"I do hope you're not accusing me of betraying you, sir." Aldenkamp seemed to puff up slightly, raising an accusatory finger. "We've been more than accommodating to your organisation, even with your rather odd choice of destinations."

"We just want to check the manifests and your exact shipping method, ma'am. That's all."

Things began to grow tense in the warehouse, but the businesswoman soon relented under Marco's unwavering glare. With a wave of her hand she directed a bodyguard towards a side office while the others flanked her, more for peace of mind than any real intimidation factor. One of her men soon emerged with a small cardboard box filled with manila folders and hand-written log books. Such items were an incredible rarity in this day and age, but made sense in a galaxy where electronic records could be easily tracked down with the right resources. With a purely physical record like this, one would have to acquire the log book itself to find anything out, or destroy it to remove any traces of evidence.

"I hope this will suffice," she thrust a large, leather-bound journal towards Marco, who opened it and flipped to the last pages. As he began to read, Iggy contacted him once again.

"Hey, I know you're busy and all, but Kane's sending in that suped-up drone of his to cover you. Stay away from the walls."

Marco didn't bother replying as the connection cut out once again, but felt slightly more at ease knowing they had someone watching over them. Before him, laid out in very neat handwriting, were records dating back several months. Each manifest detailed a crate's former contents, its new cargo, the weight of each package and the true destination. Most of the planets involved seemed to be Outer Colony worlds, Biko being the foremost among them, another name continued to come up: 'Mulberry Field'. While the others were all recognisable settlements, Marco didn't recognise this one.

"Mulberry field?" he raised his eyes towards Aldenkamp. "Where's that?"

From the shocked expression Marco received in return, he knew he'd just blown his cover. With the journal in one hand, he slipped the other behind his back and drew his M6K in less than a second. Jax moved just as quickly, and had his own pistol levelled by the time the smuggler's bodyguards began to reach for their own weapons.

Three shots rang out, and three bodies slumped to the floor.

Jax closed the distance between himself and Aldenkamp in an instant, clasping a hand over her mouth before she could scream before tapping the barrel of his pistol against her forehead.

"Please calm down," all trace of warmth and humour drained from his voice. "You won't be killed if you just comply with us, understand? We're Spartans."

While the stifled woman attempted to calm her breathing not taking her eyes off Jax's pistol, Marco pocketed the journal and took the opportunity to explore the rest of the building. For a base of operations used by an interstellar smuggling operation, it was surprisingly small. The side office was rather modest, containing a single computer terminal at what he assumed was Aldenkamp's desk and a hand-drawn chart of future deliveries. Given her high-ranking position in the company that ran this resort, she was probably able to use this space freely without much suspicion.

"Find anything!?" Jax called from the main room.

"Nothing."

As Marco returned, Jax released Aldenkamp and holstered his pistol. She slumped backwards against a crate, tears welling up in her eyes. Marco frowned and knelt down, looming over their captive.

"So I'll ask again: Where is this 'Mulberry field'?"

Aldenkamp shook her head, letting out a low wail. "I don't understand this!"

"Answer me!"

With a nod from Jax, Marco placed a hand on Aldenkamp's shoulder, making her shudder. He had no intention of seriously hurting a potentially valuable informant and had no patience for anything but the most rudimentary forms of torture, but she didn't know that.

"I-It's where you have most of your deliveries sent. I get different coordinates every time!"

"So a ship, then?"

"Sometimes. My pilots just drop off packages at the point specified and move on. 'Mulberry field' is just the name they give when they want something delivered that way."

"What about the other places, like Biko?"

"Whatever we take to Biko, we leave at the spaceport and it's picked up there. Really, we're just a delivery service."

"So, you've never actually met the people you're working for?"

"Look, the only one I've met in person was this D'Artagnan fellow. I thought he was just like you!"

"Meaning?"

Aldenkamp seemed to be getting some of her old nerve back. "A Spartan, you dolt! You think I wouldn't recognise one in the flesh?"

Marco had to admit, this was a fair point. Thanks to the explosion of popularity seen by SPARTAN-IV's and their media exposure, any abnormally tall, fit person tended to be mistaken for an augmentee. Were it not for the limited window in which they had to perform this operation, they would have called for a pair of ONI agents to take their place in the field. However, that was not the issue here. The Spartan was.

"Ma'am," Jax's smile was also back. "Tell me, who do you think you're working for?"

At this, Aldenkamp seemed completely nonplussed. "Why, ONI, of course!"

"Why's that?" Marco got to his feet.

"Who else would want all this secrecy? Besides, when they contacted me I wanted to make sure their credentials checked out, which they did. Apparently they needed someone to move gear into the Outer Colonies to supply field agents fighting against the Insurrection, and were paying handsomely. How could I resist?"

Marco sighed, rubbing his forehead, while Jax could only nod, putting everything together in his head. He then stepped forward and extended a hand towards Aldenkamp to help her up, speaking as sincerely as possible.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, ma'am, but I'm afraid you've been tricked. These people you're working for are a rogue cell, responsible for more than one terrorist incident."

"What?!" her hand faltered as it reached for Jax's. "But I- How could- I simply didn't know!"

While she eventually allowed herself to be pulled to her feet by the SPARTAN-II, Marco remained impassive. She was either a superb actor and deserving of praise for this performance, or she was telling the truth and this mysterious group were a lot more widespread than they first imagined. As he opened his mouth to inform Aldenkamp that she'd have to be brought in for questioning, his ear buzzed.

"Spartans!" Iggy spoke hurriedly and without a hint of his usual charm. "Military craft coming in from the east, take cover!"

It took Marco and Jax two seconds to work out where the eastern wall of the warehouse was, and a further three to hit the ground as the distant droning of a high-speed aircraft quickly grew closer. Jax grabbed the unaware Aldenkamp and threw her down as gently as possible, and had barely touched the floor when a third of the warehouse erupted in a fiery blast that showered its occupants with debris. Raising one arm to cover his eyes, Marco rolled over towards the body of one of Aldenkamp's bodyguards and snatched up his SAMP-10. Peering towards the massive hole in the wall, he spotted the distinctive outline of a UNSC dropship hovering just outside, its thrusters scorching the undergrowth as its bay door opened.

"Marco!" Jax hissed from behind him. "We're not armed for this. Fall back."

While he was loathe to admit it, Marco didn't feel well equipped enough to take on an entire ship like this. Keeping low, he began to edge towards the exit, using overturned crates for cover while Jax guided the rather disoriented Melissa Aldenkamp away from the half-collapsed room. Jax opened the door and guided their captive through, bringing out his weapon just in time to notice a flash of grey from nearby.

"Wait-!"

Aldenkamp fell backwards as a volley of rounds raked across her business suit in a spray of blood. Before she'd hit the ground, her attacker sprang forward, firing wildly towards the SPARTAN-II. Jax threw himself back inside just fast enough to avoid getting hit, only to have the half-closed door kicked inwards by an armoured boot. A fully-armed Spartan stepped inside, sliding a second magazine into an M20 submachine gun.

Focused entirely on killing Jax, who had fallen beneath the door, the Spartan did not notice Marco until the supersoldier was already lunging towards him. While he lacked his all-important MJOLNIR armour, the SPARTAN-II knew that winning such a fight wasn't impossible. For all the power they granted, he knew that these suits were as fallible as any other piece of technology and could be exploited when necessary. Marco landed a punch on the attacker's unarmoured lower torso that he was sure caused some damage even through the thick techsuit, then unloaded the SAMP-10 into the Spartan's visor. While it wasn't enough to deplete the man's energy shielding as he backed off, momentarily blinded, it gave Jax the chance to leap to his feet and yank the submachine gun to one side, allowing Marco to deliver a heavy kick that staggered the supersoldier. Bursting through the empty doorframe, the pair only had one option: Run.

"Marco, Jax," Kane sounded slightly worried as he contacted them. "I'm standing by for fire support, what's your status?"

Marco ducked to one side as bullets began to whiz overhead. "Falling back towards the resort! We've got hostile Spartans in pursuit, over!"

He took the news as well as expected. "Understood. I'll begin covering fire and make my way towards your location. Notifying orbital assets, too."

The trek back through the jungle path was taking longer than Marco thought it would, especially since they were forced to return fire every so often. The fact that he and Jax had fought off that Spartan without being killed was a miracle, as was every second they avoided taking a bullet in the back. At least two others had joined in the pursuit, and Marco had a horrible feeling that they were moving in to flank them. Worse still, the dropship - a heavily-modified D96 Albatross - now hovered above, providing sporadic bursts of autocannon fire that swept across the path leading back to the resort. Only the dense foliage and their own experience with asymmetrical warfare had kept them alive in the last ten minutes.

"Kane," Jax whispered into his COM, crouched beneath a fallen log, "If you're gonna help out, do it now."

"Copy that."

There was a sharp bang, and Marco glanced up just in time to see something small streak past above the jungle canopy. A second later, an explosion sounded above them and Albatross suddenly lurched to one side, smoke pouring from one of its thrusters. Despite its size, Kane's drone packed quite a wallop, and loosed two more missiles as it circled the combat zone. The distant stacatto of rifle fire sounded once more in the distance, this time away from Marco and Jax. Taking their chance, they surged ahead, zig-zagging across the path as they neared the cluster of huts on the resort's outskirts.

"How're you for ammo?" Marco asked.

"Two rounds left. You?"

"SAMP's out. Five on the M6."

"Great," Jax exhaled grumpily. "We need our suits, Marco."

It was at this moment that the horribly burnt, twisted remains of the Albatross came crashing through the outskirts of the forested area with two of its thrusters missing entirely and half the armoured cockpit smashed in. Driving a long furrow across the dirt, the dropship finally came to rest just outside of the bamboo village, whereupon its remaining engines finally exploded. The Spartans watched it burn for a couple of seconds, nodding appreciatively at their leader's handiwork.

"Remind me to requisition my own drone," Jax laughed as they jogged away. "Provided we still make it out of this alive."

Having evidently spent all of his missiles bringing down the Albatross, Kane's drone had switched to its cut-down anti-matériel rifle and continued to trade fire with the enemy Spartans. By the time Jax and Marco had reached the bridge connecting the residential island with the one housing their hotel, hurrying past crowds of confused guests drawn by the distant sounds of battle, the little machine finally went down as a lucky burst of rifle fire ripped through its rotor cover and sent it spiralling into the sea.

"Drone's down," Kane remarked over the COM. "Got at least three confirmed hits beforehand, though. Shields might have saved them, but I definitely injured at least one."

"Just one?" Marco found himself panting slightly as he and Jax stumbled into the elevator and hit the 'penthouse' option. "You're slacking."

"They were good," came the serious reply. "In any case, the drone had limits. They wouldn't have been so lucky if I'd been on the ground."

Not one for idle threats, Kane probably meant exactly what he said. Still, managing to injure even one of them was impressive enough. Now all Sigma Team had to do was suit up, retrieve their weaponry and move in to capture or kill the enemy Spartans as quickly as possible. Without any transport, they'd be stuck on the island, and once the resort was put on lockdown by security and reinforcements arrived it would only be a matter of time before they were defeated. At least, that's what Marco believed as he entered their reserved penthouse suite, throwing off his ruined shirt as he approached the locker housing his techsuit. Their enemy had other plans.

"Yo!" Iggy appeared on a nearby screen, looking rather annoyed. "We've got another ship incoming!"

"Wouldn't that be our reinforcements?" Jax asked, unscrewing a water bottle.

"I've contacted them three times, boys," the AI crossed his arms. "Chief, whatever message you sent, they weren't getting."

Sitting in orbit was a Sahara-class Prowler that Sigma had been attached to for the duration of this operation, complete with a force of highly-trained ONI Security personnel and a long-distance communication array that could have a warship in-system within the hour. If their transmissions weren't getting through, then it meant someone or something was blocking them.

"What's the ship?" Kane asked, arms clasped behind his back.

"Condor. U81 variant if I'm not misaken. That means it is - or was - ONI."

"Can we take it down?"

"You got another drone?"

"No. Thank you, Iggy."

The AI shrugged and disappeared, and Kane removed his helmet. 'Failure' was not a term the Spartans liked at all, but there was no other word for how this mission would be viewed. In the time it would take for Jax and Marco to armour up and for the three of them to reach the adjacent island, the enemy Spartans would be long-gone. For now, Sigma Team could only watch as the Condor swooped in low over the distant treeline, lingering for less than half a minute before taking off again and streaking up into Sundown's beautiful sky. Eventually, Marco broke the silence, removing the journal from his back pocket and tossing it down onto the coffee table. The pages were a little crumpled, but otherwise perfectly legible.

"Well," he gestured towards the most recent list of dropoff locations. "Here are our leads."

It wasn't much to go on, but enough to keep the trail hot. Kane immediately began swiping at his datapad while Jax watched emergency crews converging on the now-burning forest. ONI would have a hard time keeping this one under wraps, but if anyone had pockets deep enough to pay for all this mess, it was them.

"Iggy," Kane finally looked up towards the holotank where the AI currently resided. "As soon as the comms are free again, arrange for a pickup. We've got a trip to make."

Ambition
As he watched the Condor touch down in the Destroyer's hangar bay, D'Artagnan prepared himself for the worst. Originally a secondary vehicle Red Cell kept for close air support and emergency pickup, the transport craft was only to be used if a mission went horribly wrong for their field operatives. In this case, their Albatross had been unexpectedly blown out of the sky on Sundown.

"D'Artagnan."

Stood in the doorway to the hangar's observation deck was Control. Wearing his standard grey officer's uniform and an expression of genuine concern, he approached his subordinate with both hands clasped behind his back and received a brief salute.

"Sir."

Out of armour, D'Artagnan and Control stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they watched the armoured trio exiting the Condor. Athos seemed rather unsteady on his feet, and was supported by Aramis as they descended the boarding ramp. As they moved under the bright lights of the hangar deck, the two observers saw that the right side of his torso was caked in blood. While the others seemed fine, their usually-pristine MJOLNIR suits were dinged and blackened; signs of a heavy firefight and close-range explosions. Seeing his comrade injured, D'Artagnan turned to head down there, only to have a hand placed on his shoulder.

"Let the medical crew handle them," Control said flatly. "This will have been a valuable lesson for them."

After the loss of their bunker on Sansar and the very real possibility of a data leak, D'Artagnan had been dispatched alone to clear out a warehouse on Forseti they had been using to store vehicles. With Control finally making his big move against ONI's leadership, Red Cell were consolidating all of their resources aboard the Kuwabara in preparation for what would likely be the most important mission of their lives. If their pursuers already had time to not only track down their contacts on Sundown but put up a good enough fight to force his fellow operatives to retreat like this, then D'Artagnan didn't have long to act.

"What were they up against?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Spartans."

"How many? We should have had the edge in experience, at least."

Control's expression did not falter, but there was an air of reluctance about him as he scratched his greying hair and turned to look at D'Artagnan directly.

"It was Sigma Team."

D'Artagnan folded his arms, slowly exhaling as his superior's words sank in. ''Sigma Team. Why them? Why couldn't it have been anyone else?'' Their operating procedure had always been clear: When faced with a threat, eliminate it as quickly and efficiently as possible. There had been moments in the past few years where Red Cell had come dangerously close to being discovered, only to be saved by decisive action from its members. D'Artagnan had killed men and women fighting for the same side just to maintain their secrecy, and had always been able to justify it as being for the greater good. This, however, was an entirely different matter.

"So what are we going to do?"

Control seemed to already have an answer in mind, and beckoned for D'Artagnan to follow him. Taking a glance back towards the hangar bay, he saw technical teams helping his subordinates out of their armour while medics clustered round the trio, attending to their many wounds. He sighed, and followed Control through the Kuwabara's crew quarters and up towards the ship's bridge. Having operated alone for many years, much of the Destroyer was under near-constant maintenance, with many of its side passages laid bare by engineers looking to repair more important areas. Control didn't say a word for the entire journey, offering only a polite nod to his XO, a rather tired-looking woman named McLaren, before taking a seat in his command chair.

"Today, we activate OVERSIGHT." Control tapped a button on the side of his chair and the holotank before him lit up. "And move out of the shadows for good."

Moments after Control's rather grandiose announcement, a map of the known galaxy appeared before them, dotted with tiny icons. Each signified an important resource: information repositories, secret prisons, research laboratories, hidden armouries and manufacturing plants, bunkers, shipyards, meeting points and public offices. Before them lay the collected wealth of the Office of Naval Intelligence, scattered across the stars. As he looked over it all, no longer able to suppress a grin as his pale eyes shone with greed, Control spread his arms wide as if to embrace it all.

He wanted everything.

"Sir," D'Artagnan gave a slight cough, and Control stiffened slightly before sitting back in his chair. "As I said: What are we-"

"Our scapegoats," Control cut him off. "Urbach and the SPARTAN-III. The UNSC may find them soon. I want them captured and brought to justice for the massacre on Erdenet. I want to display our efficiency in dealing with traitors when I meet with ONI's Section Chiefs in just a few weeks."

"If you wanted them captured, then why didn't you just have us lock them up before they left the planet?"

"We must make it look as though they escaped to safety. The presence of our rebel friend on Biko and that alien double agent living out there will make for excellent scapegoats as well."

"I'll head off as soon as the Condor's been serviced, then. The others?"

"Leave them here. Once they've recovered, I'll need them to accompany me to my meeting with the soon-to-be former CINCONI. There's also the matter of X-83 to attend to."

That was the package D'Artagnan's team had recovered from that Marine base on Erdenet. With the entire facility a burnt-out ruin, it would be unlikely that any investigators would realise what they had taken. Even the base's occupants had been under strict orders not to open it; orders sent by Control himself. While utilising smuggling routes to ferry equipment was their usual procedure, that package in particular had been ordered under several false names from a particularly important laboratory that would likely realise their mistake within a few weeks at most. Currently, it sat within the Kuwabara's tech lab, being looked over by some of the ship's engineering crew.

"You said that thing was our trump card," D'Artagnan crossed his arms, "If that's true, then when are we putting it to use?"

"If all goes perfectly? Never. However, I had to take precautions before starting this operation, and with Sigma on our trail I fear it will only be a matter of time before we put it to use."

The supersoldier began to feel slightly irked, aware that Control was avoiding the important question. So, he chose to be more direct.

"Will I have to kill Sigma Team?"

"I don't know, can you?"

It was subtle, but the slight curl of Control's lip made it clear that he was mocking the other man. The two stood apart in silence for a few moments before D'Artagnan he straightened up and saluted.

"I'll follow my orders."

It wasn't a yes, nor was it a no. He turned on his heel and exited the bridge, leaving Control to his machinations while he prepared himself for the trip to Biko. Capturing Jill Urbach and her Spartan bodyguard could prove troublesome, especially if he was on his own. D'Artagnan hoped they would trust him enough to be lured into a trap. As he headed down the corridor at a brisk pace, the bridge door opened up again and Lieutenant McLaren jogged out, datapad in hand.

"Spartan!" she called after him. D'Artagnan halted and waited for her to approach, almost flinching at the mention of the word.

"Yes ma'am?"

"You left before I could tell you, but while you were away, we had three more terminations."

"Three?!"

"Yes. Two engineers and a member of our combat team. They tried to steal one of our slipspace-capable shuttles from hangar four, but were caught before they could take off. Control took care of them himself."

Aboard the Kuwabara, such occurrences usually happened once or twice a year at most. Operating in deep space, away from civilisation and cut off from the military, life was tough for its crew. Most worked without complaint and had adjusted well to this kind of life, but for some this was simply not enough. Control was a charismatic if deliberately enigmatic leader - few aboard even knew his real name - and ensured that their mission took priority over everything else. 'To betray the mission was to betray mankind' was a quote he was rather fond of.

"That's eight this year," he murmured, frowning deeply. "How were they stopped?"

McLaren tapped two fingers against the side of her head. "Implants."

"He give them a chance to give up?"

"Only one."

Three months ago, Control had greeted the crew one morning with a notice stating that they were to be given upgrades to their neural implants immediately and without exception. Somehow, 'without exception' did not apply to Control, D'Artagnan or his team, but every other person aboard the Kuwabara had been marched to the medical bay to undergo these procedures. While basic implants were commonplace within the UNSC and the procedure itself had become remarkably easy over the years, these 'upgrades' had apparently taken some time to perfect and were more invasive than the standard chip embedded beneath the skin.

However, It was not until three weeks later when a member of the medical crew broke down and took a hostage at gunpoint that the feature of these new implants was revealed: a microbomb. Once activated, it would detonate the person's skull from the inside, killing them in less than a second without risk of collateral damage. This revelation had almost led to a mutiny until Control calmly explained that it was a temporary measure carried out to prevent defection and had been an order given by the Commander in Chief of Naval Intelligence herself for the most crucial of projects. While most accepted this, the truth was that everyone aboard the Kuwabara now had their life placed firmly in Control's hands.

"The bodies?"

"Incinerated." McLaren looked downcast for a moment, but perked up slightly. "Sorry about this, but since you're chief of security-"

"You had to let me know," he nodded. "Thank you, ma'am."

The Lieutenant paused for a moment, and seemed to be on the verge of continuing the conversation before she turned away from D'Artagnan and headed back towards her station on the bridge. Of all the ship's crew, she had been with Control longer than most, and seemed to treat the man with a mixture of veneration and fear without adopting his own rather black and white outlook on things. Having had the chance to examine her file, Control had rescued McLaren himself from the disabled hulk of a Frigate after a battle with the Covenant back in 2546, and had since taken her on as some kind of protege. Her tale was not unique among the Kuwabara's crew, however; most seemed to share a similar story of surviving some catastrophe or being cut off from the chain of command, only to be picked up and press-ganged aboard the rogue Destroyer.