Sacramento, United Republic of North America, Earth

September 14, 2558

Sacramento was the capital city of the URNA state of California. Although not as expansive as the neighbors of San Francisco and Los Angeles, it remained as large urban area center for a unique blend of culture and business.

Trip and Rachel had taken a flight on an intercolonial aircraft company from Reach that offered flights to the four busiest spaceports on Earth; Tokyo, London, New York and Sydney. Landing in New York, they only had an hour to swap craft and browse through the duty-free shop before getting on another aircraft to the nearby Los Angeles air/space port. Passing the famed Theme Building constructed during the twentieth century, they hopped on a regional jet from the LAX area and descended into Sacramento ninety minutes later. There was no space traffic that left Sacramento, so it was limited to an airport. Much of the passengers that traveled around Earth or her colonies would connect at nearby Los Angeles or San Francisco, much larger and busier hubs.

Onboard, Trip watched as the ground became closer and the small twin engine regional jet planted itself on the concrete runway. They slowed down and began taxiing to the main terminal.

"We here already?" Rachel moaned from his left. She had slept all the way though the fifty minute flight.

"Yeah. Did that bump scare you?"

"It did."

After another twenty minutes of bag collecting, they were in the lobby where Trip flashed the pass at a car rental facility that Adamant had reserved earlier. Trip didn't have much to carry and tossed his bag in the back. They drove along the airport highway as he followed the built in GPS' guidance that Rachel programmed to Beech's house and offices.

Sacramento remained relatively unchanged for centuries. While the buildings and technology were up to date, much of the lifestyle remained constant. It was one of the slowest growing in population, but one of the fastest in technology. Many software companies were headquartered in the city and nearby San Francisco's Silicon Valley.

Also present were much of California's farm fresh ideals. The state had been producing food for much of the former United States of America. California was known for its fresh foods and organic restaurants and were a common sight in Sacramento.

It was late at night when they arrived at the front of Beech's office and the security had closed the fence that surrounded the compound. Trip and Rachel rented a room at a hotel and grabbed a quick meal at an organic restaurant down the street. Both were tired from the journey and quickly fell asleep in their beds.


September 15, 2558

Trip Aegis awoke with a start, his augmented senses still running at full speed. It took him a while to calm himself down and reassure that he wasn't under any threat. The clock read ten minutes past three in the morning.

Careful as to not wake up the other person, he headed over to the hotel's balcony. Nobody was outside and he had no concerns about himself being half naked. He always slept without a shirt, whether onboard Ballista or not. He pondered the time it would be on Eudemon, probably late at night. He removed his comlink and dialed a number by memory. Normally he would have spoken a codeword that would've been programmed into the device as he did not enter any service number in the contacts list, in the event of it getting stolen from him. In any case, he would likely have had the thief pinned to the wall in such a way that any thoughts of stealing from a future victim were nonexistent.

After a few tones of ringing, the screen finally displayed a connecting sign. He stared into the screen, a grinning young man in his twenties.

"Hey boss man." First rate helmsman and electronics expert Danny Tyler greeted.

"Hello Danny." Trip knew the kid's smile was contagious, "How is the Ballista doing?"

"We're still holding orbit over Eudemon. Pyra's efforts on the human and elite police forces have paid off. So far, nobody's tried an insurgency since our arrival."

"If our presence is enough to scare off insurgents, I'm good with that."

"Hey!" A voice shouted from the back of Tyler's end of the channel, "Ask her if she has a sister or friend her age!"

Tyler whirled around, "C'mon Ril, I'm talking to,"

"Just do it."

Danny facepalmed, giving a sigh of defeat. He then turned so the second person could hear, "Commander, do you have a sister or friend near your age?"

"Wait that's the Commander?" A second face appeared next to Tyler's. In heavy contrast to his fresh, geeky appearance, Luke Riley always had some part of him in black, clothing, accessories or otherwise. Riley or Ril, the latter called by Danny, was the ship's weapons expert and responsible for Ballista's impressive arsenal, ranging from anti-aircraft point defense guns to her cutting edge magnetic accelerator cannon.

Both men were in the late half of their twenties, meeting at a conference on Reach where Riley had proposed improvements to the MAC versions outfitted on the Stalwart frigates. Although inseparable and nearly opposite ends of the spectrum, they both shared intelligence comparable to an AI as well as a friendship that Aegis knew was unlike any other. Sure, he held strong bonds with everyone in his crew and everyone did the same. However the bond between Tyler and Riley was special. Aegis speculated that they had a secret power to read each other's minds.

"Hello Riley." Trip couldn't help but smile wickedly, much to his embarrassment. "Sorry, I don't have a sister and friend wise, you can go see my associate Leah Roush or Sofia Inselton, the latter a medic so that she can fix your hearing. Would you like either of their numbers?"

"Uh that won't be necessary." Luke quickly quirked, "I have some tweaking on my games to do. Commander, I'll call you later!"

"Wow." Tyler looked back to make sure that he had left. "He's going to remember that for days."

"Perhaps scarred for life." This got a chuckle from both men. Trip then turned serious, "We're in Sacramento, searching the office for clues tomorrow morning and later I'm teaching the government spook to break into a house."

"Fun."

"Sure is. Now relating to the cause of Beech's disappearance around Imbel Alpha, I want the Ballista when she can over the colony to observe and possibly collect samples of this grey shit. Once you've obtained it, analyze it because the sooner I know what it is, the closer I can get to how Beech's shuttle disappeared and maybe his whereabouts."

"You don't think that Beech was targeted?"

Danny may have been onto something. Human/sangheili tensions were rapidly rising ever since news of the civil war on sanghelios had been made public two years after it started. Even the Arbiter's side which was allied with the UNSC had difficulty getting along with them. Highly criticized for his peacemaking ideals and atheism to the long revered gods of the Forerunners, a large group of elites decided to oust him from power. They had yet to succeed, but still maintained quite a threat to both him and humanity.

Many media outlets were already jumping to conclusions. The other day, Aegis' mind was blown by some of the reporters' stupidity. Still, they topped the daily news site headlines, "War around the corner! Can we continue to coexist with the elites or will we be forever locked in armed conflict?"

"Those reporting bastards. How they got their job still eludes me."

"I'm sorry?" He forgot Tyler was still on the other line.

"Sorry. I must have been talking to myself. Anyway, grab the samples and get back to finish our peacekeeping training. You might be right on seeing how his shuttle was targeted. Even after a freighter reported the colony seeing the silvery material expanding, I read in an honest article that it had broadcasted a warning to stay away from the colony. Obviously, the freighters and the ambassador's shuttle didn't listen. Start digging into the commercial traffic and see if you can pull anything from Beech's transport as well."

"Commander, the ONI spooks won't let us in without a legitimate reason."

"Huh, you're right. Okay, I'll get Adamant to try and pull us a couple of strings. Even if we can't figure out who's targeted him if any, we can at least find out why the shuttle vanished off the scopes."

"You got it boss man. Have fun on your date."

Before Aegis could reply, Tyler cut the connection. He sighed in defeat, observing the highway and its flowing rivers of yellow and white lights from traffic below.

"How did he know?" Tyler and Luke Riley may be computer geniuses as well as knowing technical jargon that anyone else wouldn't know half of. Tyler was a first rate helmsman, with a handling of the Ballista rivaling Aegis' own as well as his second in command's Drew Rayson. But come the opposite sex, he was literally hopeless. Three days after the affair concerning slaves on the independent colony of Flint, the Blades enjoyed leisure time in a New Alexandria bar along with a guest that Trip brought. Danny had gotten so flustered with a woman's impulsive approach that he rushed outside, faking an illness.

"Who were you speaking to?"

Rachel had awakened as well, opening the observation window quietly enough to barely evade his advanced hearing.

"My associates in our headquarters."

"Where is your workplace? You don't look like someone who sits behind a desk all day."

"Maybe when things go south, you can see." Now it was Aegis' turn to ask something. "You look lonely all the time. What is it? Someone special in your life?"

She shook her head, "I'm happily unattached at the moment."

Trip decided to brush off the conversation. "Well I'm still sleepy. I'd better get to bed."

"Yeah." Her face drew a blank when Trip turned around. She didn't know whether to be fascinated or ashamed to see his well-toned torso. If he was self-conscious of his state, he didn't show it.

The morning rose, they ate a quick breakfast before driving over to the grounds of the Beech office. Security, according to Rachel was much looser before his disappearance. There wasn't anything to hassle about. Now however, there was a full contingent of police cars that funneled traffic to entrances where they could scan those who would enter. Beech shared the building with an office of a leasing company. The Spartan IV didn't have any weapons on him, so he had nothing to fear. They were waved in. Before entering, he had noticed a black van of Special Weapons and Tactics or SWAT team operatives ready to storm the building if necessary.

Before even knowing what the office would yield, he knew that searching here would have been a waste of time. So he merely obliged, watching as Rachel scrolled through his computer and files. Aside from the janitor who told him how to lock the door when they left, there was nobody else.

Trip's comlink buzzed and he answered, "Aegis."

"Commander, we've just arrived at Imbel Alpha. From what the reports are saying, it's completely covered in this grey stuff." It was his second in command and best friend Drew Rayson. Rayson was a former UNSC Army Engineer before starting the Blades with Trip. Without his number two, Aegis had little doubt that he would have gone out of business years ago.

"Have you secured samples for analysis?"

"We're trying, but it's scattered and if the grey is related to his disappearance, I don't want us to share the same fate."

"Keep me updated." He closed the channel before regarding Morand. "Any luck?"

"None. There wasn't even any notes about his return from Hesduros."

Trip sighed, "Do you know what shuttle he was using?"

"No." She looked back at him quizzically "Why?"

"Because I know where we can find that,"

An hour later, they continued up the northeastern side of Sacramento. The further out they drove, the more suburban the landscape was becoming. Tall buildings were now being replaced by fields of fresh crops and single story houses. While still in close proximity to a large metropolitan area, it was remarkably quiet. The people were easygoing and much more laid back than the frantic rush of too many cities that Aegis had been to. Sometimes the food was better too, after having a classic of American culture hamburger, California style.

Beech's house was massive, with a ranch style single story home blanketed by a huge lawn adorned with a rainbow of flowers. No security was present here, rather inside as defense systems.

Trip knelt at the door of the house, taking out a conventional lockpick. It took him a little while to figure it out, but he gave the small object a jerk upwards and the door's locking mechanism snicked open. Normal locks, although considered somewhat primitive, could be much more reliable due to their rarity, as electronic locks were much more common and thus thieves had ways of overriding that and not a more traditional one. Technically, they were not supposed to enter the house.

Upon opening the door, the house still held its clean appearance, despite Beech having been left it for more than a month. There wasn't even a layer of dust on the model of a UNSC cruiser that stood in the wide atrium of the house.

Locating his private office, Trip sat down, operating the computer while Rachel searched through the file cabinets. With his faint idea, Trip accessed the government webpage. Beech must have been an auto-entry kind of individual, as the facial scan and passwords were already entered. He was wondering if the computer actually wanted him to access the files.

Searching through his messages, he first came to the transport department area and filtered that out. Only one message had fallen on a few days before his disappearance. He clicked it, instantly getting the confirmation of the shuttle's flight to pick him up.

"Got it!"

Away from his field of view, a shimmering distortion shifted to the office area.


Well they found somewhat of a lead to the ambassador's disappearance! Something's brewing out there and it ain't good!

Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone. You give my writing purpose.