Chapter Six

Spartan-B124, interior of Newport bunker complex. 0730 Hours, February 12, 2553 (Military Calendar)

There was nobody brave or foolish enough to take on a Spartan, even one that was sleeping, and Scott woke up the next morning no more worse for wear than when he walked in, quickly gathering his equipment up and heading out to meet with Dale one last time before he left for the next enclave of human survivors to tell them the good news, and offer the same help to the Elites in their midst. There was also the question of figuring out just who had sent the encoded signal, and to whom it was they were sending it.

Scott would have asked Dale or even Swanson earlier but the events of the previous day had kept him too occupied to speak with them, and when he finally got a chance to the mood had changed considerably once the revelation of humanity's alliance with the Elites came to light. He actually doubted Dale or someone affiliated with him was responsible for sending the message given it was broadcasting on Covenant frequencies as well, but that didn't rule out the possibility of it being some small cell operating independently of the bunker towards some unknown goal.

He shrugged mentally and stepped out of his loaned apartment to see what passed for an early morning in the bunker. It was sparsely populated with people, guards mostly judging by the armour and weapons they carried and the slow, meandering routes they were taking, and dimly lit by soft orange lights designed to emulate a sunrise as a way of gently waking people up for another day of surviving underground. Already he could hear a subdued hubbub of people waking up and performing whatever morning rituals they had echoing across the concrete walls.

One or two residents were early risers and Scott could see them walking off to a destination only they knew, their gazes diverting on occasion to his hulking figure as he stood by the balcony looking out. Some still sported their hateful looks but most wore resigned expressions at having accepted the bad news Scott had brought with him and that he had no part in deciding them.

He set off after a moment of watching them, following the rudimentary signs to Dale's office and knocking three times once he arrived at the door. It opened a minute later to reveal the ORION Project veteran dressed in his take on civilian attire of a plain white T-shirt and faded black combat trousers.

Dale craned his neck upwards to meet Scott's gaze, his bones popping audibly in the process, and said, 'Ah, Commander. You're awake. I was just about to send a runner to fetch you. Please, come in.'

He stepped to one side and gestured for Scott to join him, the Spartan complying and ducking under the doorway to enter Dale's quarters once again. It hadn't changed much since yesterday barring the appearance of a plain metal table and several seats, one bearing hasty reinforcements to support an increased amount of weight.

'I was hoping we could have a meal together before you left,' Dale said as he moved to stand beside Scott. 'End your visit here on something of a high note.'

'I wouldn't want to intrude, sir,' Scott said.

'Nonsense,' Dale said, placing a hand on his back in something of a vain attempt to usher him along. 'Despite the... unfortunate news you brought, Commander, you've given the people here hope once more, and they are thankful for it. Even if they don't show it.'

Scott hesitated as he looked down at the table and its numerous settings, enough to contain the higher-ups of the bunker presumably, only to relent and allowed Dale to guide him to the reinforced seat positioned in the middle of the table. It would have been rude to decline his offer, and given the delicate atmosphere within the bunker it might have been ruinous to do so. The people here were already beginning to have doubts about the UNSC coming to rescue them following his revelation about the Elites yesterday, Scott was sure of that, so he needed to avoid giving them any more fodder for any growing rebellions that might be forming.

He eased himself down into the chair and removed his helmet, stowing it beneath the seat as Dale assumed his position at the head of the table which, as though rehearsed beforehand, was followed by the door into his apartment opening to allow around a dozen or so individuals entry, Swanson amongst them, who took their places around the table with minimal fuss or arguing over who was going to sit where. Perhaps the seating arrangements had gotten sorted the night before so as to avoid causing a scene before the bunker's saviour, or maybe there was some unwritten hierarchy Scott didn't know about.

When everyone was sat, he found himself sitting between the bunker's chief engineer and the food manager, and across from the head of the education department. All three were old enough to have memories of the world above but young enough that the majority of their lives had been spent underground, with the pale skin typical of bunker residents but with a vague hint of an old tan. The eldest was the chief engineer, Maria, who was a little over thirty-five years of age whilst the youngest was Kane, the food manager, who was only twenty-eight. Elaine, the principal or dean of the schools, sat right in the middle of them.

'I'm something of a cross between a warehouse manager and a farmer, really,' Kane said. 'Our storage complexes only held enough food to keep us going for ten years all told, plus what we could scavenge from the others whilst the trams were still viable transport options, so we had to learn about agriculture and building underground greenhouses pretty quickly. I'd say about thirty to forty percent of the food we're eating is home grown now and we're aiming to increase that all the way to a hundred.

'Well, I guess that was the aim considering you're here now, and help is coming, but ultimately we wanted to be totally self sufficient.'

'Too bad we didn't have any livestock,' Maria said as she reached for a cup of coffee. 'I wouldn't have minded living here for the rest of my life if we had a steady supply of fresh meat and milk to have. Eating the same few vegetables and fruits for the remainder of my life did not sound appealing.'

'You've never met a vegetarian, then,' Elaine said. 'They can live their whole lives on nothing but stuff that grows in the ground.'

'Yeah, but they've got a wider variety to choose from,' Maria said. 'We've got maybe ten different types down here with us, despite Kane's attempts at cross pollination.'

'Plant breeding,' Kane corrected. 'And what we're attempting to do is increase the yields of our plants so that we have more food. Creating new types of plants with new flavours and textures requires both specialised equipment and people with degrees in the fields of biology and genetics, things we are sorely lacking.'

'Don't blame me for that one,' Elaine said. 'I'm only able to work with what I've got, the same as you.'

'No, no, I'm not saying you're to blame,' Kane said, holding a hand up by way of apology. 'I'm just saying, what Maria is suggesting we do is beyond us at the moment. Hell, the fact we've managed to accomplish what we have done is nothing short of a miracle considering the fact none of us had much of an agricultural background when we set out. It's taken a lot of trial and error, plus what we could glean from the bunker's records, to get this far.'

He gestured at the meal they were eating and all the natural ingredients it contained, mainly jams made from fruits and berries, and potatoes made into several different dishes. Whatever meat on the plate was, as Maria had pointed out, not fresh and came from the stored foodstuffs the residents of Newport had stashed away inside their bunker as part of their disaster response plan. Time had not been kind to the meat despite advances in food storage and preservation, but it was still edible and Scott subscribed to the military adage of eating when he could, because the next chance he got might not be for a long while.

As it happened, his plate was the biggest in terms of both area and contents, being twice as big as everyone else's and piled twice as high with food, and the Spartan was methodically working his way through it all between answering questions or asking them out of politeness. Despite the relaxed atmosphere of the room, he couldn't help but feel everybody was putting the act on in an effort to disguise the fact they were still conflicted about the UNSC-Elite alliance. Their smiles seemed just a little too forced, and they seemed to be purposefully avoiding talking about it with him.

'How are you finding it all, Commander?' Kane asked. 'Everything to your liking?'

'Yes,' Scott said. 'It's fine.'

'Just fine?' Kane said.

'Yes,' Scott said again. 'Why?'

'Well, I was just wondering what you thought of the food. The fresh stuff, I mean. It came from my farms, after all, and I'm curious about how it stacks up against other things you've eaten.'

'Oh,' the Spartan said before offering a shrug. 'I'm not really one for taking note of that sort of stuff. Once you've spent seven years living off MREs and survival rations, you tend to stop taking note of flavour. So long as the meal is filling enough to keep me combat ready another few hours or days, it's done the job I need it to do.'

'That sounds like a terrible way to live,' Kane said. 'What's the point of anything if you don't stop to enjoy the little things in life?'

'When you're a Spartan, simply having a chance to eat a meal is luxury enough,' Scott said. 'There have been numerous occasions where I've gone for three days without a proper meal, just water and stims, because of a relentless Covenant attack. You start to enjoy different things based on what your life entails.'

Kane opened his mouth to speak but elected against it, giving a half-hearted shrug and resigned sigh instead as Elaine said, 'Besides, you just grew them, Kane. The people who should be asking if the Commander enjoyed their meal are the cooks who actually prepared it. They're the real stars of the show.'

The food manager just pouted at that and looked away, picking away at his meal with mild annoyance as Elaine tried her best to hide a faint smile behind her cup of coffee. She flashed a wink at Scott who gave her a blank stare back, unsure of what it meant. If the head of the bunker's education was put off by his lack of a response she didn't show it, putting her cup back down as she continued to speak.

'Did they teach you many cooking skills as part of your training, Commander?' Elaine asked.

'Not overly,' Scott said with a shake of his head. 'I know the basics of food preparation and cooking, but only insofar as it applies to survival skills and preparing MREs. There was never any intention for Spartans to become culinary specialists, or any other rating not tied directly to fighting. We're combat infantry through and through.'

'I see,' Elaine said. 'Are there any non-combat ratings you might like to try your hand at?'

'No,' Scott said after a moment to think. 'The majority of the remaining ratings are mainly to do with running a ship or forming part of the support staff, and I'm too used to being on the frontlines to consider switching.'

'And how long has that been?'

'Since 2545,' Scott said. 'Not including time spent in cryo.'

'Eight whole years?' Maria said with an awed whisper. 'Wow. And you fought the Covenant that whole time?'

Scott shook his head. 'No. We still had to contend with Insurrectionists during the war. I led my team against numerous cells on a dozen or so different planets, Reach included.'

Kane's eyes widened in surprise at that as he said, 'They didn't side with the UNSC when the Covenant showed up?'

'No,' Scott said. 'Well, some did. Others clung to their beliefs even as the Outer Colonies were glassed and the Covenant moved in towards Earth. I've heard old rumours that some cells attempted to negotiate with the Covenant, offering the location of Earth or other vital colonies, in exchange for being left alone.'

'You can't be serious,' Maria said. 'They thought they could negotiate with them?'

The Spartan nodded and said, 'This was during the opening months and years of the war. People thought the Covenant were just fighting the UNSC, not that they were after humanity as a whole, so they attempted to form some kind of alliance with them.'

'I'm guessing it didn't end well,' Maria said.

'No,' Scott said. 'It didn't.'

'How about today?' Elaine asked. 'Are they still trying to form partnerships with the Covenant? Or, what remains anyway.'

'Some are,' Scott said with a half shrug. 'Venezia apparently has a moderate population of former Covenant members living and working alongside active Insurrectionists. They trade weapons and equipment, including ships, which gets distributed to their allies across the colonies.'

'So the Insurrection is going to heat up again,' Kane said.

'Yes,' Scott said. 'By some accounts, it's already flared up, only now we might see former Covenant members fighting alongside them, rather than against them.'

'Is that going to make your job any more difficult than it was?'

Scott paused and thought about that one for a moment, of Insurrectionists equipped with plasma weaponry and piloting ships protected by energy shielding, and said, 'In the long term, no. Despite the massive amount of Covenant equipment going up for grabs, the logistical support base needed to maintain and replace it has gone. The majority of their heavier support weapons and ground vehicles were manufactured on High Charity, their mobile capital, and that was reported destroyed back in November.

'Even if they do somehow acquire manufacturing abilities, their numbers will be too low to make any meaningful difference in battle and sooner or later, ONI will find their source and destroy it.'

'Yeah,' Kane said. 'But Innies armed with plasma rifles. Doesn't that seem a little daunting?'

'Not overly,' Scott said. 'I've fought a few Innies equipped with Covenant weapons before, and they tended to act more aggressively and recklessly than their comrades armed with traditional weapons because they think they're superior to ballistic weapons.'

'Aren't they?' Elaine said.

'No,' Scott replied with a shake of his head. 'Not in my opinion, at least. About the only advantage they have over human weapons is damage dealt on a shot per shot basis, and even that can be offset by careful aiming. They don't have integrated sights or ammo counters, they can only manage a few seconds of continuous fire before overheating, and the bolts become cooler and slower the further they travel before dissipating entirely after maybe two-hundred metres.

'I think the only reason the Covenant were able to come this close to winning the war was because their ships were superior to ours, and could easily win the space battles which were, ultimately, the primary deciding factor in a colony's fate. There no end of times where we'd managed to retake the ground, only for command to pull us out because the skies belonged to the Covenant.'

'Just like here,' Maria said quietly.

'Yes.'

'But that's all going to change now,' Kane said. 'I mean, if they try again we'll be able to fight them off more successfully. Right?'

'I believe so,' Scott said with a nod. 'We have both large caches of Covenant equipment and the time necessary to properly reverse engineer it for our own purposes. Some of the new ship designs being built have energy shields as standard, including the Marathon replacements. Any further space battles should be less uneven now.'

'Should?' Elaine said.

'The enemy has the capacity to learn and improve, too, though by some accounts they lack the technological capacity to do so, and will remain like that for the foreseeable future.'

There were smiles all around when he said that, some faint and some broader, and it took a moment for Scott to realise the rest of the table had stopped their own conversations to listen to him speak on the Covenant's capabilities, past and present, and apparently wholeheartedly agreed with him. He stared at them all in turn for a brief moment then went back to his food as everyone resumed speaking, once more dodging the sensitive subjects with their forced smiles back in place.

Spartan-B124, interior of Newport bunker complex. 0901 Hours, February 12, 2553 (Military Calendar)

Stepping back into the dark tunnels was more depressing than it should have been after spending the previous day in the bunker, the lack of life and light even more apparent than it already was, but Scott squelched that feeling as he made his way over the numerous cinderblock barricades the survivors had erected in the tunnel. They had given him a mixed send off, some cheering and waving enthusiastically whist others had put in the minimum effort required. Others still had offered just blank faces as the Spartan departed for the tunnels.

He cast a glance back at them, offering a short wave of farewell and thanks, and scanned the assorted faces with concern. His news had to have caused some kind of division within the bunker's residents over whether they should accept the UNSC's aid, or even its rule after aligning with the Elites, which could in turn lead to revolts amongst the population over what they really should be doing. Might any malcontents try to seize power or strike out on their own to form some new, localised cell of the Insurrection?

'Are you able to access their cameras remotely?' Scott asked Tara.

'No,' she said. 'They've modified the system so that it's local access only. We have to be within range of their network for me to gain access. Why?'

'I'd like to know if things take a turn for the worst there,' he said. 'We gave them some pretty upsetting news and I'm concerned about what kind of repercussions it might lead to, and in turn having some sort of early warning system in place wouldn't be a bad thing.'

'Repercussions like what?'

'The formation of groups with hostile intents towards us and the UNSC, either in the form of an Insurrection affiliated group coming into being or the council being usurped and replaced with a party that rallies the bunker against Earth for their crimes of allying with the Elites. If enough of them swing around to that way of thinking, and if they have enough armaments, they could feel confident enough to try and eliminate us.'

'To what end, though?' Tara said. 'If they do attack us, they'd be treated as enemies by the UNSC and subject to imprisonment in a much smaller box than this bunker. Even if they do best us somehow, I can always leave a message in the bunker's systems that plays only when it detects Marine IFFs telling them about what happened.'

'People don't always think and act rationally when they're emotional,' Scott said. 'Especially when they're angry. Long term planning tends to vanish once their blood is up.'

'Still,' Tara said. 'It is something of a stretch to think the bunker's residents will come after you with hostile intentions, Commander.'

'Hope for the best, plan for the worst,' Scott said. 'That's what's kept me alive so far.'

Spartan-B124, interior of Newport bunker complex. 1548 Hours, February 12, 2553 (Military Calendar)

A mixture of jammed doors and partially collapsed tunnels made what was supposed to be an easy trek into an exercise of doubling back and crawling through tight, confined spaces, at times through gaps so narrow Scott had to deactivate his shields just to make himself thin enough, and even then he felt the rough concrete scraping against his bare armour. If there was ever a time for hostile forces to attack him it would have been then, stuck between two immoveable objects and with his assault rifle on one side only. Massed fire and grenades would have finished him off quickly enough.

The corridor leading up to the northernmost residential complex was devoid of the signs of battle, old or recent, and there were no cinderblock barriers or partially shut doors to impede the Spartan's progress, just a tunnel approximately one mile in length that ran straight and true, which struck Scott as odd considering the people here had just as much of a reason to fortify their new home as those under Dale had, perhaps more so considering the Covenant remnants would see them as heretics worthy of nothing more than total eradication.

But there was nothing, only an empty corridor that looked just as abandoned as the rest of the bunker. Here and there were faded marks in the concrete from something that had gotten dragged along, a crate maybe filled with supplies or a heavy piece of equipment, but the thick layer of dust sitting atop it suggested this had happened a long time ago.

'Not quite as prepared here, are they?' Tara said, mirroring the Spartan's own thoughts.

'No,' he said. 'Not at all.'

'Any idea why?'

'A few,' Scott said. 'Perhaps the Covenant remnants got to them before they could properly establish themselves, and are now inhabiting this location as well as the reactor, or Dale's group used up everything during their reinforcement of their complexes, leaving this group nothing to use.'

'Possibly,' Tara said. 'Though they should have found at least something to fortify their home. This is just asking for trouble.'

'Maybe,' Scott said as he kept walking.

He slowed his pace when he got to within the last few hundred metres of the tram station sitting atop the complex, debating on whether or not he should activate his helmet's torches to give whatever sentries were present some warning he was here. On the one hand, these people were supposedly still loyal to the UNSC if they were anything like those in Dale's bunker so it was unlikely they'd open fire on him, but at the same time it was likely they were the ones responsible for transmitting the coded message that had brought him here in the first place.

Though it was being sent on human frequencies, they weren't official UNSC channels and protected by an encryption scheme unfamiliar to them, suggesting it might possibly be Insurrectionist related and they saw Spartans as Earth's thugs who were sent to enforce their will on the galaxy. If that were the case, they'd open fire on him without a moment's hesitation and prepare themselves for an invasion by Marines. Turning his lights on would be tantamount to painting a giant bullseye on himself and inviting all manner of hostile fire.

As it happened, there didn't seem to be any sentries posted on the entrance when Scott closed to within one hundred metres, suggesting the people here had gotten themselves wiped out, or moved to a new location, but rather than feel at ease Scott found himself on edge. That little voice in the back his mind was whispering about a potential threat and he shouldered his rifle in response, panning it across the space in front of him with swift movements, one eye on his motion tracker.

He entered the tram station at a crawl, assault rifle panning from left to right, but saw nothing beyond darkness and dust and tram cars that hadn't moved in years. There wasn't anything to hear either, just silence and his own controlled breathing as he crabbed sideways out of the tunnel, keeping something solid at his back to prevent anything from sneaking up on him, assuming there actually was something here.

There must have been as, without warning, a stream of plasma appeared from nowhere and headed straight for the Spartan who ducked and dodged away on reflex, catching only a smattering of rounds that made his shields glow from the impact. He recovered and aimed his rifle in the direction the plasma came from, seeing a faint shimmering in the air atop one of the trams typical of an Elite using active camouflage.

Rather than wait for a second volley to come his way, Scott centred his rifle on the cloaked Elite and opened fire with a measured burst of his own.