AN: Hey, guys. Been a while, huh? My bad. :\ This chapter is also a bit filler-ish, but fear not! Next chapter should detail the beginnings of Ace's future with ONI! Also, Thank you to all reviewers, including the guests MysByTheNight and Guest for leaving reviews! :D

Chapter Fourteen: Hear Anything You Say

Ace had debated whether or not to tell Hastati that ONI was. . . commandeering her. Eventually, she opted to gather them up in one of the mostly empty cargo holds to explain the situation at least partially. Kelly – 087 – hovered nearby, despite Ace's urgings for her to remain with her own team.

"What's going on, Black?" Orenski asked, eying her suspiciously, "You don't usually do this." 'This' being dragging them to isolated areas, that is.

"I'm not usually in a position to have to do this," Ace replied calmly, settling into a corner with Hastati arraying themselves nearby.

"What?" Silva wondered, brow furrowing in confusion, "What do you mean by that?" JunJie, Walter, and Lasky seemed to be equally confused.

"I'm not going to be able to stay with you guys," the clone explained gently, "I'm told that I'm to get off at Reach, with Blue Team."

"What?" Silva nearly screeched, incredulity clear, "Why? You're a cadet!"

Ace nodded solemnly, letting her shoulders droop. "I know, but those are my orders. I don't know why, only that I have to. Colonel Hughes – the ONI agent that debriefed me – said that it's classified."

"Who else is going, do you know?" Orenski asked, a scowl tilting down her lips. Ace shook her head, rolling her shoulders in a shrug.

"He won't tell me anything else," she explained, "The only ones I know for sure are coming are 087, 104, and 117 – the three soldiers that were with us on the pelican." Of course, there were more SPARTANs onboard the Nevermore, but Ace wasn't supposed to know that. The operatives were kept separate from the rest of the personnel onboard.

"That's bullshit," Walter snarled, slamming a fist onto the deckplates. It had to have hurt him, but he ignored it. "You're our squadmate! If you get pulled out at Reach, we should, too!" Ace certainly didn't disagree, but she would very much rather that her squad stay as far away from ONI operations as possible.

"I'm sorry," she apologized softly, lacking anything else to say.

"It's not your fault," Lasky assured, a small smile being directed at her.

"Of course it isn't!" Silva snapped, "It's ONI, isn't it? Who knows what the hell they're planning on doing with her!" Ace glanced at the younger woman, startled by the vehemence in her voice. Usually, people didn't dislike ONI so much.

"Whoa, Silva. Where did that come from?" Orenski asked, a cautious tone in her voice and her eyes flinty.

"I heard the general talking to you, Kelly. I heard him cautioning you to stay away from the ONI at Corbulo. What's really going on?" Silva demanded, ignoring Orenski for the moment.

Ace grimaced, looking away from her squad. Her father had warned her multiple times. It must have occurred in one of the hallways, perhaps after her scores had begun to slip. It shouldn't have happened.

With a sigh and a weak shrug, she offered up a half truth, "The only thing I can think of is the Black Button Malfunction that I had as a kid, but I'm not sure why ONI would care so much about it. It's just a really rare illness, isn't it?"

"I've been looking into that. There was an apparent outbreak of BBM, with hundreds of children being affected in the past twenty years," Sully chimed in, a thoughtful frown in place, "And it was virtually unheard of before then."

The other clones, Ace realized with a start. She hadn't known that ONI had actually chosen 'BBM' to cover for the mass deaths caused by clone failure. "Really? There were others?" she asked, wincing at how hoarse her voice had come out as.

"Yup. You must be one of the only survivors." Another grimace was drawn from the clone.

'I'm coming in,' Kelly stated, already moving.

Don't, Ace ordered instantly, Why would you? They don't know anything about –

'Exactly. How many of your memories are they dragging up? I can feel your pain, sister, our bond allows that.'

The witch's lips flicked down in a scowl. Of course discussing this was going to cause pain. You don't need to protect me from my own squad, she grumbled, And the pain will go away. So would the guilt, eventually. It would just take Ace time to come to terms with the fact that she had forgotten about all of the other clones, for however brief a time it had been. Kelly settled back, grumbling quietly. A few pointed foreign curses were occasionally directed in the vague area of their bond, but there wasn't any heat behind the insults.

Zoning back into what Hastati was doing – namely them prodding at Sully for bringing up bad memories for Ace – she let out a forlorn sigh. "Your inter-system comm addresses haven't changed, have they?" she asked, interrupting the group.

"What? Oh, no, they should be the same – at least our personal ones should be. Our Corbulo ones. . . I don't know if they'll work anymore," Orenski hesitantly offered, shrugging helplessly. The witch nodded, accepting that, though she personally thought that just because the institution was gone that it was unlikely its ISC were disabled. Of course, she didn't know much about the way of communications in this life beyond mission comms.

'At least you have those,' Kelly murmured quietly.

Yeah. At least I have those. Hopefully ONI won't completely isolate me from them, the clone mused just as quietly, internally wincing a moment later as she realized how that could have come out. Sorry. I'm nervous about this.

'Of course you are. I'm nervous about this, and I'm not the one they're ordering to heel,' the SPARTAN stated matter-of-factly.

Here's hoping, Ace offered up.

'Here's hoping,' the other agreed.

AN: Just a quick note on the ISC: Largely like email addresses for civilian communications, but still takes a bit to go from one system to another, unlike the near-instant for IAPC – intra-planetary communications – and IASC – intra-system communications (Which includes inter-planetary communications). (Colloquial: ISC: isk; IAPC: yapac; IASC: yasac ) Also, yeah, probably not going to be brought up again much, if at all, in the future. Just a bit of background for how civilians from various planets might communicate.

Anyway, please leave a review on your way out! :D