Chapter 37

"May the Father of Understanding guide us." Said Balenka as she placed the ceremonial sword on the table. "Welcome to our order Sebastian." Said Balenka, as she placed the Templar ring on his finger, symbolising his full acceptance into the knights Templar. Alistair watched with a strange feeling in his heart; it wasn't pride, that much he knew. So what was it? He had trained this boy from the brute that he was to become a lethal killer and tactical master. He would make a fine SPARTAN-IV, and Balenka agreed, especially since the Assassins were stepping up their game with their Ascendance program. What Jiles couldn't figure out was where they were getting the tech and materials from? Unless they had set up somewhere under their noses, which was unlikely, as Alistair could tell when Assassins were in an area, so they must have some kind of new resource location. But all the good places had been taken, and all their known locations had been mapped, so they must have found a new world to hide on.

"Master, I want to thank you. I wouldn't have been able to do this without you."

Alistair was wrenched from his musing by Sebastian's happy face.

"What? Oh, yes congratulations Sebastian. You have worked hard for this, and now I have something to give you."

Alistair handed him the datapad he had on the table next to him. Sebastian picked it up and read it.

"-To report to UNSC Infinity under the name Paul DeMarco- master," Sebastian lowered the pad and looked at Alistair with awe, "I'm going to be a Spartan?"

"Yes you are. And you'll be stationed on humanity's greatest asset, the UNSC Infinity."

"I- thank you master."

"Don't thank me, Sebastian, thank grandmaster Balenka. She wanted a person on the inside on Infinity and we couldn't pull enough strings with ONI on this one so we thought we'd try one of our old tactics, lying and infiltration."

"That's odd, isn't it? I thought we practically owned ONI."

"Not quite, I'm afraid, not quite."

Assassin John Milgrad was sloughing through encrypted channels when he hit upon something amazingly rare: an old term for an Apple of Eden being used repeatedly.

"Oh my god, this is- wait, it could be a trick. "

He continued to listen until he ascertained the signal's location. He pinpointed it to a shipping yard in the north Atlantic, on Earth.

"The governor's not going to like this one." He said to no-one in particular.

"Earth," asked Jiles

Milgrad nodded,

"On a ship."

"On route to New Phoenix, to be exact sir."

"I can't believe this even if I wanted to. I have had it up to here," Jiles indicated with a hand above his head, "with these goddamn Templar traps. This has got to be the most ridiculous bluff they have ever used."

"This is most likely a trap sir, we should ignore it." said Matthew

"That's what I thought too sir, but it seems that they are heavily guarding this shipment, even more so than the last ones. And I used your brother's backdoor channel to reverse-hack the signal; it checks out."

Matthew's mouth twitched slightly, but Jiles was unmoved.

"I still cannot permit this, if it really is as heavily guarded as you make it out to be, it is almost definitely a trap."

"Sir, at least think about sending a scout, we could use some indication about what it really is. If it is a trap, they pull out. Otherwise, they call for backup and we swoop in to attack."

"You don't get it Milgrad. We can't afford to send in a scouting party. Even if we were able to get a team into Earth, we would have no way to communicate with them."

"I thought we had Insurrectionist contacts among the refugees on Earth."

"We did, but we have broken away from the Insurrection. We are now operating on our own, like we used to when we had power. You may as well spread the word, it's going to be common knowledge tomorrow morning." Jiles sighed, "Alright, I'll contact my operatives. Thank you Milgrad. You may go." Milgrad bowed and left

"Sir, I would advise against this course of action."

"If we are going to return to our former glory, we have to take the Templars by storm. We need the Apple, and we need it now. With Infinity in the skies, we have to form a powerful offense."

"Then why not use the weapon designs we stole from Misriah?"

"Even if we had the correct materials, we don't have the manpower to do something like that. Matthew, get my nephew on the line please."

"Yes sir."

Matthew walked out the door stiffer than he'd walked in. As Jiles watched him go, he creased his brow in confusion. Matthew wasn't privy to information regarding the Misriah assault, how could have known about it?

Jiles shook the thought from his head and went rose from his desk to the communications room.

"Jack, your uncle's calling you from Venezia. It's urgent." Said Ezio in Jack's helmet. Jack looked up from the schematics and excused himself from the demonstration of the new hybrid human-Covenant computer systems and jogged to the communications relay. He keyed the activation sequence and his uncle's image appeared in the holographic display projector.

"Jack, you're not going to like this-"

"Did you lose the fleet?"

"No-"

"Did you lose Venezia?"

"No, although we did separate from the Insurrectionists."

"How many people know?"

"It's not public yet, but for all intents and purposes we have. We'll have to recruit those members of your team that they need to join us or die for the information they hold."

"Isn't that a little extreme?"

"It is the only way. We can't risk defects at such a critical time."

"Why, what's happening?"

"We got another hit on the Apple, and it looks like the real deal this time."

"How do you know?"

"Security's very real and everything else adds up. The catch is that it's in New Phoenix, Earth."

"Of course it is." Said Jack, voice filled with sarcasm and surrender

"We'll be taking this in two parts; one team will infiltrate New Phoenix and scout the location to check if it's real. If it isn't they pull out. If it's real, team two moves in for extraction; that's you and Ben. We need stealth and cunning if we're going to come out of the lion's den."

"Understood. Who's in team one?"

"Jill and Zhang. We need Jill's familiarity with Templar security and Zhang's sharp eyes. We can't afford to screw this up, and over the years, you all have proven the best of our Brotherhood."

"What about Julia?"

"I'm not completely blind to inter-team relations, Julia hates Ben, and he's more useful to us then she is in this case."

"Alright. When do I leave?"

"As soon as possible. Gear up for a tough infiltration, we have no idea what they have in there. Any upgrades your engineers have come up with, take them if they work."

"I was just looking at their products before you called me. If that's all I'll get back to it. I'll let Jill and Ben know."

"Jill already knows, she's going with Zhang now, undercover as husband and wife. Refugees from Rio de Janeiro." Jack felt a pang of jealousy but quickly stifled it.

"Thank you uncle. I'll get on this as soon as possible."

"May our ancestors watch over us." Said Jiles

"And always light our path." Finished Jack

Jiles cut the communication line while Jack contemplated his last words. It was a prayer from ancient times, and his uncle was never a religious man. He must be desperate.

Jack went back to the demonstrations.

"Ah, mister Jiles, you're back. Now, as I was saying, this unit allows for better power usage over long periods of time by seven percent."

"Does it work?"

"Yes, very well. Once we had a basic understanding of Forerunner technology it was-"

"Install it."

"Pardon?"

"I need everything you have that can give me an edge. I'm storming a Templar base on Earth. I need everything you've got. Weapons, armour, vehicles, everything."

"Um, OK then, follow me and I'll take you to see all of what we have."

Jack followed the man to a workshop filled with bits and pieces, including several half-finished ARCHON armour sets.

He described each completed project briefly, and in addition to several small upgrades, Jack, and Ben when he heard, both received improved shields, faster repair capabilities of the armour, a hyper-machine gun SAW for Ben, a pair of improved, but not silenced, pistols for Jack, better joint movement systems including amplifications for muscle strength and speed, extremely resilient M-Spec re-entry packs for orbital drops, holographic deployment systems for distractions, and an emergency armour lockup backup; in cases of extreme danger, the suit's AI could override the suit's servos and generate a protective field which shielded the wearer from most extreme forms of damage. Jack and Ben thanked the engineers for the equipment, who all applauded them as they left.

"We have a lot of expectations to meet with this stuff." Said Ben, looking solemn

"You worried?" asked Jack

Ben looked up at him and smiled

"Hardly, now it gets fun."