Halo: Predator Lost ch10, Pyschological warfare is fun.
It's been three weeks since the move in and sure enough, the higher-ups did give Algolis an old freighter, two UNSC Paris class frigates, and one Charon class frigate. One of the Paris class vessels, the UNSC Serenity was barely functional and was originally slated for scrap after suffering heavy damage from Covenant forces. However, highcom saw fit to repurpose this vessel to be refitted with new technology, as such many new scientists and technicians were added to expedite this process.
Simply put while the Freighter would be used to test the new technology the Serenity will be rebuilt once the kinks had been worked out and to be frank the predator known as Winter took a very good liking to the ship design.
Still, while the predators appreciated our designs in warships, they were driving everyone including ONI up the wall with everything else. The one known as Scythe kept to himself given his very thick accent and thus spent a great deal of his time on terminals and going for runs. Since after three weeks, it was no longer needed to keep a constant watch on them and even the people got used to them. Owen and Mayweather were still assigned to them at their request.
The other Predator known as Winter on the other hand was something else entirely. Aside from the fact he was proving the most useful for technology integration and translation. He was also the most judgmental since he started writing more things to complain about than a bureaucrat as soon as he got comfortable. A lot of writing, while he didn't question security, aside from the bugs which he routinely destroyed, he did question everything else. Going as far as to say the UNSC went backward and not forwards when it came to ground vehicles and small arms.
Heck, just recently he decided after having enough of the spooks' constant bugs and annoying questions. He somehow figured out the locks and codes for Major Kinsey's apartment. What ended up happening was nothing short of insanity. Speakers inside and out constantly played an old children's song on repeat for 48hours straight. Supposedly for every one speaker found there were five more he couldn't find and the song got louder whenever he tried to sleep or at night.
By the time everything was all said and done the apartment was trashed and Major Kinsey had begun to sing the song, as it wouldn't leave his mind.
Nobody knows which one put him up to that but the troopers and Marines started buying booze for Scythe as he was the only one of the two aliens who drank.
"Listen to me Colonel, those things need to be locked up for what they did to me." Kinsey said, eyes still red from the lack of sleep. " That song is still stuck in my head and whenever I try to sleep I dream of a purple T Rex raping me over and over again saying I love you you love me, let us make a happy family."
It took everything the Colonel had not to bust a lung from that although he may slip that recording to the other units as a measure of entertainment. ONI was critical but the only thing soldiers hate more than spooks and even the Covenant was reporters. The irony wasn't lost on him given his background.
"Look Major, I've told you repeatedly that we need these Predators on our side and for every action, I say not to do you seem to ignore it and do it anyway. Though I must admit the fact they managed to break into your residence and cause all sorts of payback is a testament to how fast they can learn our stuff.
It also proves they are as adept at psychological warfare as they are at stealth reconnaissance and conventional. In three weeks we've learned more about them than any race in the Covenant." Stein now took a deeper look, at Kinsey, the man wasn't a field operative and despite having similar mental conditioning needed to endure torture. It's completely different when nothing is to be gained and instead your own psyche is tested to its limits. In short, the Major snapped.
" I don't care!" Kinsey slammed his fists onto the solid oak table. "The fact they can mess with my locks is all the proof I need to lock them up and if you won't do that then I will." The dark circles around his twitching bloodshot eyes clearly showed the man needed sleep and the way his teeth and saliva drooled gave the impression the man was starting to go rabid.
Colonel Stein thought about this, the Predators had remained true to their word down to a T, by contrast, Major Kinsey had gradually become an issue as he saw these beings as yet another race out to destroy humanity. Well and the fact that every bug they plant just gets found and destroyed. To top it off the man even disobeyed orders and tried to drug them with contaminated food.
Apparently not only is their metabolism incredibly fast but so is their resistance to poisons. With bigger things to worry about Stein made up his mind and sent a text to the one named Scythe.
Down in the large hanger Scythe had been in the process of cutting away the old shuttle. The accommodations the UNSC provided were quite spacious since making the deal and provided more than enough room for their personal belongings. Winter in his paranoia destroyed all the listening and recording devices in his room. As did I. Then came the medical aspect, for that Mike and Sara were there the entire time. It wasn't comfortable for while it included everything from blood, urine, and other things. The ooman healers had the same demeanor as their own healers, which is to say, they saw us as a piece of meat ready to be analyzed.
Colonel Stein was also present and in the weeks I've known him he is a ooman on a similar level to Nova. He is honorable but the intelligence officer named Kinsey wasn't and after constantly destroying bugs and eating supposedly tainted food. Winter and I devised a plan with Mike and Sarah's help. I was never one for pranks like my less mature kin but in this case, seeing a softmeat go completely insane did put a smile on my face.
Still, he had to give the ooman credit. The first time the song was used it turned a bunch of unblooded Yaujta into the most blood-thirsty and insane monsters the Council had ever seen. Anything with purple on it was swiftly torn to shreds and smashed into a paste, literally. It took many cycles before they were back to some semblance of their normal selves. The funny part was that one of the unbloods was the pup of Death and his lifemate made sure he never did such a thing again.
A text from Stein shows up on Scythes hud, hmm seems Stein wants to see me. Turning his tools off, Scythe heads for the Colonel's office.
Upon reaching the door, the two soldiers entered a code and it slid open. Seeing the softmeat it was clear he had not slept in a while and the increase in heat from his body indicated fear or he was on stimulants.
Upon seeing the giant alien Kinsey was shaking in his boots, the guards outside didn't even flinch as they closed the door. "Wha what is the meaning of this Colonel?"
"Simple major, you wish to lock him up, nows's your chance but keep in mind there is no evidence supporting your claim, and Scythe here is well within his rights to defend himself. Choose your actions carefully major as no one here will help you, life or death the decision is yours." Stein had shown hardly any emotion during this and his cold eyes shown he wouldn't hesitate to remove him by any means. Sending a chill running down Kinsy's spine.
Gulping loudly, Kinsey goes through many scenarios's in his head none of them good, so the Colonel was right. The creature didn't have any weapons on him like his counterpart at least that he could see. Closing his eyes before opening them again he made his decision to turn around and face Stein. "You win Colonel but this is not over." The venom on his voice was palpable but upon turning around to leave a large hand gripped his neck hard and lifted him up to face level with the predator.
Clicking and growls were heard but no English, looking up and down his body Kinsey wondered what the creature would do as the mask gave no indication. Then a weird voice came from it.
"Query: Can I kill him now master I would like ever so much to crush his neck, just a little, it is a long-time fantasy of mine."
Releasing his grip, Kinsey dropped and got out of there, confused at what sounded like a recording, from what he didn't know.
Raising an eyebrow at such a statement that could be considered a threat. Stein was reminded of how easy it was for them to kill people. Without even asking Scythe left and within moments doctor Emily entered.
Doctor Emily was tall for a woman with short blond hair, blue eyes, and was so pale it made him wonder if she ever saw sunlight. Soldiers had nicknamed her the Vampiress as she seemed to get a kick of drawing people's blood which only added to her creepy nature. She was also one of the researchers working on the Spartan three program. Specifically, a refinement of the argumentation used in the Spartan twos.
"Yes Doctor, what do you have for me today?"
"Not that you'll understand the science involved but here is the data of an experiment we ran on the blood given to us by the Predators." Handing over the data Stein looked through it and found many pleasant surprises, namely the alien's DNA adaptability. However, genetics wasn't his strong suit.
"In lamens terms Doctor, what did you do?"
"As you know sir, the refined compound for augmenting the next generation of Spartan threes has a hundred percent survival rate thus far but is still potentially lethal for full adults. Now for the sake of curiosity, we decided to test this compound on the alien blood given to us, and to our shock, it didn't reject it at all. Within minutes the cells changed, becoming denser, and moving incredibly fast. It's actually hard to describe really." Like a toddler at a candy store, she was practically jumping for joy. Still, her enlarged canines clearly seen from her smile again added credence to her nickname.
Thinking of what she was implying Colonel Stein had to ask. " Are you telling me, we can make an already dangerous alien race even more so?"
"Precisely, now before you ask, we've carried out this test with the blood samples of the other aliens we've come in contact with and all of them showed total rejection. The DNA from our new friends here is absolutely incredible. When we took it and used it on human cells it acted as a super medicine. As such I need your authorization to continue testing but also to ask them to donate blood.
Since they are the only two we know of, building up a blood bank would be beneficial in the likely case they wish to fight the Covenant" The hyperactive tone never left her.
Wanting to pinch his nose, from the implication of what this could mean. He had little doubt the odd one would want to do this but as it sits the idea was terrifying. Should the augmentation procedure be modified to enhance them. Well, a Spartan two is already a one-man army but these predators are already very strong, to begin with. With augmentations and advanced power armor, the end result would be either a blessing or a nightmare depending on who's the side you are on.
Logic and security would dictate no but desperate times may call for desperate measures and so all avenues must be explored.
"Fine, do it but under no circumstances are you to do it without their permission or without Mayweather or Owen present. Next, I want a legit blood bank set up, as such you are only allowed to use ten percent of the blood you get for your experiments per Predator so that gives you twenty percent to work with, depending on how fast they want to donate. Finally, for now, this stays between us. You are free to create a super-soldier process for these predators but until we see improvements in our own tech from them let's keep this discrete.
As such, only use the people you trust as this is not to go any further beyond me. Do you understand Doctor?" The intensity of his eyes clearly shows that this special project was not to be leaked to anyone until completion and even then only he would know.
"Yes, sir thank you sir" Emily excused herself and left.
Mike and Sarah were staring quite confused at the contraption they were seeing. According to the translated schematics, this subspace device was the size of a pelican. More advanced models existed in the data but Winter himself noted that this was a first for him as well since his expertise was just maintaining these systems on ships not building them.
Hence the translations, thankfully the raw material, and technology were simple enough to duplicate at least according to the technicians. The egg heads described it as similar to slipspace but not quite. The power requirements were not too bad either but shrinking it down to something the size of those wrist devices was going to take a long time.
Now supposedly the range of these devices can go for thousands of light-years but for the early models, in order to reduce the time, it took to receive data, relay satellites were built. Still, the first test needs two of these devices so one will be on the planet and the other on the freighter. Once successful the Freighter will take two examples to Reach for mass production and integration within the UNSC fleet.
Despite being geared for war, Winter was now very grateful for his father's lessons in engineering and the study of technology of other races. On the other hand, this would have been much harder if the softmeats hadn't developed fusion-based technology. Then again, wireless communications have never been very large. Still, a few aspects had to be improvised, namely the human's obsession with Titanium for the frame and completely different hookups to connect it to various systems.
This actually felt like a museum piece, since even basic was deemed for now impractical and instead a subspace com system that hadn't been built since the early days of space exploration, which was tens of thousands of years ago was now being built instead. On the plus side, it can easily interface with a ship's existing communications systems. So all one had to do was beef up the existing radio transceivers and a subspace signal can be sent dozens of lightyears in only a matter of minutes. less with relay satellites.
Later on, dedicated subspace transceivers were built with further improved range and efficiency. These early machines much like the human slipspace drive use a brute force approach and are crude but effective. The overall device while large looks like a giant brick with huge outlets.
"Well done everyone, time for lunch, and then we can complete work on the other one," Said some random technician Winter couldn't remember the name of.
"I'm surprised at the progress, at this rate we'll be able to contact earth in no time though I'm curious, what about FTL technology?" Sarah ask
Before Winter could even respond Mike in his infinite wisdom spoke up. " Logistics, right now we use slipspace drives as does the Covenant and since its wartime trying to understand an entirely new drive system would be a waste of resources."
"Good point, in other news I'm thinking of asking Scythe out for dinner unless you'd like to fight him again in my honor" Sarah teased.
Getting up and leaving for food as the two began their daily ritual of pestering each other like lifemates. It still annoyed Winter as to why the two have yet to even date, in a war of attrition making offspring should be paramount. The last time he even mentioned it though the two blushed darker than a ripe tomato.
Already some were thinking he was a robot but many kept comparing him to a Spartan. Which greatly confused him as there was zero resemblance or cultural relation between him and those of a city-state from ancient Greece. Still, he was greatly looking forward to tomorrow, not for the subspace test but to show in practice what they've done wrong with their weapon designs, doctrine, and combat tactics.
Frak me sideways, this was hard. I'm trying to maintain a 2500 word limit count for the weekly reading. As such this chapter is a little bit longer than that and is what I believe one would call a filler chapter.
Now while I'm grateful for the ever-increasing number of people following, I need reviews, suggestions, anything I can use.
Now for those of you wondering, no, the UNSC isn't going to share everything and the Spartans are still secret at this time.
As for the Serenity, no it won't be turned into a super ship, in fact, the UNSC already has the technology to make a number of improvements.
Of course, as more trust and understanding occurs more knowledge is shared. Plus the Paris class, well UNSC frigates, in general, are just really cool-looking ships.
What is funny is that the UNSC fleet was heavily inspired by the ships from Aliens or so I've heard.
Also kudos to anyone who recognizes that audio line, I think I'll use more in the future.
Thank you all and enjoy.