UNSC Ballista

In orbit around Saturn

November 2, 2558

Trip settled on a pair of headphones and turned to face the main screen. Turning to Tongju, he gave a nod, signaling the Korean to establish a connection.

"The moment Chancellor tries to get a lock on our position, you cut it."

"Got it sir."

"Wepps, arm a pod of Archers and prepare to lock and fire on my mark."

"It'll be ready. You have my word on that." Luke sat down at his station and readied his captain's orders.

"Patch it through."

The screen projector faded out, posting an image of a freshly groomed young man in his mid to late twenties. He wore a lavish looking indigo bathrobe that looked formal even if it was nighttime wear. In his hand was a crystal flute that had golden bubbling champagne. Aegis was surprised that he didn't have a cat in his lap or a blonde in his arm. Even more surprising was the fact that his face had been unscathed.

Yet the other person recognized him almost immediately. His deep blue eyes were burning with an overwhelming lust for vengeance. Five years ago, he saw those same eyes in person and that fire inside was anything but extinguished.

"Ah!" Chancellor chuckled, "Look who it is! The old man himself! Still being ONI's lap-dog nowadays?"

The familiarity started to come back to Trip. Aside from being hell-bent on revenge on him, Ethan had changed very little, even his physical appearance wasn't too aged, save for the hints of a beard on his chin. Last time he saw him, he almost had a full one, so it was likely he had recently shaved.

"Wait until you're my age kid." Aegis shot back with a sly grin of his own, knowing the nickname would irk him, "You seem to have embraced the perks of a bachelor. What's her name?"

"Whatever you say. Are you going to get the hell out of my way or do I have to swat you out?"

"Hey," The Commander held up his hands in compliance, "I thought you wanted to have a talk?"

"We have nothing to discuss about,"

"Well I do have a question for you. What is it you wanted with Doctor Halsey's journal?"

"How did you know I had it?"

"I'm ONI's lap-dog remember? You said it yourself."

Chancellor sighed, "I have a project that I am working on and I believe that Doctor Halsey has discovered the missing elements. New for my corporate enterprise."

"Should've known you were going into business. Didn't think you'd go to the lengths of attacking ONI directly to get a head start."

"Wasn't much left for me to do after I'm supposedly dead. You of all people should know that." He set down his flute and reached into his robe. Parting it, he showed his bare chest where two circular scars could be seen just by the sternum on his right breast. "See that? You did that to me and left me for dead. You don't have much room for forgiveness."

"Same applies to you. Those agents you killed had wives, children, families. You really think you'll be forgiven when you're on your knees before Serin? After you killed dozens of her men?"

"Osman can burn in hell for all I care," Chancellor spat, "Even after surviving Sanghelios, I managed to put in a distress call. Long distance though, I asked for an extraction, saying that I was alive. You know what I got?" He paused, "Instead of a craft coming to bring me to the Point with treatment and debriefing, I got an earful of excuses. Can't risk extracting because the elites would know the UNSC was involved. Only you and I know the truth."

"The operation was fucked from the start! I tried to tell them that."

"Even in your standing as a senior agent, those concerns were ignored. And they pumped you full of drugs to shut you up!"

"Well what happens when you protest against the head of ONI? You either get killed or imprisoned for the rest of your life with a forgotten legacy. Do you want either to happen to you?"

"Not if I do it to them first."

Aegis raised an eyebrow. Was his former friend and student this delirious? "There are thousands more after me. This is a lost cause kid! You really want to commit to it?"

"Listen to me old man, you shot me twice, but for once, let's just pretend it was something in the past. As much as I hate you right now, I'm not going to waste my time in trying to dispose of your stupid ship. So," He folded his arms together, "How about this? I know you're cloaked and hiding inside the ring like the coward you are, so uncloak and jump into slipspace. I'll power down my weapons since I don't want to see your old ass ever again. We'll just leave it at that. But the second you and your group of thugs interfere with my affairs or activities, I will do the same to you as you have done to me." He tapped his chest, "And then, I'll make sure it's done the right way."

"You're not harming anyone else."

"There's people I have to do this to and it's not just Naval Intelligence. If you're going to stand in my way, I will come at you with all the firepower I muster. Even if you survive, I'm going to make your life chaotic."

"Then do it." Aegis declared, "Start your absurd crusade for revenge with me and my crew. You better enjoy it while it lasts because from your standpoint, there will be no turning back."

He seemed to have set the flames of revenge even stronger and Chancellor had begun to shake slightly since he knew that Aegis had finally gotten under his skin and irritated him enough to snap.

"Oh and by the way," Trip interrupted before Ethan could terminate the connection, "I'd figure out how to lock-on with those plasma torpedoes. If that barrage hit Ballista, she'd be finished."

Kanclers

Chancellor rubbed his temples and pounded his fist on the side of his chair in frustration. Even hardened by five years, he was still susceptible and had been made a fool by his former mentor.

He considered multiple things, going to Estelle Heidi for comfort, but she had given him all he desired. Now, no longer did he see the benefit of having her around except to use his resources. It was time to find a new woman to suit his needs.

At the same time, he should probably get to dealing with Aegis. Even now, standing on opposite sides of the field, part of him seemed to care for the younger man. He wondered if Trip had felt any regret.

There was no point in feeling any of that now. All that mattered was making all of those who made him suffer pay for what they had done.

Doctor Halsey's journal had given the final pieces of his work and it was finally complete.

A seventh-generation AI.

This feat was accomplished by nobody as of yet. Artificial intelligences were categorized in two categories; Smart and Dumb.

Dumb AIs were far from their designation of being mentally impaired. Essentially the evolution of supercomputers, these constructs were created from conventional programming methods. Their uses were much more limited than their expensive counterparts, although they were capable of performing much more difficult tasks in greater numbers than any human or computer. Dumb AIs could function as long as needed and their uses went to things that did not demand for strong-decision making. Thus, these intelligences were not to be used in UNSC Navy ships as their primary assistant.

On the other hand, Smart AIs were much more valuable. Being without limitations in their memory processing matrix, they are capable of learning from their surroundings. Constructed by scanning a human brain, the process was done usually after whomever was already dead.

Doctor Halsey had rewritten how to make the next AIs and the idea of flash cloning her own brain to use in assembling the AI. Chancellor had done the same, although he was only able to perform it twice, essentially creating two AIs of the seventh generation. Using a flash cloned brain of a living host was illegal for the practice, but there was nobody here to attempt arresting Ethan.

At least not yet.

Even though Chasseur had only completed two prototypes, it wouldn't be long before he reached a mass manufacturing plant where he could receive brains from dead donors and sell these valuable constructs to the highest bidders. The makeup was surprisingly simple to him, all he needed was just a direction to compile its dynamic capabilities.

ONI had probably been tipped off to his treachery by Aegis…the asshole. His facilities were probably raided with all personnel connected to him arrested and probably detained, never to see the light of day again without duress. No matter. He would flee to a haven of outlaws and reestablish his foothold there. Several of these new seventh generation AIs would serve on his side to unleash a new type of attack that Naval Intelligence would not be able to combat, even with their best warriors; both physical and digital.

His thoughts trained to Estelle Heidi. Although he saw no more use for her as of a companion, she could make an excellent donor to a third brain.

Chancellor had Arcc commanding the ship to deal with Ballista as he made ready to prepare his third AI. The other two had yet to be tested and sat on the tables of his workshop, inside a pair of data crystal chips. The brains he had cloned from himself had now dissolved in an acidic basin since he did not want anyone to gleam anything from them. Not even his closest associates.

Ironically a situation like this would leave him to trust nobody, except Aegis. He could have been a close confidant to this kind of sensitive information. However to him, the incident had left them as "dead" to one another. All Aegis did was shame him and then took all credit for salvaging the operation.

There was nothing he could do to redeem himself from that. He must die…like the rest of ONI.

Ballista

"The Kanclers is here." Drew pointed to a position on the holotank on the main bridge, "We're here dodging asteroids and can make a quick exfil once we reach the end."

"We go into slipspace, we'll be noticed." Aegis said.

"We could warm up Archers to distract him."

"His shields are going to be warmed up already. We fire on him; we give up our exact position, not to mention deactivating the cloak."

"I know that Trip," Drew piped up, "But what alternatives do we have?"

Aegis couldn't think of one just yet, but some bits of concept were coming to his mind.

"We're going to do a Keyes Loop." He declared. Turning to Danny, "How long can you prepare a jump to Earth?"

"Less than a minute. While we're performing the Loop, we can make the jump. No promises we'll accidentally jump into the planet though, the gravity can get a little dicey."

"What are you thinking?" Drew asked, more curious than concerned. His best friend had brilliant ideas when it came to battle tactics, although some of them were borderline insane.

"Chancellor's positioned his ship far enough that his torpedoes have ample time to track Ballista. We do a Keyes Loop, utilize our emergency thrusters to avoid them."

"And then use his own payload against him," Drew finished. "You think Danny can pull it off?"

"I'll be the one performing the action."

"What about Vaal?" His number two asked, "If we destroy the ship and he's on it, he's as good as gone!"

"You think I don't know that? Right now we've got bigger fish to fry."

"Bigger fish?" Drew shook a finger at him, "You're willing to sacrifice our friend to satisfy your vendetta?"

"No. It's not a vendetta." Trip said, "Vaal's my friend too and if Chancellor does get away, I can't comprehend what he will do. Anyone could be the target, ONI or civilian. So yes, I don't want to sacrifice Vaal's life for an affair that was caused by me, but it's what he would do. It's what brothers do for each other."

Nicknamed after the famous naval commander who first used the concept at Sigma Octanus IV, the Keyes Loop involved using the plasma torpedo's tracking ability against its own user.

The RCS-class cruiser utilized the same variant mounted on the Covenant destroyers and were capable of tracking locked targets from a very distant range. They could also manually be guided by operators in case specific parts of an enemy ship were to be disabled.

The tactic involved a sudden evasion of the primary volley by the emergency thrusters to jettison the ship out of the immediate path. The torpedoes that missed, would loop around and reacquire the target. Now he would then head straight for the enemy ship, grazing past it and with the payload following, would hit its own launcher.

"Hope you know what you're doing Commander." Drew said, using Aegis' formal rank.

"So do I." Trip sat himself inside the command seat, "Here we go. Everyone might want to strap themselves in."

Here we go! Up next is some ship-to-ship action, a confrontation and maybe even a recall on where things began to wither away between our Commander and Agent Chancellor!

Just pre-ordered my copy of Halo 5: Guardians and I am just ecstatic that it is set to be released in less than three months. Seriously October, hurry up already! In the meantime, I am already writing up the next installment of the Eon saga, where our favorite Spartan fireteam is back on Requiem to kick some Covenant and Promethean ass!

Thanks for reading and reviewing, you give my writing purpose.