The UNSC Dominion
Bridge
October 6th, 0640 Standard Time, 2552
To his credit, Thomas reacted to his newfound role quite professionally. He had given a snarky remark, but had stood up and set out to start on his new duties immediately. That was something that Richard could appreciate, the man was very clearly out of his comfort zone, but he set about completing his duties regardless.
Of course, I should know something about that. I was trained to command Prowlers, not frigates trapped in the middle of nowhere. Richard thought as he set about planning his own duties, Thomas's effort meant he could focus on more immediate matters. His thinking was interrupted by Ensign Gillespie calling for his attention.
"Sir, incoming transmission from Brushfire Actual, high priority." The operations officer reported.
Richard frowned, "Brushfire" was the callsign they had given to the team in Menagerie who were working on the CCTS relay. A high priority transmission indicated something had gone seriously wrong, as even the earlier supply requests weren't listed as high priority. He stood up from his chair and walked over to the operations station, doing his best to disguise his mildly groggy nature as he did so.
"Go ahead," Richard said with a gesture once he arrived. The officer pressed a final key, bringing the face of Lieutenant Clark on screen, although most of his face was concealed by the angle at which he was wearing his marine-issue helmet. Richard recognized he was inside of the cockpit of a Pelican, likely using the onboard communications suite.
"Dominion, this is Brushfire Actual, confirm secure connection." He said in the moderately dry, slightly anglicized accent that made his voice stand out.
Richard was slightly concerned by his question. If Clark was attempting to secure a connection from the Pelican, it meant something was wrong with the main relay. If something had broken on the relay, something had gone wrong. Ensign Gillespie gave him a silent thumbs up from his part of the station, confirming the connection was secure.
"Brushfire this is Dominion Actual, affirmative on secure transmission, send traffic." Richard responded.
"CCTS Relay has been rendered temporarily inoperable, some kind of interference in the power systems knocked it out." Clark reported. "The techs are working on it, but they said it's software-based, something in the Atlesian code."
Richard frowned, Ironwood had promised that the UNSC would be permitted to have an official presence on the CCTS for further communication. It seemed that either he was wrong, or that maybe something had changed.
Or maybe some intern spilled their coffee on a console somewhere, broke the whole thing. He thought somewhat jokingly. Can't say we haven't had that happen back in our space.
"Can we confirm if Atlas is responsible?" Richard asked, giving Clark a second to respond.
"The Atlesian techs denied it. They said it wasn't them, and that it had to do with their old equipment." He reported. "They couldn't say when the system will be back online."
Richard pinched the bridge of his nose and fought the urge to let out a groan of annoyance. "Is there anything we can do to speed that up?"
"We'd need help." Clark said. "Curie would be ideal, seeing as she could find the problem the fastest."
Richard hesitated before speaking. "Wait one."
"Affirmative, standing by." Clark reported.
He turned back towards the center of the Bridge, where Bradford and Curie were having their own conversation about something.
"Curie, I have an assignment for you." Richard said, perhaps a bit louder than he intended. She and Bradford both stopped speaking and turned to him.
"Is it related to our loss of connection-" she began.
"Yes." He interrupted, seeing what she was going to ask. "Get Ben up here and prepare yourself for transport. You'll be heading down to Menagerie along with today's supply shipment, we'll fill you in with what we know along the way."
"Oui, I will see to it." She reported before her hologram dissipated. Bradford quickly joined Richard over at the operations station, his scowl indicating his thoughts.
"Bad news?" He guessed.
"Not the worst, but still bad." Richard said. "Comm relay in Menagerie went down, we're sending Curie down along with Ben to go have a look."
"Any suspicions of foul play?" Bradford asked.
"We'll find out." Richard said as he gestured at Ensign Gillespie to resume the transmission, once again Clark's face filled the screen. "Brushfire Actual, do you read?"
"I read. Do you have any updates on our support request?" Clark responded.
"We're sending Curie down along with Ben, they'll be aboard the next supply shipment." Richard replied. "We'll send it down early, as soon as it's ready."
"Is a Spartan necessary, Sir?" Clark asked, his tone suggesting his surprise. "I'm not arguing, but that seems like quite a commitment for what could very well be a faulty circuit, over."
"His armor is rated to carry Curie, we don't have many other options. Not to mention it never hurts to be prepared." Richard said as he digested the last part of Clark's statement. "Do you not suspect foul play?"
"No reason to." Clark said with a shrug. "It may be more stable than it was earlier, but this tech is still rubbish. It's a good thing you gave us a Pelican as a backup, or we'd be in a bit of a bother."
Ok, maybe his accent is thicker than I thought. Richard thought. "Understood, hopefully you're right. Support will be down shortly."
Menagerie Relay Tower
October 6th, 0727 Standard Time, 2552
Riding in the cargo compartment of a Darter was hardly comfortable. The small dropship was designed to deliver supply shipments and cargo from a carrier vessel to the surface, and as such lacked a lot of typical features for passengers, namely seatbelts. Thankfully Ben's magnetic boots kept him from shaking around too badly during atmospheric entry, but it was still a relief to have his feet on solid ground again.
The Relay Station hadn't changed much from his previous visit, with the exception of a large grey dish mounted awkwardly on the roof. There were also a pair of marines positioned outside the main door with SMGs, and another 2 on the roof armed with the longer-range battle rifles.
The rest are probably inside, or concealed elsewhere. Ben thought, admiring the foresight of the commanding officer garrisoning the position. As he approached the building, one of the marines spoke to him.
"The Lieutenant is on the first level, the technicians are poking around inside of the floor of the Command Center." The marine reported.
"Thank you." Ben said, before continuing. He heard one of the marines make a surprised comment about his height, which he ignored.
"It's not an insult Ben, they are simply surprised by your large stature." Curie said reassuringly.
"Oh I know, but I doubt they've bumped their heads on half of the bulkheads I have." Ben replied, only somewhat jokingly. The marine's looks didn't bother him much anymore, very few of them carried genuine malice.
Finding the Lieutenant and technicians was remarkably easy, as most of them had congregated in the room directly below the Command Center. The technicians were working on something inside of the ceiling using stepladders, while the Lieutenant was reading something on a datapad and giving them instructions. Ben noted that the technical team included both Atlesian staff and UNSC technicians working in tandem.
Good to see that at least some of us are working together. Ben thought.
"We can't find it!" A muffled voice called from inside of the ceiling.
"Try the other circuit." The Lieutenant calmly responded, seemingly not having noticed Ben's arrival. "We'll give each of them a shot, and move on if that doesn't work."
"I don't think he's noticed us." Curie noted, speaking only to Ben.
"Sir." Ben said, announcing his arrival as he gave a salute.
The Lieutenant looked up from his tablet and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a coughing fit. He suppressed it easily enough before regaining his posture. Before addressing Ben he gave a muttered comment about "damned dust".
It is surprisingly dirty here, I guess that's what all the cleaning supplies on the Darter were for. Ben noted. Just how understaffed was this place?
"Ah, at ease Spartan. I'm afraid I must have missed your arrival." He said, permitting Ben to relax his Salute. "I'm Lieutenant Clark. I presume you have Curie with you?"
"Oui, I am here. Are the terminal systems from earlier still active? I may be able to discern the problem from there." Curie said, using Ben's helmet speakers, which attracted the confused look of one of the Atlesian technicians.
"Certainly, right this way." Clark said, leading them back the way Ben had entered. As they headed up a stairwell to the command center, Clark continued speaking. "We've been trying to isolate the source of the issue, but to no avail, it's as if it keeps changing."
"What do you mean?" Curie asked. "Is the problem not with the electrical systems?"
"On the contrary, it seems to not be tied to one specific system." Clark replied. "At first it was the power, then the power fixed itself and the transmitter broke, and that was followed up by the circuitry going haywire."
"That's certainly unusual." Curie noted. "Do you have any theories?"
"At first the technicians were convinced that it was a power surge, but that turned out to be incorrect." Clark reported. "Cyber-Warfare was my guess, but our techs denied that."
"Have the Atlesian technicians shown any signs of being... unhappy with us?" Ben asked, looking for a less antagonistic way to say what he was thinking.
"Absolutely not, they've been extremely happy for the assistance." Clark replied with a tone suggesting he believed what he was saying. "And given that this station was at around twenty percent of it's suggested complement, I can understand why."
When they arrived in the command center, Ben noted some changes since he had last visited. The monitors had more solid stands, and some of the Atlesian tech had been reattached in a very informal manner. But most notably was the addition of a UNSC hydrogen-powered field generator in the center of the room, which Lieutenant Clark activated.
"That'll bring the main console back online." Clark said. "I don't know how you plan on transferring her-"
"It won't be a problem." Ben removed her chip from his helmet and allowed her to make a short wireless "leap" into the command terminal, a useful feature that made up a large portion of the cost of her datachip. Around a second later, Curie opened a direct channel to him via TEAMCOM. "All good?"
"All good, but the speakers for the system are broken, we will speak like this." She explained. "I will require some assistance with solving this problem, can you start by activating the auxiliary system terminal and enable wireless transfers?"
"I wasn't exactly trained as a technician, especially for this kind of tech." Ben replied, inspecting the Atlesian built terminal with a sense of slight unease.
"Do not worry, I will help." Curie offered.
Ben didn't quite understand exactly what he was doing, but Curie's instructions enabled him to accomplish the things she needed done. At some point while they were working, Lieutenant Clark left to help Curie in another way on the lower level. After around half an hour, Curie had access to the whole relay station, and a solution was still nowhere in sight. The problems had only spread.
"I just do not understand! It's as is something else is tinkering with the system!" Curie said, frustration evident in her voice.
"Are there any signs of intrusion?" Ben asked, not really knowing how to help.
"Of course not, I would have told you!" she retorted before she calmed herself down. "I am sorry, this is just... exceptionally frustrating."
"We'll fix this." Ben said, doing his best to sound reassuring. "It might be something we're not accounting for."
"At this point, that is likely the only option." she said, still somewhat defeated. "I do have one last idea, come back to the command terminal and retrieve me."
He did as she asked, placing her chip back inside of his neural interface. "What's the plan?"
"We're going to investigate the relay's power complex. I've already notified the Lieutenant, but if something is tinkering with the system, they are likely there." Curie responded.
Ben nodded, that made sense. A hard-wired connection was inherently more reliable than a wireless one, and allowed for less delay when interacting with electronics compared to wireless connections.
The power station for the relay was only around a hundred meters down the road for the station itself, so the walk wasn't long. It was surrounded by a two-meter tall concrete wall protecting all of the sensitive equipment, with only a chain-link gate to gain entry. He noticed that the whole compound had been built in one of the few spaces in Kuo-Kuana that wasn't being lived in, with the whole road surrounded by trees, shrubs, and unusually tall grass.
"This place seems to be sectioned off on purpose." Ben noted aloud.
"Indeed, the dust generators used to power the relay have a degree of risk to them." Curie explained. "I imagine this small forest is just an imaginative way of filling in the empty space."
When they actually arrived at the gate and looked inside, he was rather surprised by what the generator systems actually looked like. It more resembled a scrapyard, with equipment and power lines stretching across the whole complex. He spotted a few large wooden poles that must have at one point been old-timey telephone poles, as well as multiple big white machines, all bearing the symbol of the Kingdom of Atlas.
"This is it?" Ben asked, surprise evident in his voice. Curie's cautious response caught him off guard.
"Ben, it was not like this when we first arrived." Curie warned. That set off a cacophony of alarm bells in his head, all culminating in one overwhelming concern. Whoever had done this to the power relay could still be around.
"Where are the marines stationed to guard this?" Ben asked as he slowly drew his MA5B from his back. He mentally kicked himself for not realizing the lack of friendly security earlier.
A few moments later, Curie responded. "Lieutenant Clark says nobody has been assigned to guard this portion of the relay."
Ben fought back the urge to swear in frustration, his opinion of Lieutenant Clark plummeted. Someone had came in, trashed the power complex, and nobody had even realized. "Tell him to get his marines over here, let's see what happened."
Ben held his rifle his right hand and moved his left hand to open the gate, when all of the electronic debris shifted slightly, all at once.
Ah hell, that can't be good. Ben thought, as he took his hand off of the gate and returned it to his rifle's grip, taking a step back in the process.
"Ben, stand back!" Curie warned, an instruction to which he complied.
As he began to take several steps back, the junk shifted again. It was a much faster jolt this time, and it resulted in several of the smaller metal parts and wooden splinters on the pile falling to the ground. It jolted again, and again, moving in seemingly random directions.
"Curie, what's in there?" Ben asked, unsure of what he was looking at as the wreckage started to settle.
"I am not sure, maybe-" Curie began, but was quickly interrupted as something massive emerged from the junk, sending debris flying as it stood up.
It took Ben a moment to put together exactly what he was looking at, its form becoming more obvious as it stood up. The bizarre contraption was humanoid, in that it possessed two arms, two legs, and a "head", but that was where the similarities ended. The whole body was crudely constructed from the debris and junk, centered around a "skeleton" made out of telephone poles.
The machines and the metal plates they were made of now served as a crude armor, although it was a patchwork construction that left much of the skeleton exposed. The large cables now served as a binding tool, holding the whole contraption together. Forming a crude "head" that barely stuck out of the top of its torso was a short, broken off piece of radio tower, likely a reserve component for the relay station.
The sight left Ben utterly dumbfounded and momentarily stunned as the ten-meter tall engineering abomination leaned down and seemingly took a look at him. The contraption extended its arms away from its torso and took a few experimental steps. As it moved. Ben spotted one crucial feature mounted on its head, a comparatively tiny plate of bone nestled in its radio-mast face. A single glowing orange eye that stared at him with immense hatred.
"It's a Grimm, a Geist-type!" Curie realized, her voice full of awe, and a small amount of fear.
Ben snapped himself out of his trance, and took aim at the face. As he squeezed off a burst, it moved its arms at a frightening speed, covering its face and taking a massive lumbering step towards him in the process. The armored arms proved sufficient to block his rounds, preventing its face from being hit.
"Fall back!" Curie called out. Ben silently obeyed as he fired another burst to get it's attention, before breaking into a sprint down the road, moving away from the relay station. The Geist gave chase, but its body was fairly obviously not meant for quick mobility. Even with it's far larger stride, Ben was able to outpace it.
"My weapons won't scratch that thing, do the marines have any heavy weapons?" Ben asked, trying to think of a way to fight back. He double-checked his ammunition with his HUD, but he didn't have any armor-piercing rounds. Standard FMJ rounds certainly held some penetrating potential, but the makeshift armor plating of the Geist had held strong.
"Negative, but their Pelican is armed with an autocannon." Curie reported, a hint of panic evident in her voice. "I've instructed them to take off, but they will need time, at least a few minutes."
Ben quickly realized that he was running out of road, and that leading this thing into civilians was not an option. He could see several civilians watching the monster before running.
Good, the further away they are from this thing, the better. Ben thought as he took a look back at the behemoth chasing him. "See if Menagerie can get us some assistance, I'll try to keep this thing occupied."
Ben dug in his heels mid-run and slid to a halt, before raising his rifle and looking for any notable weaknesses in the armor as the Geist closed the distance. He selected a chink in its outer armor on its chest, allowing him to target it's telephone pole skeleton directly. He managed to fire off close to thirty rounds before it started getting too close for comfort.
The Geist tried to slam one of its massive arms into him, but Ben had plenty of time to roll out of the way, clearing the side of the road and barreling into the surprisingly thick plant life. He began to move further away from the road, hoping to use the trees as cover.
The Geist, undeterred, swung its other arm around in a massive arc. The appendage plowed through several palm trees with a moderate degree of difficulty, but Ben was already deep enough into the trees that it missed him, albeit barely.
My shields might take a hit or two from that, but beyond that I don't have high hopes. Ben thought as he gave the beast a retaliatory stream of gunfire. Even though the effect was negligible, its true purpose was to keep the thing focused on him, which it did well. When his magazine clicked empty, he took the opportunity to move deeper into the forest.
The Geist took a few more swings to try and clear out the trees, but quickly realized it wasn't effective. Instead, it started to pull the trees out one at a time, which it did so with concerning speed.
"Ben, local forces are on the way. We just need to-" Curie said before the Geist threw a tree at Ben, it's trunk serving as an impromptu javelin. "Dive!"
Figuring she had done the math on the matter, Ben performed a dive forward. The tree scratched his back with some of its branches, doing a minor amount of damage to his shields, which recharged nearly instantly.
It's learning, time to change my own tactics. Ben thought as he got back to his feet.
The Geist prepared another tree, this time throwing it widthwise in an overhead manner. As it tossed the tree, Ben sprinted into the now far sparser brush, moving directly towards the Geist. The tree passed over his head before slamming into the trees behind him as he continued forward. As he made it to the road, the Geist tried to crush him with its foot, but he kept up running and managed to avoid it with a quick pivot. He started heading back towards the power station, reloading his rifle as he went.
"Good thinking, we can't lead this thing into the rest of the city." Curie commented. "We only need to keep it occupied for a few more minutes, help is on the way."
"Easier said than-" Ben said as he took a glance back at Geist, stopping as he saw what the creature was doing.
The Grimm hadn't made much progress, but it had begun to rearrange its body. The plates that made up the chest armor began to shift away, opening and revealing a cavity in its body. Inside of the chest was some sort of machine, roughly embedded inside of its torso. One of its arms reached inside of its chest and pulled the machine out, before crushing it in the "hand" and preparing to throw the resulting shrapnel.
"Curie, drop shield?" Ben asked, knowing that dodging that many projectiles was a waste of effort.
"Ready!" Curie reported.
Ben waited until the Grimm was most of the way through the throw before he deployed the shield, hoping to goad it into thinking he was going to take the hit. Ben deployed the shield without fault, and the dome of light quickly surrounded him. Around a second later, dozens of fist-sized bits of shrapnel bounced off the shield, with many more scattering into the forest or above him. The shield flickered as it absorbed the blows, but stood strong.
The Grimm had not wasted the time it had been given, however, and was closing the distance towards Ben substantially faster than it had earlier. Recognizing that standing still was a bad idea, Ben ran out of the back of the shield, passing the power station and reaching the edge of the trees beside the road, the relay station right before him. The Grimm continued to give chase, only stopping briefly to grab a sturdy looking tree and carry it along, wielding it like a club.
I'd almost prefer Covies to this. Ben thought as he came to a halt, taking aim with his rifle.
"Rifle fire has so far proven ineffective." Curie warned.
"I wasn't using shredder rounds last time." Ben replied as he looked for the best target.
Aiming for the face was fruitless as long as it had its arms to protect it. Thankfully, it's left arm possessed a gap in the armor, exposing its telephone pole skeleton, which Ben exploited. The shredder rounds were effectively useless when it came to punching through hard surfaces, but softer surfaces were torn apart with ease, giving the shredder rounds their gruesome name. The moldy telephone pole offered some resistance, but after the first few rounds, it started to crack and weaken, before finally breaking into two. The Grimm's left arm fell to the ground, useless and inert.
The Grimm was undeterred by the loss of its limb, once it got into range it swung its impromptu weapon In a wide arc. Ben miscalculated how far down the weapon would reach to the ground, and his attempt to duck under the strike was met with failure. His shields shattered in the blink of an eye, before he was sent unceremoniously flying through the air. He landed in the grassy area around the power relay, digging a several-centimeter deep trench as he came to a stop.
"Ben, get up!" Curie practically yelled, her normal dignified tone giving way to concern.
"I'm good." Ben said as he got back to his feet. His chest ached where he had been struck, but he was far from out of the fight.
He took a quick glance around and saw the marines had begun firing at the Grimm, although the effect was minimal. The amalgamation of junk and machinery was seemingly unconcerned with gunfire, and was doing something with its improvised weapon. Ben watched as it took the tree trunk and smashed the top of it off into the ground, before installing the relatively intact weapon into its left arm socket, and leaving it to float in place, seemingly through magic.
Oh come on. Ben thought, monumentally annoyed.
"It's face seems to be a critical weakness, if we can hit it..." Curie began.
"Not while it's got both of its arms." Ben replied as he adjusted the grip on his rifle and checked the ammo counter, twenty-four shredder rounds left. "The tree arm won't block much, but the armored arm has to go."
"I calculate a three and a half percent chance of breaking its arm with our remaining shredder rounds." Curie said cautiously.
The Grimm adjusted its new arm, and began walking towards them once again, seemingly unconcerned with the marines as it used its armored arm to cover its face.
"I have a frag." Ben said, hearing the familiar tone as his shields recharged. "It won't do much against the plating, but if I can get it inside of the arm..."
"You'd shatter the skeleton." Curie finished. "You'll need to be close to get a throw that accurate."
"If it's going to stick, throwing it is out of the question." Ben replied as he returned his rifle to its magnetic-holster, large weapons would disrupt what he was planning.
Curie went silent for a moment before responding. "I see what you're planning. But please, be careful."
He ran directly towards the Grimm, which turned to face him. The Grimm took a step towards him in return, before a series of powerful explosions suddenly rocked it's body, centered around the chest area.
What? Ben thought. A quick glance confirmed the marines hadn't taken the shots, and he didn't hear a Pelican in the air, so that couldn't be the source of the fire.
"Ben, friendly reinforcements have arrived! They're coming from the power station!" Curie reported happily.
Again the Grimm's body shook as a series of small explosions erupted against it. This time Ben caught a glimpse at one of the projectiles thanks to Spartan Time, and was surprised to see what it was.
"Cannonballs?" He asked, unable to hide his surprise as he slowed himself to a halt, wanting to reevaluate if his plan was still the best course of action. He took a look down the road, and was even more confused by who had shown up to help them.
Standing in a brilliant navy blue uniform was a Faunus woman, with dark skin and a panther tail, holding perhaps the most unusual weapon he'd ever seen. It resembled some sort of naval cannon, from an era where sails powered ships. It was covered in some sort of netting not dissimilar to the rigging on a sailboat, which supported a structure offering a more stable grip.
She loaded what appeared to be some sort of box magazine into the top of the weapon and took aim as she rapidly closed the distance towards the Grimm. Ben joined her, hoping to give the Grimm two targets to focus on instead of just one. The Grimm moved towards the woman, unable to ignore the threat and was met with another barrage of cannonballs in return.
This planet is just full of surprises. Ben thought as he resumed his run. He quickly got close enough to execute his plan.
"Tell the marines to cease fire!" Ben said.
"Done!" Curie replied before Ben made a long leap onto the Grimm, gripping onto a series of wires wrapped in a coil around its leg, before beginning to climb.
Spartans were trained to board and even capture enemy vehicles, usually after a large jump to get to them. Ben had decided to take a similar approach to kill the Grimm, he would climb up to its arm, plant his grenade inside the armor, and achieve a shot at its face.
Thankfully his new Remnant-native ally didn't fire any further shots, although he was a bit too busy to see what she was doing. The Grimm noticed his presence, and tried to shake him off. His right hand managed to keep a grip onto a metal pole by its hip, but his left hand was thrown free. He reached up to his right shoulder and freed his kukri from its sheath, before using it as a climbing instrument.
He quickly reached the armpit with the assistance of his new tool, spotting a chink in the shoulder armor in the process, an ideal target. Before he could prime his grenade, he realized the arm was getting closer to him and was forced to make a risky jump around to it's back to avoid being crushed. He was successful, and managed to secure a good grip with his kukri in its neck.
As he primed his grenade, he realized that there was a small hole in the back of the "helmet" that the beast had fashioned. A blast in the beast's neck could potentially sever the head, and prove to be a far more valuable target.
"Don't ever disregard luck when you happen to find it." Ben quoted in his head, remembering Mendez's instruction as he slammed the grenade into the hole with enough force that it became stuck, creating a sizable dent around the embedded explosive. He leapt off of the construct, kicking off of it in order to get as far away as possible. Around a second after his rough landing, the grenade detonated.
As he had hoped, the head of the beast came flying off, with most of the torso destroyed in the process. The woman who had come to assist them took several shots as the head flew, hitting it a few times with non-explosive round before it landed in a monumentally more damaged state than it had started.
Not willing to take any chances, Ben reached for his sidearm and walked over to the severed head. Before he even arrived, a ghost-like Grimm emerged from the wreckage, and was promptly shot in the face by both Ben and his new ally. The Geist fell to the ground, dead and dissolving as it's gigantic former body fell apart in the background. Ben holstered his sidearm, and the unknown friendly slung her cannon over her shoulder and approached him.
"Aye, that was ballsy of you tin-man, nicely done." She said in a thick Irish accent as she adjusted her absurdly fancy captain's hat. Once she was done she held out her hand to shake. "Name's Mags, how about yours?"
"Sergeant Ben, UNSC." Ben replied as he accepted. "Thanks for the assistance, I wasn't exactly planning on fighting a building today."
"It certainly was a chunky one wasn't it?" Mags asked, admiring its corpse. "Dunno if I've ever seen one get that big before, it must've been building up."
"They do that?" Ben asked, concerned about their new enemies intelligence.
"Of course not, this was all a prank you see, it was just me fat cousin in a suit." She said in a joking but friendly manner. "Jokes aside, I think I saw the bit with your knife land over that way."
"Thank you." Ben said, but stopped himself before he left. "And if you've got a minute, the Lieutenant probably has a few questions for you."
"Don't mind at all, I've always wanted to see what kind of creepy stuff the Atlas jerkoffs keep in there." Mags replied, gesturing towards the relay. "Besides, it's not every day you get to talk to an alien. Ma won't believe me when I tell her..."
Unknown location
October 6th, 1132 Standard Time, 2552
Black sand made for a less than optimal welcome mat, but being in the middle of nowhere did have its negatives.
Maybe I could ask Tyrian to pick up a nice area rug while he's out, something that contrasts well with the crystals. Salem thought.
The building had formerly belonged to someone from the olden days, but there was nobody left to argue with her claiming it was hers. While sometimes the bland landscape did bother her, it meant staying away from the eyes of the public, and that made it all worth it.
At some point soon, I'll go pay "Ozpin" a visit, maybe I could take his castle. She thought pleasantly, imagining how much better Beacon Academy would look if it was on fire.
Of course, the biggest problem for her wasn't the door to her castle, or even Ozma's latest victim. And encountering Dr. Watts in the hallway did little to ease her nerves.
"I have an update, a substantial one." He said, gesturing at the older, custom Atlesian-make laptop nestled under his arm.
"Well it will certainly be better than the news that I got from Lionheart, unless it's the same news." Salem responded. "Meet me in the conference room in a few minutes, I'm going to go see if the servants have anything hot left to drink."
It turned out that they did, although she would never admit that Ozma's fondness for hot chocolate had passed to her. Of course, if anyone did notice, they were too scared to mention it.
Scared and capable, as all who serve me should be. Salem thought as she took a sip of the hot but refreshing liquid, before going to see whatever the doctor had to show her.
"Ma'am." He said with a nod as she entered.
"What is this "update" that you have to show me?" She asked.
"The rumors about the aliens appear to be true, rather surprisingly." Dr. Watts said.
"Lionheart told me that, he said they were planning on contacting all of the academy headmasters, and they even sent out emails alerting them." Salem said with a scowl. "Ozpin will undoubtedly try to recruit them when they get to him."
"I did not hear about that, my web-crawlers must be outdated." Dr. Watts said, referring to his CCTS surveillance software.
"Is the rest of your information out of date, or do you have anything actually worth reporting?" Salem asked, mildly annoyed with the man.
"I do." Watts reassured. "The Menagerie relay tower recently came back online after an outage, and this video has been shared practically everywhere in a matter of hours."
Watts showed her the video in question on his computer, it showed a man in armor and a Huntress fighting against a Geist made out of garbage.
"I assume the armored one is an alien?" Salem asked, wondering what was supposed to be so impressive.
"You would be correct." Watts said. "The rate at which this video has spread is what is far more interesting, however. It's far too fast to be natural."
"The aliens are responsible?" Salem Guessed.
"Indeed, although they have covered their tracks very well, digitally at least." Watts said with a degree of begrudging respect. "But the giveaway is in the message, that this "UNSC" and Remnant can work together."
Now Salem was starting to understand, it was being manipulated. "So the aliens are trying to make themselves look like heroes, convince the public that they're the good guys."
"That was my takeaway, it remains to be seen whether they will succeed, or what they even want." Watts said. "Either way, I thought you should be informed."
"You thought correctly, good work." Salem replied. "We'll keep an eye on them, and see just what kind of obstacle they are going to become."