Menagerie

Kuana Regional Hospital

October 6th, 2102 Standard Time, 2552

Ben had been climbing into the cargo compartment of the Darter when Lieutenant Clark frantically radioed him to stay. When he relayed what had happened, Ben felt more confused than surprised. He had absolutely no idea how another Spartan got here, let alone one whose designation implied they were a Spartan II.

The Lieutenant had requested that Ben join him, and both he and Curie quickly agreed, their curiosity overbearing any second thoughts. Quietly, Ben was cautious, it seemed too good to be true. But if they were being led into a trap, it was a well-prepared plan.

When he and Clark arrived at the civilian hospital, they found the waiting room was quite crowded. Ben didn't have any experience with a civilian hospital, but they seemed more or less the same to a military one, at least at a glance. The first major difference was a sign stating that "weapons are prohibited on the premises" on the entrance, but the person waiting for them had waved them in regardless.

"Huntsmen and Huntresses typically hold onto their equipment, just keep your guns holstered and safetied." He had said, as if it were a common occurrence, although his demeanor did suggest he was a bit uncomfortable. "I'll go check up with the doctor, see if they can handle visitors. Wait here for just one moment."

While they waited, he took in his surroundings. It stood out to him just how out of place he was. He stood a full head above everyone else in the room, and his armor made him stand out even more. He didn't even consider sitting on the wooden benches, as he was all but certain they would break under the weight of his armor. The Lieutenant didn't seem to be concerned with the confused expressions they received, as he was doing something on his datapad, but he also stood out, especially since he was wearing marine BDUs, as well as the associated armor and helmet.

I've always appreciated the CH252's, it seems the Lieutenant also has an appreciation for function over form. Ben thought, taking in everything there was to see in the room.

The decorations matched Menagerie's vaguely pacific-islander inspired style that they seemed to have naturally developed. But Ben was more focused on the people, it seemed like every time he went somewhere new, he encountered at least one new type of faunus. But all he saw this time was people, normal everyday civilians, who were moderately concerned about the two weirdly dressed spacemen sharing the room with them.

"I don't believe I've stood out more." Ben quietly mentioned to Curie, who gave an uncharacteristic, almost forced laugh in response.

"I don't know if that's true, we were quite out of place on the boardwalk." Curie replied, her voice indicating that she was distracted.

"Are you alright?" He asked, hoping that the concern in his voice didn't come across as pandering.

"I'm fine." Curie replied, unconvincingly. "It's just... the news from the Dominion is a bit disheartening, my fragment sent me a warning that it was going to be bad but..."

"One problem at a time Curie." Ben said. "The Commander will try diplomacy with Atlas, and if that doesn't work, we'll do what we're trained to do."

"You're right, I'll focus on the task at hand." Curie said after a moment. "Thank you, Ben."

"No problem at all." Ben replied.

"Lieutenant... Clark?" A receptionist tentatively prompted, snapping him out of his conversation.

"Present." Clark announced, raising his hand and walking over to the man's desk. "What's the condition of our man?"

"He's stable, the Doctor says he can take visitors, at least for a few minutes." The receptionist said. "The Doctor would also like to speak with one of you, especially if you intend to transfer him to your ship for further treatment."

"Excellent, can you take us to him?" Clark asked.

"I'll handle that." A woman said from behind both of them. Ben turned and saw a faunus woman in medical attire, with a pair of extremely unusual bright green eyes. They seemed to turn independently in their sockets, and everything except for the central portion of the eye was covered in skin. It was a bit odd, but compared to the alien species of the Covenant, it was nothing.

They look vaguely reptilian, but I wouldn't be able to guess what kind. I wonder how well she actually sees things. Ben thought.

"My name is Doctor Larsen, you're the Lieutenant, right?" she continued.

"I am, and this is Sergeant Ben, another Spartan." Clark said, gesturing towards Ben.

Larsen looked at the Lieutenant, before quickly switching both of her eyes to look at Ben, examining every detail of him from top to bottom. Her eyes did not move in unison, in fact, it seemed like she had her left eye start at his feet while her right eye started with his head. It was obvious she was trying to discern something by her expression, but Ben couldn't figure out what.

"Um, yes doctor?" Ben prompted, trying to snap her out of her silent staring.

"It's nothing, please follow me." she said.

As they began walking, the doctor kept speaking, answering their questions before they even got a chance to ask them. "He was discovered by a pair of geologists out in the desert, far beyond safe traveling limits. He's suffered from severe lacerations and was badly dehydrated. The Geologists managed to call for an airship to get him here, where we've been treating him to the best of our ability. We discovered he also had a ruptured liver, which he had apparently treated with some sort of foam."

"Did he say anything, or mention how he got out there?" Clark asked, interrupting her rambling.

"He has said things, in fact, he's been murmuring in his sleep, a lot." Larsen awkwardly stated. "That being said, he's rather delusional, likely due to dehydration. He did mention he'd been "out there" for at least a week, but if that was true, he should be dead."

Ben internally felt a hint of sympathy. Even Spartan augmentations couldn't do much to fix just how critical water is to the human body, and he'd experienced dehydration at several points in his life. Coupled with internal organ damage and wounds from Grimm, he likely would've lost a lot of blood.

"Well, he might've found something to help him survive." Clark suggested.

"That was our best guess, as he was carrying a lot of equipment with him." Larsen confirmed. "We've stored what he had off the hospital grounds, we were worried someone might try to operate it."

"Precaution is admirable." Ben simply stated. "It creates less problems to fix later."

"I couldn't agree more." Larsen said with a nod. "Ah, we're here."

He'd barely been paying attention to his surroundings, but they'd walked through what must have been most of the building. A sign on the wall told him that they were in the Intensive Care Ward.

"I trust you have bedside manner where you come from?" Larsen asked, holding her hand on the doorknob.

"Of course ma'am." Clark said with a respectful nod. "We're not barbarians."

"Good, follow me." she said with a nod, opening the door and entering.

Any doubt that Ben had about Jorge vanished the instant he saw the man lying in the hospital bed, his stature alone confirmed he'd been extensively augmented. He was apparently an older man, with slightly unkempt facial hair, and enough scars to demonstrate his experience. The bandages wrapped around much of his body made identifying more features difficult, as many of them were wrapped around his head.

He'd honestly doubted that the doctors would've managed to remove his armor, but apparently, they had, and even managed to get him into a hospital gown. As soon as he saw Ben and Clark, he blinked several times, as if trying to figure out if he was seeing things right.

"Nem értem..." Jorge muttered, barely audible enough for Ben to hear, even with his heightened senses. Nobody else seemed to have heard it, and Ben didn't understand what it meant.

"Jorge, these men are here to see you." Doctor Larsen said in a very calm, friendly voice.

"I can see that." Jorge said, his tone indicating he was slightly insulted. "Thank you, ma'am."

"No problem at all." Larsen awkwardly replied, keeping her tone calm as she took a step back.

I wonder what's got her so worried? It could just be that Jorge is a naturally intimidating man. Ben hypothesized.

Jorge quickly shifted his focus to Ben, and gained a quizzical look. "I wasn't expecting a Spartan, what's your name?"

"Sergeant Ben, G-021." Ben responded.

"And I'm Lieutenant Clark." He quickly added.

"G-021?" He questioned, subtly straightening up his posture, recognizing he was in the presence of an officer. "Nevermind, we'll have to talk about that later. It's nice to see some friendlies for a change."

Yeah, definitely a Spartan. Ben thought, feeling a hint of admiration.

"Well, it's good to see that you are alive and well." Clark said dryly. "The Doctor here has filled us in a bit, but I was hoping that now that we have a chance to speak with you personally, you can help clear a few things up."

"I'll do my best, but don't depend on it, my memory is a bit fuzzy, Sir." Jorge replied with a nod. "But if I can ask a question first, where are we?"

"Kuana regional hospital, on a col-" Clark began, but interrupted himself by clearing his throat. "-on a planet called Remnant."

Ben noticed Doctor Larsen give Clark a curious look with one of her eyes, but she stayed silent.

Jorge nodded, Clark's distinction hadn't gone unnoticed. "Last I remember, I was on Reach. That raises a hell of a lot more questions than it answers."

Ben grimaced behind his helmet, if he was on Reach, his story already didn't bode well. "What were you doing on Reach?"

"Manually firing a jury-rigged Slipspace bomb." Jorge stated, without even the slightest inclination that he was being anything but totally honest.

Clark was still digesting what Jorge had said when Ben gave his confused response. "You... what?"

"A Slipspace drive intentionally modified to malfunction, which it did." Jorge repeated without further detail.

"That's impossible." Ben deadpanned. "It would be a miracle if you had remains to return home at all, the radiation alone-"

"Sergeant!" Doctor Larsen prompted with a surprising degree of authority.

"Right, sorry ma'am." Ben said, noticing Jorge discreetly roll his eyes. Curie gave a brief giggle at his expense.

With everything I've learned about these guys, I'm pretty confident I don't have to worry about hurting their feelings. Ben thought. "But, you somehow managed to survive?"

"I guess so." Jorge said with a half-hearted shrug. "Truth be told, I haven't been thinking about it much. The local wildlife has been keeping me too busy."

"Grimm." Doctor Larsen muttered.

"Yeah, we've met em' too." Ben said. "Of course, we had weapons."

"So did I, but I understand what you mean." Jorge replied with a nod. "I'm lucky that I landed near the wreckage, managed to pick out some leftovers."

"Wreckage? If I recall correctly, we haven't detected any sort of spacecraft, or wreckage of one." Clark questioned, getting another curious look from the doctor.

I'm worried she'll overhear something that she shouldn't. Ben thought.

"It's not much, a damaged Pelican and a few chunks of hull from a Covenant Corvette, I can see how you could have missed it." Jorge explained. "If you're hoping to salvage it, don't get your hopes up. I landed in the middle of a sandstorm, it's probably buried."

"Shame, we could use the extra bird." Ben said, mostly to himself.

"Indeed, but we'll make do with what we have." Clark concluded. "Do you have anything else that's critical to report?"

Jorge took a deep breath before continuing. "When the Slipspace drive detonated, a fraction of one of Reach's defense A.I's was pulled along in my armor. It seems that she took some damage on the way, because she's in hibernation, but she said that she had some critical information to get to HIGHCOM."

"Interesting" Curie mumbled, speaking only to Ben. "If I could talk to her, maybe she could help explain how Jorge got here."

"Ma'am, where's his equipment?" Ben asked, turning his attention towards Larsen.

"Like I said, off of the hospital grounds, under the protection of a Huntress and some police officers." Larsen said. "We recognized how dangerous it could be if it was stolen, so we made efforts to keep it safe."

"In the right hands, that armor could be more dangerous than a nuke." Jorge warned, a statement with which Ben quietly agreed. "It's a good thing you're being cautious."

"A nuke?" Larsen asked, her lack of knowledge regarding the word being made obvious by her difficulty pronouncing it.

"A nuclear explosive." Jorge clarified, not understanding how she could be confused. "Don't you know what those are?"

"Jorge... there's a few things you should know." Ben cautiously began.

"We'll try to bring you up to speed, but... we have a lot of bad news." Clark added.

They quickly brought Jorge up to speed to the best of their ability, telling him about what had happened to the Dominion and themselves when they had tried to leave Onyx. Ben was forced to omit some bits of sensitive information due to the doctor's presence, doing his best to keep things intentionally vague, whilst also making sure that Jorge knew everything critical. Clark also did his best to fill in where he could, and Curie was able to offer a few specifics that even he didn't know about.

"That's... a hell of a story." Jorge said, once Ben and Clark had finished. "I'll admit, I have trouble believing some of it."

"We all do." Ben simply replied.

"We're still trying to figure a lot of things out about this place, not to mention how we're going to find a way home, if there is one." Clark said, his tone souring toward the end of his statement. Ben decided not to voice his own concerns on the matter.

"So we're stuck here?" Jorge asked, before turning his attention to the Doctor. "Not that you all haven't been very nice of course..."

Doctor Larsen waved him off. "It's a hospital, not a hotel. I can understand wanting to leave, especially given some of your... rougher experiences."

Ben raised an eyebrow at that. "Rougher?"

"It's nothing important, they just had some difficulties with... me specifically." Jorge said, doing his best to brush it off, which was enough to make Ben worried.

"Yeah, about that." Larsen began awkwardly. "We discovered some alarming things about his biology while we were operating on him, he has assured us they are not cause for alarm."

His augmentations. Ben realized. "They aren't."

"That's reassuring." she said, although Ben couldn't quite determine if she was being genuine or not. "Now, I will need you to sign some release forms is you're going to take Jorge back to your base."

"We'll be taking him aboard the Dominion." Clark confirmed, before turning to Ben. "I'll take care of the paperwork. Could you go check on his armor, make sure that everything is as it should be?"

"Yes, Sir." Ben said. "I'll let Curie have a look at it too, see if she can wake up the A.I from Reach."

"Good idea." Clark replied.

"If you head back to the lobby, one of the staff should be able to let you know where we're keeping it. I'm not personally privy to that information, I have other concerns." Doctor Larsen offered.

"Thank you Doctor." Ben said.

"Sergeant." Jorge interjected, capturing his attention. "It wasn't in the best shape, don't be surprised if you find some damage."

"I'll keep that in mind." Ben said, before making his exit.

UNSC Dominion

Bridge

October 6th, 2102 Standard Time, 2552

Richard stood at the comms station on the Bridge, listening as the General tried to make his defense. He'd given Ironwood everything, totally unedited, and made his intentions to take action clear.

"Commander, I urge you, let's think about this with clear heads..." General Ironwood calmly said.

"Oh I assure you, I am treating this as calmly as it deserves to be treated." Richard coldly replied. "You're looking at the same thing I am, right?"

"I agree, it's detestable." Ironwood replied, his empathy for Richard obvious. "But we have laws for this, legal channels. We are more than capable of putting a stop to this ourselves."

"Can you? Can I trust you?" Richard quietly muttered, just loud enough to be heard. He followed his silence with a slammed fist on the metal exterior of the computer. "We have identified no fewer than forty-seven locations like this! How the hell did this go unnoticed?!"

"I can't say, but I assure you had we known we would have taken action years ago! We didn't know anything about this." Ironwood said. His facial expression carried a great deal of shame along with it.

Apparently he has as much faith in his police force as we do now. Richard thought, coldly amused. "Oh I know that. If I had reason to suspect you did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Now, I called you based on the admittedly unlikely hope that you could somehow, in any way, justify what you and I are looking at."

When they had given Ironwood the SDC files, he had warned Richard not to release them in their entirety, as the resulting Grimm attacks from the negative emotions would be catastrophic. Richard had reluctantly agreed, although he realized that meant that he would need to tread carefully with what information he released in the future.

"As much as I wish I could, I'm afraid that I cannot." Ironwood said. "But what I can do is assure you that Atlas Academy and it's military are more than capable of dealing with this. We can arrest them-"

"And what would you have us do, sit back and watch as the bastards all get minimal sentences?!" Richard asked rhetorically. "You know damn well he couldn't have gotten away with this without the support of your government! Hell, you don't have to take my word for it, look at this!"

He brought up a file for them to both see, a list of contacts in the Atlesian Police Force. It wasn't a small list either, and it was far from the only list of contacts the Company had.

I'll have to remember that, these bastards don't get away with this either. Richard thought.

"I... we can deal with this, together. I want to stop this just as much as you do." Ironwood buckled for a moment, but his stoicism was unyielding. "But we aren't going to do this without level heads, without thinking clearly."

"Level heads..." Richard muttered aloud, but found himself unable to pick out faults in the General's offer. "Go ahead General, I'm listening."

"If you truly insist on taking action against the SDC's private security, I'm not sure if I can stop you, even if I wanted to." Ironwood said, obviously unhappy with what he was saying. "As much as it pains me to say, I can't spare the men to act on this. With the spike in Grimm activity, everything we have is needed to defend Atlas and Mantle…"

Richard nodded, he didn't like it but he nodded nonetheless. He had seen the reports and Atlas was not in the best of places at the moment. They had been forced to call in troops from a number of their bases just to man their walls.

"And the bureaucracy is necessary, we cannot do away with the Due Process, even for this, although this will certainly make the ensuing trails easier." Ironwood said, gesturing at the mass of criminal evidence he had. "I will not allow a battle to take place within Atlas's boundaries."

Richard opened his mouth to retaliate, but stopped, acknowledging his specific wording. The boundaries of Atlas might have different meanings, based on whether Ironwood was referencing the Kingdom, or the City.

"These facilities, these Mines..." he began, guttural growling the final word. "They aren't within your city."

"Indeed they aren't." Ironwood said with a nod of affirmation. "I will not jeopardize Atlas or Mantle by drawing away soldiers and Huntsmen. Not to fight slavers, or to defend them, and that means my soldiers stay to defend the Kingdom."

Richard was starting to see where he was going with this. "Alright General, I see your point. We'll take down the mines, you take down the Bureaucrats."

"It's more complicated than that." Ironwood pointed out. "I may have two seats on the Council, but I'll still be replaced if we can't convince the public that we're the good guys. If we don't have public support, we've already lost."

Richard quietly cursed, although his mind had calmed, his anger had been replaced with frustration. "I would have said release those files, but I'm not sure if I have enough nukes to kill all of the Grimm on your planet."

"I... we all wish you did." Ironwood said sympathetically, albeit with a hint of curiosity.

I wonder if that sentiment would change if he knew what a nuke was. Richard thought. "Ok General, what's your plan?"

"Give me time, and I'll try to gather what support I can." Ironwood requested. "I can't promise you total legal authority within our borders, but I can certainly offer you some help."

"And if we should fail to bring the SDC down, it is us the public will be mad at." Richard couldn't help but be impressed with the plan. "Either the SDC or the UNSC will be ruined by this war, and Atlas will come out on top either way."

Ironwood looked at the camera a moment before sighing. "I will work behind the scenes to gain all the support I can and stop the politicians from bring Atlas into another war." Richard appreciated the honesty. "Once you've shown the world what the SDC, what Jacques Schnee, has done I will be able to move against him without upsetting the people. If anything this will help give the people hope."

"In the meantime you allow two potential enemies to fight one another." Richard silently finished, It was a rather blatant play on both sides, but not one Richard could find himself to condemn. The General was giving them as much leeway as he could get away with. A thought occurred to Richard, one that should've came up sooner, but he had overlooked in his anger. "You're putting an awful lot of faith in us."

"Yes, I am." Ironwood sighed once more. "Your UNSC could make a difference in the world. With you by our side, we might actually stand a chance at victory. But that won't come without trust." Ironwood pointed out. "I don't know what that ship of yours is capable of, but I've read every report you've released about the Covenant and what I've seen… disturbs me to say the least. The weapons at your disposal… I would condemn them if we didn't need them."

Richard hesitated for a moment. "The primary weapons of this Frigate could rip your floating city to ribbons, or burn it to ash." Richard kept his face as neutral as he could manage. "I would never consider using any weapon of mass destruction against a predominantly civilian target, but... well I believe you get the idea."

He felt sick thinking about the threat. Hopefully the General wouldn't ever feel the need to test his resolve.

"I see…" The General sighed. "You can understand why that might not fill me with confidence. Don't make me regret trusting you, Commander."

"You won't." Richard reassured.

"We'll certainly see won't we." Ironwood bluntly responded. "Best of luck with your war, Commander."

The screen faded black a moment later. Richard turned to his XO, there was work to be done.