Hey hey all, another Chapter up, friendly reminder not to be afraid to comment, it really does help me out! And I'll reply to anything here, enjoy some fluff n world building.

Armada, North AlderWood, 2563, 21:55

Rifleman CORP. Lee, 19th Shock Troops Battalion.

Three hours after drop.

Present.

Arriving back on base was tense, both Jax and the ONI agent had been ready to explode, once they were cleared into base the agent had jumped out the warthog before Jax had even been able to park it, disappearing into the sea of bodies.

Once the warthog was parked, Jax and the Spartan had been instructed to report back to the Lieutenant, to debrief her on what had happened, why a Navy Lieutenant was in charge of so many Marine Corps members would've been puzzling if it was earlier into the war. These days everyone knew it was because if your chain of command was missing, they were dead.

Jax had decided to swing by the ODST barracks before going to command, immediately upon popping in he saw Kess and Lilith, and other ODSTs next to the vast barracks, glad to see some familiar faces, a few old names that surprised Jax on his memory, he was saddened to see the amount of empty barracks next to the empty names.

"Oh, Jax, you're here? Thought you were dead." Jax turned around at the flippant voice. Kaito an old ODST training mate, who had been the cause of many fights between the two, immediately some of the older ODSTs stood up, ready to intervene, Jax relaxed his muscles, readying for another fight of some kind, Kaito however took notice of this.

"What, you think this is another fight?" Kaito took an unflustered stance. "maybe before today it would've been, but today people have died, friends have died, teammates, family. But not you." Kaito pointed directly at Jax, "I may not like you, at all, but I'm happy to see you're alive, we're on the same side, and that's all that matters."

Jax simply nodded, taken aback by the speech, it was true on some level, before today Jax would've been ready to exchange fists with the man, an unnecessary evil, but after his team mates had died, and ONI had been playing with his life again, however indirectly, Jax was just tired.

Before he could say anything Kaito butted in again, "Command is probably asking for you, just come in from a Spartan deployment." There were a few whistles in the room. "I don't want to be dragged into your shitstorm if you're late." And with that, Jax left, wondering if it was worth checking for familiar faces at all.

Coming into the Command Barrack Jax was greeted with the sight of more armour pieces falling of the Spartans chest piece, and more under suit being brought to light, clear discolouring in the material where armour plates that weighed more than a 'hog had been clamped on for months at a time.

Behind her desk was the LT, pressing her face into her desk, she shot Jax a look, which could only be interpreted as a cry for help, before addressing the two informally.

"First off, when you leave you can clean this shit from my floor Spartan."

"Yes sir." The voice that came from the heavily damaged helmet was only partially modified, the other part being too garbled in broken voice modulator to understand.

"Secondly, I've just had some ONI hotshot dipshit storm in and out complaining about you two, so please, tell me what the actual fuck you two pissed up this time."

Jax took a deep breath.

"We lost the ONI contact you were looking for, no idea if that Elite is dead or alive, another ONI agent, turned traitor was there, hotshot set her off and we had to terminate her before we could either reach an agreement or get more information."

"Ah, Corporal Jax Lee, I presume? You're piss poor as after-action reports, what happened to your squad?"

"We lost our Captain mid drop, our second in command shortly after, our third handed leadership over to me, and I've been keeping them alive ever since."

"Ah, another half staffed ODST squad, as if I hadn't had enough to deal with, fine, take those Marines you brought with you, leave one or two with us, and uh, there's a CQC ODST, in the barracks, uh, Kaito Grenswell? Take him."

"Ma'am; I beg you for anyone else."

"And your pleas are ignored. Take the Spartan too, I need as many Spartans on duty as possible if we're to push south or help the south push here."

The Spartan perked up at that, and in doing so a piece of their armour plating fell off their shoulder.

"Fuck me, and I thought the Navy was falling apart." The LT muttered.

"Look, between the outpost Command and Map study Barrack is the opening to the bunker, we have our vehicle backups there, we've also placed a Mjolnir station there, go stock up on some Gen 1. We ran out of Gen 2 armour, so we've got Gen 1, and updated it to work with Gen 2, the techs call it Gen1.5"

Jax let out a chuckle.

The Spartan reacted to this news with surprise. "The same stuff from reach?"

"Yes Spartan, Same stuff. Upgraded to work with your new armour systems, thrusters, and everything else, you don't even have to ask."

"Does it come with the same systems too?" The Spartan questioned, something that must've been important for the Spartan, but as far as Jax was concerned, it flew right over his head.

"Truth be told Spartan I only know about the Thrusters, ONI doesn't give me clearance, ask the techies there. Both of you, dismissed." A surprising reveal from the Lieutenant, who Jax still referred to as IMP.

"Now get the fuck out of my office, get one of the techs to clean this shit up." The lieutenant gestured at the armour pieces on the floor. "I can't bear to look at you fucks much longer."

His squad were now sharing an entire room to themselves, apart from him. Most of them had gone out on patrol, watch or break until their time to sleep was up, apart from Melody and Martinez. Seeming as they were now a combat-team, complete with a Spartan, four ODSTs, six Marines, bringing the total up to eleven, IMP had seen the need to give them their own callsign, 'Blue nine one', which Jax thought was a shit name, but it had stuck.

Seeming as Jax's Squad now consisted of twelve people. Jax decided it was fitting to take three other members with him on every deployment, and the others would serve at base, this pool consisted of:

Spartan 063: The Marksman. A soon to be newly armoured Spartan that was a golden shot with a sniper, the teams' long-range specialist, seeming as they were a Spartan Jax decided to only take them on heavy and challenging deployments.

Melody; The Breacher. In the doors first type, stealth trained ODST with a now suppressed SMG, a close quarter medic and infiltrator, Melody's use of stealth made her a perfect choice for after dark and generally 'sensitive' or 'quiet' missions, she had also taken out some of the padding in her armour, making her quicker on her feet and harder hear, but more fragile as a result.

Martinez; Quite simply a Gunner. Wielding a SAW, a large crowd controlling unit, able to provide an immense amount of cover fire and being able to stop advances, making him very versatile in his niche speciality, this made Martinez a great choice for straight up firefights. In armour he had done the inverse of Melody, having put more padding and armour plates on his person, making him harder to put down, but slower and easier to fatigue.

Kaito: Another Breacher, best at room clearing and indoor combat, aggressive and brash, but could happily hold his own, making him a sound choice for tight and urban deployments, whilst he had left his armour well enough alone he was a crack shot with his pistol, Jax could make him a backup Marksman if he needed too.

Charles; A simple Rifleman, the Marine had a standard issue MA5C Assault rifle, and his specialist skill came in his ability to track, if the squad ever needed to do some search and rescue, or destroy, he could come in handy.

Kaitlynn; Was what Jax would call a scout, with the same assault rifle as Charles, and skillset, but she had a beady pair of eyes, and could spot things a mile away that would take some of the other members a bit of time, making her a support type member of the team.

Riley: The tech trooper had been integrated into Jax's squad, which Jax was grateful for, having no one else who could have any tech expertise on his squad meant she filled a large role, she came with another Saw, making her a bit of a Gunner, but her unique expertise made her a specialty.

Sangh: The sarge had requested to be placed under Jax's command, having been trained in both shotgun and battle rifle training, Jax could effectively swap out the rifleman if any specialist troopers weren't needed.

Hightower: The first trooper Jax had briefly talked to in that old surveillance room in the police station, as it turned out he always wore his balaclava, as no one on the squad had apparently seen his face, no one seemed bothered either. He also had the standard assault rifle of the Marine corps, but seemed to excel in firefights, a distraction fighter.

O'Brien: The other trooper from the police station, was trained in Demolitions, He had the standard assault rifle as everyone else, but came equipped with a rocket launcher, and always carried explosive charges with him, again, unique in his services, Jax could use him against armour or on denial deployments.

And lastly Jax himself; The Commander of blue 63. A decent marksman and language communication expert. Standard body armour like most of his team.

That reminded him, he had gotten his teams armour repainted, instead of the white highlights in his ODST BDU, he had it switched to blue, for the Marines, he had them change their IFF tags respectively, and told them they could do whatever they wanted to the shoulder and chest plating of their armour.

His room was the standard UNSC issued trooper room, in the Fireteam Barracks, which Jax was glad for, as he couldn't stand to be near the other troopers, Jax was happier still, as he had a Command room separate to his team. It was furnished with the basics, a bunk bed, a locker, for his armour, and a toilet keycard.

His team had invited him out earlier, but Jax had declined as Jax himself was too depressed to accept their invitation to their room, as they wanted to know what the Spartan wanted him for. In his mind Jax was replaying the ONI Agent's death repeatedly, the way she slumped, devoid of life in less than a second. Did she know she would die when she betrayed ONI? What would persuade her to do such a thing?

Before he could think about it any longer, there was a knock at his door, probably just Melody or Martinez, or maybe Sangeh. Hoping they would go away if he didn't answer, Jax stayed on the floor, breathing slowly, hoping the helmet would help mask the sound.

The knocking stopped, but he wasn't met with the answer he wanted. Instead of being left alone, a very unfamiliar Spartan stood in his doorway holding a keycard. How Jax hadn't heard the electronic beep of his door unlocking confused him more than the Spartan currently making its way over to him, looking down at him, it spoke, "I can see your body tensing, I know you're awake, sit up."

The Spartan looked brand new, but Jax could tell it was the same one from earlier today, by the same colouring, a primary black, that encompassed most of the Spartan apart from the forearms and legs, and a secondary blue, the same blue used by his fireteam, and the '0-63' painted across it's collar, the Spartan's armour itself was recognizable instantly, the armour of the Spartan Threes' and to some extent, Twos' and Fours'.

The helmet Jax immediately remembered from his ONI days, an old Mark V scout helmet, with a blue visor, looking down from that Jax couldn't tell what type of chest piece it had, only that there was a netting around the neck, and it also covered a bit of the Spartans' back, on it's right shoulder it had a thin strip of armour, mounted onto which were three sniper rifle bolts.

On its thigh was a softcase, Jax knew that much, he had one himself a few months ago, it had gotten shot off by an Insurrectionist and Jax had never seen the need to get another.

It had wide kneepads, and the armour plating on it's left shoulder Jax had never seen before, it also had something on it's wrist that Jax was sure was some sort of device.

Doing as he was told, electing not to piss of a Spartan in his self-pity, Jax quickly got up, surprised as the Spartan took off Jax's helmet, exposing his face to the cool air of his room, it put his helmet on the top of his bunk bed. Sitting down next to him, it spoke in a calm voice, or as calm as something as that synthetic and filtered could be.

"Look, I know what happened out there was, not normal, but we're soldiers, we do our job no matter what it is, they'll kill you if you tell anyone what you saw, you understand?" With a sigh, Jax replied; "Yeah I got it, I won't tell a soul." This apparently wasn't good enough.

"No, promise me, look me in the eyes and say that." Conviction was present in its voice, something Jax knew would mean he would be held to this promise.

"Kinda hard when I can't tell if you have a face." Jax muttered, his comment laced with sarcasm. He did not expect the result.

In a swift move, the Spartan moved its hands up to it's helmet, with a hiss of released air, it took of it's helmet, revealing a woman's face complete with sea blue eyes, full lips and topped by bleach white combed over hair, the left side of which was completely shaven. It was currently pulled back into a loose ponytail, that was surely longer than regulation would allow, not that Spartans would adhere to that. She had surprisingly pale skin, possibly an effect of staying so long under a helmet Jax did not know. The surprisingly normal looking woman had freckles, dotted on her face.

"Go on, promise me." She urged, breaking Jax out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, sure, I promise." Jax said it as more of a surrender than anything else, but it seemed good enough for the Spartan, who nodded, handing Jax back his helmet.

Noticing Jax's staring at her new armour plating, the Spartan chuckled, showing him the device on her wrist, she answered his questions before he could ask.

"It's called a UGPS, it's a universal GPS system, not only displays the locations and objectives you set, but can help locate too."

"That's really helpful, oh, and the shoulder plate?" Jax asked, looking at the beefy design on her left shoulder.

"That's a CQC Plate. Really helpful as a sniper, it's large and near my head, if someone tries to counter snipe me, there's a big chance it could hit this plate instead."

"Now that's smart. The chest piece? With the cloth?"

"Oh, just a patrol piece, I like being light on my feet and harder to spot."

"Oh, that's everything, thanks, for explaining, and checking up on me too I guess."

"I came here to give you the deployment details from Command."

"Oh."

The Spartan chuckled again, before handing him a file she pulled out of nowhere, and then turning to leave, she stopped at the door, going to put on her helmet, she paused for second.

"If you have any questions, just ask."

"I think I'm good, thank you."

"No worries Jax. See you around."

"Actually, I have just one question."

The Spartan turned around in front of the doorframe, holding her helmet over her head, a questioning look written on her face. "And that is?"

"What's your name?"

A Smirk appeared on her face, that developed into a full smile. "Valerie, 063."