Okay, so sorry for the delays and everything. Been pretty busy with my work lately and my mother having hip-replacement surgery (she's fine, no worries, things just got a little hectic during that point in time of my life).

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this story, and I hope that you have both enjoyed it and that you feel that I am continuing to provide some decent quality writing.

And thus, without further ado, here's the third chapter of Consequences of Revelation.

Consequences of Revelation


Chapter Three: Cloak and Daggers


Commander Sarah Palmer sighed as she nearly collapsed into her bunk. The aches and pains from the training that she'd been put through were being dulled by the regenerative meds that they'd pumped into her in the medical bay, and the painkillers were starting to take effect. The past twelve hours, really the past three days, had been brutal. Blue Team was relentless, drilling her and her S-IV's again and again and again. A part of her wondered how they did it. Drilling and testing group after group, rotating effortlessly and unceasingly between them, never tiring, never faltering. She was beginning to understand why some had initially believed that the S-II's were machines.

They were still schooling her groups, and even after three days, not one had succeeded in accomplishing a full mission. They were getting better, it seemed, though, getting farther before they were cut down, or holding a position longer before Blue Team succeeded in killing them all. Palmer closed her eyes and remembered the debriefings that she had attended afterwards, where Blue Team would take about ten or fifteen minutes to give a quick and dirty rundown of what the teams had done right, and what they'd done wrong, before handing them all data-disks with the recordings of the fight and instructing them to spend the next hour critiquing themselves. They would each write a report of their own performances and the performances their teammates, and then submit it to Blue Team, herself, and A.I. Roland. By then, it would be time for them to rotate back into the field for another wargame. The one thing that did stand out was Crimson's performance. She'd come to rely on them pretty heavily during the two months of operations on Requiem, but looking over the reports, the combat feeds, and everything else, it amazed her just how much better those four were doing compared to their compatriots. Her tired mind drifted a little more and she found herself wondering briefly what made them so special, why they seemed to have the knack that so many of the other teams lacked. What made them different? What—

There was a loud beeping noise from her door, calling her back from her thoughts. Palmer opened her eyes as the fatigue clawed at her brain. Forcing her eyelids open was like trying to push open a blast door, and her body screamed at her to just let it all go and drift into the blissful oblivion of seven hours of uninterrupted rest. The door beeped again, and she slowly got out of her bunk and made her way towards the door, remembering the "chat" that she and the Chief had had about her always being available. She pressed a button next to the door, and an image popped up on the viewing screen on her wall. The security sensor outside showed her a picture of Captain Lasky, and as he went to press the doorbell, as it was joking called, once again, she unsealed the door to her room.

"Captain Lasky, Sir," she said, assuming attention as best she could in her current state, and giving him a salute.

"At ease, Commander Palmer," he said, stepping inside. She winced a bit as she heard him use her rank, rather than her first name, to identify her. Ever since her last operation on Requiem, things had been a bit… chilly between herself and the Captain.

She remembered the conversation that they'd had before she'd headed out, how he'd begged her not to go through with it. She blinked a couple of times and chewed on her lips. "What brings you to my quarters, Captain?"

"I wanted to see how you were holding up," he said. "I've seen some of the wargames recordings. The Chief and his teammates are putting you guys through the wringer."

"That he is," she muttered, and making my S-IV's look like rookies on their first day of mock weapons training. "But… if it helps us improve, I suppose it's worth it."

Lasky arched an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side slightly. "Have you and him had any… other conversations after the incident?"

"He's apologized, if that's what you mean. And he gave me a hell of a dressing down," she said, making her way back over to her bed and sitting down on it. Maybe it was a bit unprofessional, but at the moment, she just didn't care. She was exhausted, physically and mentally, and tomorrow would be more of the same. And before long, she knew, the training itinerary was going to shift for her.

The Chief had made that much clear. The war games would get larger, there would be multiple operations running at the same time, S-IV against S-IV, with Marine and ODST groups mixed in, each simulating the enemy in a massive full on war. Once that happened, she'd be pulled out of the direct fighting, and she and the other Handlers would be thrust into a command situation where Murphy and his accompanying law would make it a point to be an extra-large pain in the ass.

"I see," Lasky nodded his head, and seemed to become a bit more relaxed. He remained standing, and moved over towards the far side of the wall.

His eyes focused on his colleague, watching the way she carried herself. There was a slump to her shoulders that he didn't remember being there. She was exhausted, that much he could tell. The circles under her eyes, the way that her hands shook just slightly. He'd been run ragged enough times at Corbulo Military Academy to know the signs of physical fatigue. But there was something else to it as well. A tiredness that had seeped into her soul. Something was eating at her, and he aimed to find out what. The confession that the Chief had given her a private "critique" hinted at it. The Chief… he was more than just a Spartan, more than a super-soldier. He had saved all of the human race at least twice now, three times if one counted him containing the Flood on Installation-04a. He was a symbol of the endurance and perseverance of Humanity as a whole, which had triumphed where all the odds had said they should have died. There probably wasn't a person alive who didn't revere him as some sort of living legend.

And she was more than just another admirer. She was an S-IV, an "inheritor" of his legacy; and more importantly, the one chosen to lead all the successors to the Spartan-II project that were assigned to the Infinity. He'd seen the look on the Chief's face, when he'd depolarized his visor four days ago, the raw hate that had burned in those eyes then. To know that the individual that you were chosen to follow in the footsteps of felt not pride or even comradeship towards you, but anger and disappointment; what must that have felt like? Tom's hand instinctively went to his neck, where he kept a second set of dogtags: Chyler's. He felt the bit of metal that was on there with them. It was small, iridescent blue, scarred pitted and charred black in few spots. The remnants of a fragment of a Lek'golo's armor. 117 had given it to him as a memento of their shared victory over the alien soldier. Even as a boy, barely seventeen years old, he'd understood that the Chief had been congratulating him, calling him a soldier, stating that in the Spartan's eyes, he was worthy.

"What's bothering you?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice professional sounding, a bit distant. He was still upset at Palmer's willingness to carry out Osman's assassination order, and he'd made that clear.

"Might want to ask what isn't. List'll be shorter," she mumbled, her hands coming to rest on her kneecaps as she leaned forward a bit. A disgusted sounding sigh left her a moment later, and she turned and looked up at Lasky. "Do you know… do you know what it's like… to know that you've failed? That you've screwed up?" She paused for a moment. "I don't mean a screw up like forgetting to put your dress uniform on right, or the realization that you've put your ranking pip on upside down. But you really, genuinely dropped the ball?"

"More often that you think." He said with a nod of his head. "Look at the Infinity. She got crippled because of me." He got a funny look from the Commander, and he shook his head. "It was my decision to allow that artifact onboard, Palmer. I should have had it put on one of the secondary ships, one of the frigates. If I had, the Infinity never would have gotten 'tied down' and we could have pursued Jul's fleet into Requiem itself. We might not have taken the bastard out, but we would have done a hell of a lot more damage to his operations. Hell, we might have been able to force him to abandon Requiem without destroying it. " That last part was pure optimistic conjecture on his part, but it was one the things that had nagged at the back of his mind ever since they'd escaped. The realization that so much potential information and technology that Requiem had at its disposal was gone forever.

"You had no way of knowing the artifact was going to do that," Palmer said, looking at him strangely.

"It doesn't change the fact that I made a mistake and ignored what should have been a basic safety protocol," Lasky said with a shrug. "They say hindsight's twenty-twenty. Maybe they're right. Thing to do is to learn from it, and then move on. In my case, that means taking more precautions whenever dealing with an object of Forerunner origin."

Palmer remained silent, and just continued to stare at him. He hadn't officially been reprimanded in his case, not yet at least. It was simply possible that Lord Hood was waiting for the proper time, or alternatively, the Admiral had yet to wrap his mind around the fact that a supposed Covenant Loyalist like Jul would actually go so far as to destroy the "home" of one of his gods. That was beside the point at the moment, he thought to himself, and instead he refocused his attention on his colleague.

"We all made mistakes at Requiem, Commander. What's important is that we learn from them," her eyes narrowed a bit as she looked at him and she cocked her head to the side. Lasky continued, "I had to learn from my mistakes at the academy, and after thirty years in the field, I still make them." He paused and he chuckled softly. "For all the grief my old instructor gave me, there was a quote that she once told me, from Marshal Turenne. 'Show me a general who has made no mistakes, and you speak of a general who has seldom waged war.'"

He paused for a moment, letting the words sink in. After a few more seconds silence, he crossed his arms and looked down at her. "So, where do you think you went wrong?" she looked up at him as he spoke, and he shook his head softly. "I want to help you, Commander, and believe me, I got chewed out at Corbulo more times than I can count. But I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is."

Sarah Palmer sighed softly and then nodded her head. "I…" she paused for a moment, and licked her lips, her eyes narrowing for a moment and Lasky swore he could practically hear the gears whirring away in her mind. "I guess…. At Requiem… I got cocky. We'd just beaten the Didact… a Forerunner. We chased him off on Requiem, and we flattened the Storm elements that we found there. And then, and then the opening battle when we came back," she reached up and ran her hands through her hair as she spoke, "the Infinity just ran over everything that was in its way. Nothing could stand against us. I… I thought we were invincible."

Lasky chuckled softly. "The UNSC has certainly been doing its best to play things up that way. 'We are the Giants now,' God, I cannot believe how much of a stuck-up ass I sounded like in that news cast." He blushed as he spoke. "I'll admit, I bought into our propaganda a bit too much… and maybe that's why I got a little sloppy myself. Maybe that's why I didn't stop to think that maybe Jul let us take that artifact."

There was another moment of pregnant silence between the two of them, and Lasky let out a long sigh. "Well, that's one step. You've acknowledged that you overestimated yourself. But I know that can't be the only thing that the two of you talked about." He arched an eyebrow, and Palmer winced, she knew exactly what he meant, and it was clear that it was still a sore subject.

"We actually didn't talk about that all that much, he chewed me out for going in blind and underequipped for the job, said it was stupid of me to risk my life like that," Palmer said, shaking her head. "Aside from that, he just mentioned something about looking into where Doctor Halsey got her funding and oversight from."

Lasky nodded his head. "That's something I've been thinking about as well. The briefing that Osman gave us regarding Doctor Halsey painted her as some sort of modern Joseph Mengele," he said with a frown. "A monster. But Admiral Osman conveniently failed to mention that the Spartan-II's had any sort of feelings towards Doctor Halsey, let alone maternal ones." He shook his head again. A part of him was still having trouble wrapping his head around that. He truly did have to wonder if the Chief and the other members of Blue Team were brainwashed by the woman of if they were true, genuine feelings.

Unconsciously, his hand came up to his cheek, remembering the (surprisingly strong) backhand that the Doctor had given him when she learned out that the Chief had still been alive, had been on this very ship at one point, and no one had thought to tell her. He remembered the anger burning in her old eyes, the vehemence in her voice. It was the wrath of a mother who had not been told that one of her sons was still alive. He remembered the voice of 117 when he'd been shown what had happened on Requiem. Perhaps there was some Stockholm Syndrome at work there, Lasky thought to himself, but at the very least, it was clear that there was some amount of mutual affection between the two of them.

"That begs the question," he found himself staring up at the ceiling as he spoke. "If Osman lied to us about that… what else has she been keeping from us?" he got a look from Palmer, and a nod.

"A project like this…" there was that tantalizing hint of awakening, of realization, in her voice. "It went on for nearly forty years, Tom… there was… there's no way that ONI wouldn't have known… Parangorsky and the other high ranking individuals…" Palmer stood up from when she was sitting on her bed, her hands trembling slightly. "The augmentations… the first generation MJOLNIR suits… someone would have had to sign off on that, to approve it. The procurement, the financing, the logistics involved with that…. No rogue scientist could ever do this on her own."

"And if they were the ones signing off on Halsey's projects and research, then were they the ones who originally came up with the project themselves?" Lasky finished for her. He had a sense of dread form in his stomach. Why did he have the sinking feeling that they had just gotten themselves wrapped up into something very, very nasty? He looked over at Sarah. Judging by the pallor of her skin, suddenly pale, he had a feeling she'd just had a similar thought. He rubbed his chin and looked over to the small projection port by the wall. He doubted that Roland could get access to any ONI files from here, those things would all be in a secure hard-link only system to prevent remote access, but there might be other ways to go about doing this. The Master Chief had dropped hints; perhaps a conversation with the rest of Blue Team might be in order.

That brought his mind around to another topic. Palmer would need to be there with him, for her own reasons. He cleared his throat a bit, and decided to probe a little further, he could even springboard from this train of thought, Lasky thought to himself.

"Aside from the… technical issues of your operation… are you starting to realize where else you might have messed up?" He ventured, raising an eyebrow.

Palmer sighed once again, and looked up at him. "Are you still trying to get me to admit that what I did was wrong?" She got a nod in response. The Commander looked down at her feet, and Lasky was reminded of a child being scolded. It was a look he knew all too well, remembering the myriad of times that April, Colonel Mehaffeny, or even General Black himself had chewed him out for a screw up he'd made. Was this how they'd felt, he wondered? A mixture of pity and disappointment, and that faint hope that somewhere, deep inside the "cadet's" mind, an understanding might be forming?

"I think…" she started to say, pausing and licking her lips for a moment. "I think I need to have a talk with Blue Team…I think I need to apologize to them."

"I'll be there with you," Lasky said, a smile slowly forming on his face.


The Master Chief strode briskly down the corridor towards his destination, a group of ODSTs on either side of him. He could feel his adrenaline spiking as the office of Lord Admiral Terrance Hood came closer and closer. It was a situation not too different from going into battle, he suspected. He knew that Hood would back him and support the actions that he had taken, but John was still uncertain as to how all of this was going to play out, and exactly what choice of punishment the High Commander of UNSC FLEETCOMM was going to deem appropriate for Serin Osman's actions. Blatant violations of UNSC wartime legal protocols, undermining FLEETCOMM's chain of command, driving the greatest mind of Humanity into the arms of the enemy. It was a mess, as Cortana would have said.

Cortana… his thoughts drifted to her yet again. It had been eight months since her death. Since she'd sacrificed herself to save him… to save Humanity. He remembered the tremble in her voice and his as she'd said goodbye… disappearing forever. Even as it crossed his mind, the Spartan felt an ache, a tightness in his chest and a thickness in his throat.

As a Spartan, he was no stranger to death. He'd watched whole worlds get annihilated under the fury of a Covenant glassing operation, watching as billions of lives were snuffed out in an instant. He'd watched them bombard Reach as the Pillar of Autumn fled, remembering that feeling of helplessness, of knowing that his family was down there, that his home was under attack… and there was nothing he could do but watch them all die. True, some had survived all of those trials… but most had not.

He could remember Johnson's last words… holding one of his best friends in his arms as he lay dying. Watching the final struggles one of the men who had been involved in the war since the first shots had been fired on Harvest, who had survived every nightmare and horror that the Covenant and the Flood had both thrown at him, only for him to die in the final minutes before victory. He'd actually been out to visit the man's tomb, on the edge of Mombasa, just outside the glassing zone. A monument to those who had died on the Ark had been erected within sight of the portal to the Forerunner artifact. To the Master Chief, it seemed appropriate, a fitting final "resting place" for one of the greatest soldiers he had ever had the privilege of knowing.

He had knelt there, running his hands along the tombstone. Underneath the picture that had been placed into the stone were a number of messages and titles left by the few friends that Johnson had that had that survived the war. "Friend." "Hero." "Leader." Among other, more personal words and phrases. When he'd left, there had been another phrase etched into the granite as well: "One of Us- S-117". It was the only thing he had to give to a man who had befriended him, been there at his side so often, and given so much for the cause. An ordinary individual who had performed extraordinary tasks again and again and again.

And yet, as used to death as he was, it never became any easier, the Master Chief thought. He could feel the pain welling up inside him again, despite his best efforts to squash it. Cortana had done so much for him… saved his life, stopped him from inadvertently wiping out all life in the galaxy, stopped the Flood… and she, not him, had bested the Didact. When the renegade Forerunner had him dead to rights, the Spartan rendered helpless by his constraint field, she had come to his defense one final time. She'd bought their victory with her life. And would Humanity even know? Most of what had occurred on the Didact's vessel was still strictly classified. And even the bits that had been declassified… would the history books ever truly capture how much Cortana had done for Humanity?

How much she had done for him? He'd heard civilians and some of the other UNSC personnel use the phrase "two side to the same coin" to describe a pair of entities before. It seemed strangely apt under the circumstances, like he'd left a part of himself behind on the Didact's vessel, like someone had ripped a part of him out and left a void where it had been.

He narrowed his gaze behind the visor of his helmet. He could not allow those thoughts to weigh him down, to drag him into the abyss of despair and wallowing in his own self-pity. Cortana wouldn't have wanted that. He was still Humanity's sword and shield. That was how he would honor her legacy. That was what he'd kept telling himself all these months. And yet… the pain was still there.

He paused as he stood in front of Hood's private office, and waited as one of the Helljumpers pressed the door-button. A camera focused on them, and a small A.I. hologram appeared out of a tank next to the door. It was an empty suit of armor, modeled after a medieval knight, with two flaming motes where its eyes should have been: Sentinel. The Master Chief had met him before. He was one of two personal A.I.s assigned to Admiral Hood to both help him manage things at FLEETCOMM and to ensure that local electronic attack against this section of UNSC headquarters was all but impossible.

"Welcome, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, Lord Hood has been expecting you," Sentinel said with a bow.

With that, the door opened, and the Master Chief stepped inside. Lord Hood looked up from the PDA that he was reading, and a rare smile came across the man's normally reserved and serious face.

"Master Chief," he said, getting up from his desk and walking over towards the S-II. The Spartan saluted, a gesture that Hood returned. A handshake followed as Hood motioned for all but two of the escorts to step outside.

The Master Chief looked back over at them and highlighted them with his HUD. Information and an abbreviated CSV on the two of them popped up. The first one was a Sergeant, a James "Rook" Dunn, and the second was a naval Captain by the name of Dare. An odd choice, he supposed, to have two individuals so far apart in rank standing as Lord Hood's personal bodyguards. They would have to have been cleared and vetted for the type of information that was going to be discussed at this little meeting, so he hoped that they would be able to continue keeping a secret.

Hood turned and headed back towards his desk, gesturing for the Spartan to follow.

"So, Master Chief, here to bring up me to speed, are you?" he asked, sitting down and motioning for 117 to take a seat in front of him.

The Spartan hesitated for a moment before he noticed the titanium construction and numerous reinforced crossweaves on the chair. Hood was clearly prepared to receive visitors of his… unique nature. The cyborg approached and took a seat as Admiral Hood tapped his hands together. As he did so, the Spartan looked Hood over, taking the time to examine the man in detail for the first time in years. The Master Chief noticed the lines around the other man's eyes. He was reminded again of the age of the veteran officer across from him. Hood was well into his second century of life, but his iron will and coolness under nearly any circumstance usually left him with an air of energy and power usually found in men half his age.

"We've both been busy, these past few months, Chief," Hood began, before letting out a deep sigh. "We've spoken before, but in all of this, I've never had the chance to just, to just take the time to say welcome back. And to let you know how good it is to have you back with us." There was a pause, and the faint smile returned to Hood's face. "It's good to have a friend back from the dead," The Admiral said softly. "I don't know if it's been made clear to you just how much of a boost your return was to the people of Earth and its reborn colonies. After everything that's been happening, it was something we desperately needed."

The Master Chief nodded in understanding. He'd seen the reports. The casualties that had been sustained during the war for Earth, and everything else. The UNSC fleet had been rebuilding rapidly, and frantically, almost manically, reinforcing and up-gunning the weapons of its warships. But still, even then… "We're still vulnerable… much more vulnerable than the UNSC has let the general public know…" 117 spoke softly.

"Yes…. The war hurt us, Chief, more than seven hundred worlds lost, hundreds of billions dead… Humanity is still licking its wounds, and will be for decades to come," Hood ran a hand across his scalp and sighed. "The survivors of the war want assurances, they want to be able to sleep at night knowing they will wake up tomorrow to a sky not filled with alien ships preparing to glass the planet." His blue eyes bored into the Chief's visor. "And the best we can do at the moment is lie. If it wasn't for the Arbiter… I don't know what we would do." A bitter chuckle left Hood's lips, and the Spartan nodded to himself.

Thel Vadum was an honorable individual, he knew… but that didn't change the fact that while the Sangheili Arbiter was an ally of Humanity, and indirectly, its greatest shield against the Storm and the other Loyalist factions, that he had been one of the leading fleetmasters of the Covenant, and had been responsible for scouring dozens of worlds during the war. 117 spent a moment musing on the irony of Humanity's survival being dependent upon one of the very individuals that had spent three decades blowing them to smithereens.

If there was some higher power in the universe, it had a very sick sense of humor.

The Spartan's mind jumped down a darker path. Jul would have known that. How vulnerable Humanity was… he would have understood the value that another intact shield world like Onyx would have to the UNSC and UEG. The technology that might have been recovered from the artificial planet… the things that it might have done for them. Jul had denied them a formidable asset, and the Master Chief was once again reminded that they were not dealing with a rank and file Covenant Cultist. 'Mdama was something else… something much more dangerous. And that made the fact that Catherine Halsey was in his clutches—with nowhere to go except to him—all the more chilling.

The Spartan straightened up a bit, steeling himself for the task that was ahead.

"On that note, Sir," He started to say, before Hood nodded his head and interrupted him.

"The new weapons you came for, yes," Hood said. "Song-Nim has made significant progress with our laser weaponry," before the Spartan could interrupt him the Admiral slid the Chief a small data-pad that had some weapon specifications on it.

The Master Chief took a look at the weapon in front of him, designated the Assault Pulse Rifle, Model One. It bore a resemblance to the MA rifle series, but with the ammo-counter and compass stripped away. Mounting rails covered the sides, top, and the bottom, and it had a bullpup configuration. It made sense he supposed, a more powerful weapon, but with a design that the ground troops would already be familiar with. Effective combat range was well over seven times that of the MA rifle series though, more than two kilometers. Recoil would be negligible; no bullet drop to account for, and at standard power, the battery looked to be able to hold the better part of three hundred shots. The specification file also had several pictures of the weapon 'in action': Human analogs—armored testing dummies made of synthetic flesh—that had been blown to pieces by single shots from the laser weapon, massive chunks of the dummies flash-vaporized and turned to ash.

The first group of Storm infantry that ran into a squad packing this type of weaponry was going to be in for a very nasty surprise.

There were other weapons on the data file as well, close combat scatter weaponry, "smart" munitions, sniper class laser weaponry, as well as an improved, faster firing variant of the Spartan Laser. Good, good, the Master Chief thought to himself. The sooner he could get this back to Infinity and have the S-IV's start using these devices (and the marines and army troopers as well), the better.

"How many of these can we have loaded and ready to ship to the Infinity?" he asked, handing the PDA back over to Hood.

"I put them on notice to have some crates loaded up once I received word that you wanted to meet with me to discuss going ahead and up-arming the S-IV's," the Admiral stated. "Your Pelican will be loaded up with these by the time you get back to it."

"Thank you, Sir." The Master Chief said.

"You're welcome, Chief," Hood said. "But there's still the matter of making certain that the S-IV's are prepared to use these weapons properly. I trust that you and 058, 087, and 104 are bringing them up to speed as quickly as possible?"

"The S-IV's show promise, and Blue Team and I are drilling them daily, but-" he started to say before Hood smiled and waved him off with a gesture.

"But it's going to take at least eight or so weeks before they are ready?" He said and the Spartan noticed a slight teasing hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. 117's eyes narrowed behind his visor. He hadn't filed an official report yet, and in fact the report was still on his PDA awaiting transfer. Hood had gotten that information from an alternative source. His mind leapt to varying hypothesizes and theories, wondering who the Admiral's inside informant was. "The second batch of S-IV's is going to be arriving in four weeks, and even as good as you are, I do not think you can personally oversee the training of five hundred Spartans. Are there any emerging leaders and sub-commanders within the S-IV's? Those you would be comfortable with taking over some of the training duties?"

"There is one team, yes sir," The Master Chief said, quietly reaching into one of his supply pouches and producing the PDA with his assessment data on it. He turned it on and swiped through a few of the scenes, before bringing up Petty Officer Richards and her team.

"Ahh yes," Hood said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. "I thought you might be leaning towards them. It seems you still have an eye for talent." 117 felt himself unconsciously tensing, feeling as though things were shifting, changing before him. His eyes looked over every feature of the Admiral's face. Every age line, every subtle shift in his muscles and his body language. The Spartan thought he saw a reaction, again the barest hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth, perhaps a slight bit of amusement in the Lord Admiral's face.

Alarm bells were practically ringing in the S-II's mind now. Hood's tone and demeanor seemed to suggest beyond a shadow of a doubt that he knew just what Crimson really was. But were they his inside source? Was he the one who had planted them there? Or was he merely "brought on board" regarding their insertion after the fact? Was there another group on the Infinity that was reporting to Hood? Theories and hypothesizes whirled in the Spartan's mind, forcing him to try and think about where things were headed, what was going on here. His augmented mind processed information faster than any normal Human ever could, but he still found himself suddenly longing for Cortana. As an A.I. She could have processed everything, run through the list of millions of possible theories in the time that it took the Spartan to blink, and presented the most likely possibilities before him.

"So, sounds though there might be a few field promotions in their future." The Admiral leaned back in his chair, the soft leather creaking a bit as he did so. "Hopefully some others will emerge as well. We are going to need capable field officers in the spec ops divisions." The smile faded from Hood's face, and the Master Chief noticed the lines around the other man's eyes. He was reminded again of the age of the veteran officer across from him.

"And on that note, Master Chief," Hood said, before his face grew a bit more grave. He reached under his desk and pressed a button. There was a slight hissing noise from the door, and he could see movement on his motion tracker as the two ODSTs looked around while his HUD flickered a bit. He recognized that noise, a secure room going into lockdown and ECM jamming equipment coming online. "Now… why don't you tell me the real reason you're here."

117 raised his eyebrows a bit, and he was almost tempted to chuckle as he reached into a supply pouch, carefully pulled out a small device and placed it on the Admiral's desk to where it could be plainly seen. "I suppose this makes my precautions a bit unwarranted." He said.

His jamming device was about the size of an A.I. data crystal, the most powerful one he had been able to…acquire that he'd been confident he could smuggle in. Suddenly it seemed so very superfluous. However, the device had no sooner been placed on the table than Sentinel and the other A.I., a Grecian looking warrior by the name of Ajax, both materialized in holotanks, and the Spartan could hear some of the internal defenses of the room sliding out from the ceiling, automated turrets fixing upon him. His motion tracker also showed movement behind him, and he could hear the two ODSTs moving to flank him. Hood simply shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"You'll have to forgive those four. They're a bit paranoid when it comes to my safety," he said.

"Being paranoid about your safety is our job, Admiral," Captain Dare spoke up with a note of irritation, and Hood held up a placating hand towards her.

"I know, Captain, I know, and I'm grateful to all of you," The Admiral said, before returning his gaze to the Chief. "Now then, I believe you were about to tell me what happened on Infinity that made you want to drop everything and come running to me."

The Spartan twisted his head slightly and Hood chuckled again. "Son, this could have all been arranged by email or an official request, the same with your report. And yet you took time off from an extremely pressing task to come and visit me in person. I cannot help but feel that somewhere, shit has hit the fan. So, let's hear it. Off the record."

The Master Chief nodded his head and took a deep breath. He felt surprisingly nervous all of a sudden. Then again, 117 supposed it wasn't every day that you bypassed official channels to come to the de facto head of Humanity's armed forces with evidence that the intelligence division of said armed forces was violating major UNSC protocols behind his back.

"Sir… are you aware of the location of Doctor Catherine Halsey?" he asked.

Hood paused for a moment. "Not precisely, no. My understanding was that she had been arrested for 'Theft of ONI property'. I assumed that was just something they used to soothe their pride and give them an official reason for her not to appear in public while they had her work on reverse engineering more Forerunner technology." He paused and then looked sharply into the Master Chief's visor. "Why?"

The Spartan responded by reaching up and removing one of the armor plates near the back of his helmet. He pulled out a small datachip, the black-box for his video recording system, and handed it over to the Admiral.

"I learned after coming onboard the Infinity that she had been transferred there and put under guard detail after the first incident with the artifact that Fireteam Crimson recovered. Her transfer was classified, only a select few individuals knew about her presence onboard the ship." the Master Chief said. "A series of complications ensued, culminating with Jul's Promethean forces teleporting onboard."

"Captain Lasky's report mentioned that Infinity had been boarded and attacked," Hood said with a frown.

"But did it mention was that Doctor Halsey was present during the attack and had been kidnapped by the Prometheans… and that her capture was the sole reason for the attack." 117 said. "Or that after that, Admiral Serin Osman, CIC of ONI, ordered Captain Lasky and Commander Palmer to locate and eliminate the doctor."

There was a few seconds of silence as he let the Admiral digest that bit of information. He could see confusion, disbelief, and myriad of other emotions flicker across Hood's face.

"His report made no mention of that. At all. And you're certain that the orders were to locate and eliminate, not recover, eliminate, you are absolutely certain?" Hood asked, his brow furrowed. The Master Chief merely nodded towards the data chip that the Admiral was holding. Hood slid it into his PDA and pulled up the feed.

"I requested Captain Lasky's report from the shipboard A.I., Roland," the Spartan said. "It does mention the... full account of the attack. As for Admiral Osman's orders, move to time index nine-eight-seven, one-four-five-oh." He said.

Hood did as requested, and a moment later, the Master Chief could hear his own voice coming out of the PDA as Hood placed it down on the table.

"Details. Now, Captain." Hood pressed a button and the feed leaped up, projecting itself onto a display screen that was right behind his desk.

As the feed continued, 117 could hear Dare and the other ODST approaching from behind him, and he looked over his shoulder towards them. Their visors were polarized, so he couldn't see their faces, but their body language gave away some hints. As Captain Dare listened to Captain Lasky's 'confession', he could see a subtle twitch to her hands, as though she was trying to resist the urge to clench them into fists. Sergeant Dunn looked rather limp, almost as though a stiff breeze would send him tumbling to the ground.

The minutes passed, and the feed turned to Palmer's mission. The cyborg watched the Admiral closely as Palmer fired, missing the killshot due to the quirk of a dud SAP-HE round. The confrontation between Palmer and Thorne, and then the other confrontation between the Master Chief and the Commander. Finally, as the Master Chief stormed out of the room, Hood stopped the feed.

The silence was deafening as Hood leaned back in his chair, letting his forehead rest against his left hand. The Master Chief waited for a response as he noticed that some of the color seemed to have left the man's cheeks.

Finally, after nearly a minute, he spoke.

"Son… do you understand what this means?" he asked, looking up at the Spartan.

"Blue Team and I have reached the conclusion that if Doctor Halsey survived, she would have had no way of knowing that Majestic Team wasn't also there to assassinate her. She has no way of knowing that the order wasn't an official one. Which means that she has nowhere to go but straight into the arms of the enemy."

Hood nodded, his expression somber. "We… we have no idea how much Forerunner technology Jul has at his disposal. Neither does the Arbiter. We just know he has some. But if it's anything significant, Seekers, warships, god help us, Chief, if he knows the location of another Shield World or even some Onyx class Sentinels…" 117 felt a chill run down his spine at that last one. He'd never encountered one, but he knew of them from Blue Team's report. Sentinels which were powerful enough that a few dozen of them could annihilate a Covenant assault carrier in seconds, and apparently made in facilities that could produce thousands of them every hour. The thought of a swarm of those things descending on Earth…that chill suddenly intensified.

Hood rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing. "I've got speak to the Arbiter immediately. He's got to be made aware of this and we've got to locate and extract Doctor Halsey before any more damage can be done."

"What about Admiral Osman?" 117 spoke up.

Hood's eyes narrowed further. "The Admiral has apparently altered official UNSC documents and AARs, ordered an unauthorized assassination of UNSC personnel, and has allowed a personal vendetta to cloud her judgment, and as a direct result, has deprived the UNSC of a potentially war-winning asset." He leaned back again. "I am aware of your… origins, Master Chief, and those of the other Spartan-IIs. Doctor Halsey has committed crimes for which she must answer, but she is not the only one who needs to, and the answer to those crimes is not a summary execution." Hood leaned forward and rubbed his chin once more, and the Spartan swore that he could see the gears of his brain turning as he started to formulate a plan. "As for the Admiral, she's overstepped her bounds rather drastically here, and I can't help but wonder, if she's willing to pull stunts like that on something like this, what else might she be doing behind our backs? I think this should be taken as a sign that ONI has been allowed to have free reign to do what it wants for far too long. It's time for the Office of Naval Intelligence to start having the proper amount of oversight once again."

He looked up at the Master Chief and then over to the Captain. "Chief, what do you know about Section Zero?"

The Spartan thought back to all the code phrases and UNSC sub-divisions that he'd ever heard about, a frown on his face. It took him a moment, but he remembered coming across the code-phrase a few times when he and the other S-II's had been snooping around where they shouldn't have been during their training and upbringing.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes," 117 whispered softly. "Who watches the watchers? It's ONI's internal investigatory and policing force."

"It was," Hood said. "Most of their installations and personnel died during the war. But you are correct. It was long ago decided that with all the projects and top-secret materials that ONI was in charge of developing, that they should have some form of internal investigatory force, a shadow network within the organization that was dedicated to keeping it under control and its personnel from going rogue." The Admiral let out a sigh. "You would not believe the time I have had trying to put it back together."

"And it seems like we're about to get our first major test," Captain Dare muttered, and the Master Chief didn't miss the emphasis on the word 'our'.

He looked up at the Captain, then over to the Sergeant, and finally back at Admiral Hood. "How do we proceed? Do we know where Osman is?"

Hood nodded his head. "She's currently at Ever Vigilant, ONI's primary command and control station, just off Titan." He gestured towards Sentinel, and the A.I. brought up a display of the station.

The Master Chief examined the station quickly, his eyes darting back and forth over schematics and statistics. Ever Vigilant was a fortress, it seemed. Four kilometers long, half that in width and thickness, and while lacked the devastating offensive firepower of an SMAC platform, it was covered in an array of other state of the art weapons and a few "normal" MAC turrets. Heavily armored externally and internally, with most of the important parts buried at the heart of it, ONI's CIC station was clearly designed to withstand traditional assault and attack for some time. Security personnel numbered in the hundreds, as well as automated defensive turrets and other, less savory methods of dealing with intrusion and attack, and it also had Point of No Return, the Admiral's personal flagship, on station to provide close support. And there was the distinct possibility of additional defenses that might not even be on the official schematics. That would be perfectly in character for the Office of Naval Intelligence, after all.

Captain Dare leaned in a bit, her grip on her weapon tight, her body language tense, reminding 117 of a predator waiting to pounce on its prey. "Then the next question is, how do we go in and get her out. That's not something that's going to be all that easy," she muttered, looking at the readouts with a frown. "Direct assault would be possible, but the casualties would be enormous."

"It also runs the risk of the Admiral escaping in the confusion," the Master Chief said quietly. "A station of this size is going to have evacuation shuttles, and there might be other Prowlers around besides the Admiral's personal craft." He let the words hang in the air, the implications of failure settling on everyone present.

"And if Osman decides she has nothing to lose and wants to make herself Queen Bitch of a new insurgency, she could do a lot of damage," Dare muttered, tapping her boot against the floor.

An idea was forming in the Spartan's mind, one that was so crazy, so unbelievable and audacious, that it might actually work. He over the plan again, and then a third time. It wasn't perfect, but then, no plan was. And if things went wrong, as they inevitably tended to do, it was the one that could be most easily adapted and have contingencies enacted. And most important of all, someone like Serin Osman would probably never see it coming.

"Damnit… it's not like we can just waltz up and knock on the front door." Dare hissed, taking a step back from the desk.

"Why not?" 117 spoke up. For a moment he felt every eye in the room, electronic and organic fall on him. He looked up at Hood, and then over at Dare. "Ever Vigilant receives inspections, correct? To make certain that they're complying with UNSC maintenance and battle-readiness protocols? And to monitor the Huragok that are on the station?"

"Yes, they do," Hood nodded slowly as he spoke, and the Spartan could see that he was starting to understand.


The Master Chief made his way back to his Pelican, his mind going over the details of what they had discussed. Two hours had passed since he'd walked into Hood's office, and now it was time to get back to the Infinity for the next step of the plan. He made his way to the hangar bay where his bird was docked. The pilot already had the engines warmed up and ready, something that the Spartan was grateful for, as he quickly moved up the ramp. There was, however, something that surprised him: the cargo in the back. There were crates, from the floor to the ceiling, strapped in and secured. His armor ran a scan over the contents, and was surprised to find scores, hundreds, actually, of the new laser weapons. He'd expected a few models, no more than a dozen to be used one or two squads at a time until they were used to the weapons. This? This was enough firepower to turn a hab-block into a smoldering ruin.

There was a small PDA on top of one of the crates, and he moved to pick it up. It was completely blank, save for a single message: "Thought you might need all of these. Consider it insurance. –H"

He nodded to himself and wiped the PDA clean, before closing the hatch behind him and opening up a radio line to the pilot. "Take us out."

As the ship began to rise into the air his hand fell down to something else, a small package that Hood had given him. Another piece of "insurance". He frowned behind his helmet, but there was no sense putting this off any longer. He would be going into the proverbial dragon's lair soon and he'd be a fool not to use every tool that he had available. And, he reminded himself, Cortana wouldn't want him deliberately crippling himself for the sake of her memory.

He pulled out the A.I. datachip, and slipped it into the access port on his helmet. The armored port slipped down to protect the chip, and he felt a spike of pain, and for the first time in months, a cool, liquid-like sensation in his brain.

"I was wondering when you would get around to finally putting me in." Sentinel said over his internal speakers.


Sarah chewed on her lip as she found herself making her way down to the inner decks of the Infinity. Lasky was there at her side as they made their way towards the briefing room that had become the de facto headquarters for Blue Team while they trained the S-IV's.

Her left hand kept twitching and her temple throbbed slightly as she made a turn down another corridor, her mind racing to try and think of how to best handle this situation. She hadn't forgotten the Chief's reaction to finding out about her mission, and now she would be addressing four Spartan-IIs, and hoping against hope that in the four days since they'd come onboard the Infinity that they'd had a chance to calm down. She found it disturbingly akin to putting herself into an enclosure with a quartet of wild tigers while consciously aware of how much effort said cats had to take not to see her as a meal. At least… at least Tom was with her, she thought distantly. Perhaps it was the subconscious hope that his presence might make the S-II reaction to her presence more subdued, perhaps it was the simple fact that she was going to have a friend at her side during this moment of her life. All she knew was that she was grateful that he was here. She came to a stop in front of the door to the briefing room and, knowing what was waiting for her on the other side, let out a short, quick breath.

"Try to look at it this way," Lasky said as he placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked over towards him. "The S-II's are good at reading people, and they're pragmatic. If you're sincere, they're likely going to accept it. As long as there's no more trouble in the future, they'll probably let bygones be bygones." He chuckled and let a smile come to his face.

"Then it's back to business as usual," Palmer said quietly, a note of resignation in her voice.

Lasky arched an eyebrow. "I would have thought that you'd be a bit more enthusiastic about getting to train under a bunch of living legends. I thought that's what you aspired to."

Palmer let out a snort. "Hell, Captain, when I was younger, I didn't dream of being a soldier, I wanted to be the next Norman Borlaug."

Lasky paused for a moment, his face a study of confusion. "Who?"

"Agricultural scientist from back in the twentieth," she said, looking down at him. "Saved the better part of a billion people by developing new crop growing methods and ways to engineer better crops." Her expression darkened for a moment and she sighed. "Then Reach fell… the rest is history." She shook her head, ignoring the baffled look on her superior's face. She supposed it was to be expected, it wasn't as though she'd ever expressed a reluctance towards being a soldier before. Her eyes fell back on the door. Time to get this over with. Reminiscing about the past and "what might have beens" wasn't going to get her anywhere. She reached out and opened the door to the briefing room.

She stopped short as she stepped through the door and three sets of helmets were suddenly gazing at her. The trio of S-II's were reviewing yet another group's performance, but that wasn't at all surprising. What was surprising was that there was only three of them. The Master Chief was nowhere to be seen, and she felt a bit of dread. If he wasn't here, well… no backing out now. She'd just have to do this and then do a repeat later.

The three S-II's paused the feed they were watching and critiquing, and with an uncanny unity of action, rose from their seats and saluted the Captain as he came in. Lasky returned the gesture with a smile.

"Spartans, where's the Master Chief?" he asked.

"Busy." 104 said, before, to the surprise of the Commander, he extended his hand towards the Captain, and the two shook. "He extends his apologies Captain, but he wanted us to let you know he'd be back shortly."

Though their faces were covered, Sarah could detect a certain… brusqueness to their actions. It wasn't hostility towards Lasky, indeed, they seemed quite polite and respectful, but there was something about their body language that seemed to suggest that for all the respect they held for the Captain, they would rather he not be right here at this moment.

They turned towards her next, and she could feel the weight of the three gazes upon her as she clasped her hands behind her back. She was off duty, and as such wasn't wearing her armor. She was vulnerable, at their mercy, meeting them on terms where they held all the cards. 104 cocked his head to the side just slightly, and Sarah had to resist the urge to suddenly fidget.

"Is it possible you could call him up here?" Lasky ventured. "I'd like him to be here for this."

"I'm afraid not, Captain," 104 said. Lasky said nothing and his face remained neutral, but Commander Palmer suspected that he was rather confused. Not being able to be called up on a direct request from the CO of the UNSC flagship suggested that the Chief wasn't actually on the Infinity at all. In which case, the poignant questions became: how did he get off this ship without anyone, even Roland, knowing about it, and where had he gone?

"Is there something you need to tell us, Captain?" the voice of 058 cut into the Commander's thoughts, and forced her to remember why she was here. She looked back up at the three S-II's, and opened her mouth to speak.

"I owe all of you an apology…"

Off to the side, Captain Tom Lasky smiled.


Okay, that's it for Chapter Three. Hope it was enjoyable for everyone and once again, thank you all so much for taking the time to read it. Feedback, especially constructive criticism, is greatly appreciated. I'm going to try and wrap everything up in the next chapter, so that one might be a bit larger than this one. I can only hope that I can end this story on a strong, climactic note. Thanks again everyone,a nd until next time, stay safe!