UNSC Dominion
Bridge
October 6th, 2032 Standard Time, 2552
It was more than a little disheartening to read some of the headlines from Atlas. It didn't take long for the news to blame the UNSC's announcement for the uptick in Grimm activity. The negative coverage intensified immensely when they learned about their demands to see justice for the confrontation with the SDC. The public of Atlas was outraged, as the media was not afraid to spin the news into an attack on Atlesian sovereignty.
Well, it could've gone worse. Richard thought as he scrolled through the news from some of Remnant's other kingdoms, who seemed more neutral on the matter.
"Sir, the public Grimm alarm in Atlas just ticked up another notch." Lieutenant Gage reported, Richard had him monitoring the situation since Lieutenant Chen was sleeping.
"What's that put it at now?" Richard asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, these Grimm were a monumentally effective annoyance.
"Level four, and no, I don't know what that means." Gage reported, his frustration evident. "The military is reassuring the public that the situation is under control."
"Keep monitoring the situation, let me know if anything changes." Richard instructed. "Gillespie, what's the status with the other kingdoms?"
"Grimm activity in Vale and Mistral is slightly above average, Grimm activity in Vacuo has actually decreased since we made our statement." The Ensign reported, his tone shifting towards surprise when he mentioned Vacuo. "Menagerie remains unchanged."
"Keep me informed." Richard said, before returning to his thinking. Atlas was obviously taking it the worst, but the other kingdoms seemed to have handled the news relatively well. Still, it was hardly reassuring to know that civilian lives had been placed in danger because of his actions. Obviously, they could offer to help fight the Grimm, but a gut feeling told him that might not be the best idea.
"Gillespie, get Bradford up here, regardless of what he's doing." Richard instructed.
"Aye Sir." Gillespie responded.
Bradford didn't take long, arriving on the bridge looking as exhausted as ever. Richard had thought he might have some sort of health issue, but Doctor Chase had said that Bradford had nothing wrong with him, he just looked tired.
"What can I do for you, Commander?" Bradford asked.
"The situation in Atlas is deteriorating, it's not drastic but it has the potential to get worse. I want your opinion, should we offer our assistance?" Richard replied.
"I don't see why not." Bradford stated. "If they don't want our help, they'll just decline."
"Don't." An irritated voice shouted from the other end of the bridge, Thomas quickly appearing next to them afterwards. "Do not do that!"
"Why not?" Bradford asked, still obviously a bit surprised by his interjection.
Thomas groaned with annoyance. "They think we're trying to infringe on their sovereignty. Look at this from their perspective, what would you think would happen if we touched down on their front lawn, even if it was to try and help, right after demanding they bend to our will."
Bradford paused before nodding. "I see your point, but that doesn't solve our problem."
"We could contact the General." Richard stated, mostly to himself.
"We would risk alienating our only contact in the Atlesian military, and he's already shaky." Thomas said skeptically.
"Well, what would you suggest we do?" Bradford asked.
"Nothing." Thomas simply stated.
"What?" Bradford asked, an eyebrow raised. "You do remember that we're supposed to protect civilians, right?"
"Of course I do, don't be ridiculous." Thomas retorted. "The Atlesian military can handle themselves, and their nation."
"What makes you so certain?" Richard asked, more surprised by the certainty in his voice than anything else.
"Their civilization wouldn't exist if they couldn't handle a few Grimm, and that's not even mentioning their combat capabilities." Thomas said. "I know Curie's report is taking a while, but you should know by now just what a person with aura can be capable of."
"I'm well aware," Richard confirmed. "But the Grimm have proved similarly unpredictable, the Geist that Sergeant Ben encountered proves that."
"And the people of Remnant are well accustomed to those unpredictable threats." Thomas countered. "They have their own defenses, their own countermeasures. They may not be as advanced as we are, but if they still exist alongside such hostile creatures, they must have some degree of resilience."
Richard paused, Thomas made a fair point. The perspective that the Atlesian citizens held was what had brought on the Grimm in the first place, placing faith in their optimism didn't seem like a good idea. Still, quietly leaving them to face off the Grimm on their own didn't resonate well with him.
"Well, just doing nothing isn't exactly a good option either." Bradford said.
"What do you want us to do, send them a goodie basket, maybe a little note saying that we're sorry that we exist and don't want our marines to be killed?" Thomas asked mockingly.
"We may not have good options to pick from here." Richard added, in what he hoped was a more reasonable counter-argument.
Bradford thought quietly for a moment. "How about instead of just offering military assistance, we ask what else we can do to help."
"That's… better. It comes across as us not thinking of military action." Thomas said. "Of course, the decision falls onto the Commander."
"Do it, and send it through something text-based, if he's trying to manage a defense I'd rather not interrupt his communications." Richard instructed.
"Aye Sir." Bradford replied, before heading towards the communications station.
Once he was out of the way Thomas spoke up. "I find it unlikely he'll accept any sort of assistance, from what little experience I have speaking to the man, he came across as rather prideful."
"I suppose it's more the principle of the thing," Richard replied. "I'm not sure what kind of assistance they'd need right now besides military, maybe medical?"
"I suppose that makes a degree of sense," Thomas admitted. "I don't even want to think about what kind of things they're doing to each other in the name of "healing".''
"Sir, we have a reply." Bradford said, quickly walking back towards the center of the bridge.
"That was fast." Richard observed.
"Worryingly so." Thomas added, less optimistically.
"It wasn't a very long message." Bradford explained. "He said that if we want to help, we'll retract our demands."
Richard frowned, he should have expected that. "Thomas, your thoughts?"
"I would advise that we consider it, but that we think this through a bit more heavily." Thomas said. "It's fairly evident that our demands came across as threatening to them, even if that wasn't our intention."
"That sounds like their problem." Bradford stated dryly.
Oh boy, here we go again... Richard thought.
"I'll mark that down as example number one as to why you shouldn't be making major diplomatic decisions, because that was ruthlessly ignorant." Thomas said coldly. "If you want someone to take your side on a matter, you appeal to them and their culture, their values."
"So what, we just let these guys off the hook?" Bradford asked indignantly. "How'd that turn out with the innies on Far Isle?"
"We're out of our jurisdiction, this isn't our damn planet." Thomas pointed out.
"That doesn't excuse-" Bradford began, raising his voice.
Alright, I'm ending this. Richard thought, the frustration in his mind boiling over.
"Both of you, shut the hell up!" Richard said, raising his voice. "If you want to bicker and argue with one another, get the hell off my bridge! Once you're ready to act like Officers, and not children, feel free to come on back!"
Both of them seemed to be surprised by his outburst, but he was sick of their unending arguing. He briefly thought about how he might also be thinking irrationally, overburdened by all that he had on his plate, but he discarded that thought. He was a trained and experienced Officer, and protocol dictated that he was in the right on this matter.
"Sir, I-" Bradford began cautiously, Thomas wisely remained silent.
"Take five Lieutenant." Richard bluntly responded. "You too, Thomas, I'll sort this out."
"Yes, Sir." They both said, leaving the bridge.
Some of the other bridge staff were looking at him with unreadable expressions, including Gage and Williams. Gillespie seemed too busy with what he was doing to pay attention.
"Unless you'd like to tell me something dramatically important, get back to work." Richard bluntly ordered, which thankfully, they did.
Now left alone to solve the problem, he considered what his subordinates had said. Bradford made a decent point, murder could not be excused. At the same time, the unique circumstances of the encounter demanded scrutiny and a clinical perspective, with as little personal emotional input as possible. It wasn't lost on him that backing down and retracting his demands would be seen as a weakness to some, likely including the Schnee Dust Company. Still, pissing off the most powerful nation on what could potentially be their home for their foreseeable future probably wasn't the best idea.
I suppose it all comes down to whether or not they would try and use that against us, and what that would entail. Richard thought. And we can't truly trust that they wouldn't, not with what we know about them.
He paused, focusing on his previous thought. Maybe that was the source of the issue, a lack of understanding, especially regarding motives. Maybe the guards had some sort of quiet justification for their hostility. Maybe the SDC were running a classified extraction of some dangerous material, something radiological maybe? Some sort of covert construction facility for classified government projects?
"Curie, do you have a moment?" Richard asked, knowing that most of her focus was elsewhere.
"I always do monsieur, what can I do?" She asked, her hologram forming into existence on the holotable.
"I'm authorizing a cyberwarfare intrusion, our target is the Schnee Dust Company's internal servers, or whatever they have as an equivalent." Richard stated. "Deniability is an utmost priority, can you make it happen?"
"Oui, it will only take a moment." She replied, her cheerful nature undiminished. "They'll never know I was there."
"I want a copy of everything they have, internal emails, personnel files, anything." Richard added. "Quarantine them and keep them aboard the Dominion."
"Of course, the small upload channel will prove an obstacle, but I have no doubt I can find a solution." Curie said, her focus obviously divided. "Are we looking for anything in particular?"
"Any attempt at offensive action against anything that isn't Grimm." Richard replied. "Maybe we aren't the only ones." he muttered quietly to himself.
"I'm sorry, can you please repeat that?" Curie asked, her voice indicating a genuine lack of understanding.
"I'm trying to predict what would happen if we retract our demands for a trial, whether it's a good idea to back down or not." Richard said, hoping to clarify his intentions. "But I'm also wondering if we're the only people who have been attacked by the SDC, and what kind of motivation they might have."
"It would appear aside from the odd clash with a lost Huntsman or the long, pre-existing clash with a terror organization, the answer is no." Curie reported. "That being said, I haven't actually read most of this data I'm collecting, so it's possible that I am wrong."
Richard nodded with understanding, she was very busy. "You don't need to worry about that, we'll handle reading all this crap. You just worry about getting it without getting caught."
"They'll never know I was here." Curie said with a smirk.
Even with most of her attention elsewhere, Curie worked fast, and before long she had copied effectively all of the Schnee Dust Company's data. She'd also kept them under a tight lockdown, so if there were any sort of computer virus in them, it would be useless.
"Thank you Curie, I'll take care of it from here." Richard said with a nod, watching as she vanished.
The data she collected had a lot of what he was expecting. Expense reports, personnel transfers, and enough corporate-speak to bury a good-sized freighter. His experience and training from ONI reminded him that the Devil was in the details, but the details could wait, for now.
As he had expected, the file he was looking for had a cryptic and generally unhelpful name, "restricted access". The inside lacked any sort of records, however, instead containing a list of location, categorized by role. He pressed the "mines" tab, wondering why something like this would be restricted.
Menagerie
Belladonna Residence
October 6th, 2037 Standard Time, 2552
Quiet nights were too far and few between, at least in Ghira's opinion. He'd had a position of leadership for some time, even before he had become the Chieftain of Menagerie. As such, he was used to being extremely busy, and learned to take advantage of every quiet moment he could get.
"Honey! There's someone on the phone, they want to talk to you!" he heard Kali shout from the next room over.
He gave a brief sigh. Ah well, maybe this will be quick.
He quickly joined her in the living room, and found her sitting in one of the chairs, holding both the old landline phone of the house, as well as her scroll, which seemed to have some kind of book on it.
I wonder if it's one of the books the UNSC gave us. He thought, taking the phone from her and letting her get back to speaking. "Hello?"
"Hello, is this Chieftain Belladonna?" A distinctly female voice asked.
"It is." he confirmed. "Who am I speaking with?"
"My name is Doctor Larsen, I'm with a surgeon working with the Kuana Regional Hospital. I'm calling in regards to a patient we recently had admitted into intensive care, we... believe he's with the UNSC."
Ghira immediately tensed up. He'd been told about the battle with the Geist earlier, but nobody had been injured. If there had been another incident, he didn't know about it.
"What happened?" He asked bluntly.
"Well, we don't have all of the details." Larsen warned. "A pair of geologists found him out in the desert, and they called for an airship to get him to us. He was in pretty bad shape when we found him, but we think he's stable as of now."
"Was he attacked?" Ghira asked.
"From what we've managed to get out of him, Grimm. He's extremely distrustful of us, and it took us some time to get him to let us help him." Larsen said. "He was badly dehydrated, and had a lot of wounds that indicated that he'd been fighting Grimm in hand to hand combat."
Ghira flinched slightly, even he had trouble doing that. Whoever had gone through all of that must've been tough. A thought occurred to him that hadn't previously. "Why are you telling me this? What about Patient-Doctor confidentiality?"
"He said he needs to report to his superiors, although he is a bit out of it at the moment. But we have conclusive evidence backing up his claim that he is indeed from, or at least working with, the UNSC." Larsen explained. "Seeing as you're our only way of communicating with them, we decided to call you."
Ghira nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "I understand, we'll let them know what happened, and see if we can get you into contact with them."
"That would be greatly appreciated, call us back if you have any updates." Larsen said. "Did you have any other questions?"
"I did, do you know his name?" Ghira asked. He was at least hoping to offer the UNSC some sort of information.
"Chief Warrant Officer Jorge, Service number... 052." She recited from memory. "He hasn't really given us much beyond that."
"Thank you, I'll get back to you shortly." Ghira said, placing the phone back into its holder.
"Bad news?" Kali guessed, looking sympathetic.
"One of the alien soldiers is in the hospital." Ghira reported.
"Oh dear..." Kali said, her expression indicating genuine concern.
So much for a quiet night. He thought sadly.
The Dominion
Bridge
October 6th, 2045 Standard Time, 2552
Richard looked at his datapad with a look of concern and shock, his grip tightened, and he could feel a bead of sweat liberate itself onto his forehead. He swiped through image after image, page after page, hoping that he would see something that would indicate none of this was real.
This... this is so much worse than anything I could have anticipated. Richard thought, his jaw slightly slack as he struggled to wrap his mind around what he was seeing.
Slavery was an ancient concept, one that practically everyone knew about. And yet, he'd never seen it in practice, never seen the results with his own eyes, even if it was just pictures he was looking at. It was one of those things that a lot of people just didn't think about, not since the very first off-world colonization. The only people who even considered practicing it were desperate Innies.
He'd seen plenty of atrocities in his life, the Covenant's ruthlessness knew no bounds. But seeing a human do some of the things that he was looking at was a whole different story. Branding, rape, outright murder, all apparently commonplace under the logo of the SDC.
What the hell is this? Richard thought. How do you even justify something like this to yourself? How do you take part in this?
The shock and sadness began to dissipate from his body, overpowered by a wave of familiar anger and determination that began to fuel his body. He could feel his heartbeat, thumping rhythmically along like the report of a semi-automatic rifle. He felt the beginnings of a plan form in his mind, and it did not involve a polite response.
"Curie, get Bradford up here, now!" Richard snapped, not caring how his tone was taken.
"Aye Sir!" Curie quickly responded, she could recognize the shift in his tone, everyone on the bridge could. The shift in the atmosphere was dramatic, the chatter of the bridge stopped almost instantly.
But there was more to do, he grabbed the intercom from his chair and keyed it. "This is the Commander. All hands, set condition three throughout the ship. I repeat, set condition three throughout the ship."
The ship had previously been at condition four, the most relaxed posture a warship could have. Condition three indicated a wartime cruise, usually in dangerous space. While they were in no danger in orbit, he needed the crew to be on their toes.
As he placed the intercom back into its holder, Curie interjected, her voice wary. "Sir, if I may..."
"Make it quick." Richard replied with a nod. "We're about to be very busy."
"Is this… really... oh... oh my." Curie said, her expression shifting to one of shock. "I... I no longer wish to make my statement. I have made myself up to date on the situation."
"Sir, what the hell is going on?!" Bradford asked, his loud footsteps giving his presence away before his voice did.
Richard stood up and handed over his datapad. "We have conclusive evidence that the Schnee Dust Company is running a slaving operation. The specifics are... messy, see for yourself."
Bradford scrolled through some of the images, before his stony expression intensified. "Jesus..."
"We are intervening." Richard bluntly stated. "One way or another, this ends. We are not going to stand by and watch this happen."
A quick side glance to the rest of his bridge crew confirmed they were all looking at him, all of them seemed to still be too surprised to come to their own conclusions.
His Executive Officer nodded. "What's the plan?"
"Prep Zulu Company for combat." Richard replied. "I want our Hornets, Sabres, and dropships ready for missions on a five-minute notice, prepare support craft as you deem necessary."
"Aye, Sir!" Bradford said with a small nod of respect.
"And make sure those Sabres are loaded with interception configuration!" Richard ordered, before turning his attention to the communications station. "Ensign Gillespie, get me the General. We will give him exactly one chance to explain this, or to offer his own solution." He paused for a moment. "Curie… make sure those pictures are classified, officers only, we don't need the crew seeing that."
"Aye Sir." Curie said, a solemn tone in her voice.
"With pleasure, Sir." Gillespie said after a moment, before making his preparations.
So much for backing down, this… this is unacceptable. Richard thought, almost disappointed that it looked like things were going to result in a fight after all. But then he thought about what he'd seen, what those images entailed, and all of the sudden his sympathy vanished. The SDC were monsters and as such, they would be dealt with in a similar manner.
"Sir, I'm getting a priority one communication from Brushfire Actual." Gillespie rapidly followed up.
"Bad timing... patch him through." Richard sighed, walking over to the operations station, where he could see Lieutenant Clark's face.
"Sir, we have a development on the ground." Clark reported.
"It can't be worse than what we have up here, go ahead." Richard said, gesturing him to continue.
"On the contrary, it's the best damn news I've heard all week." Clark replied. "We just got a call from the local hospital, they found us a second Spartan."