Isolated Computer Terminal, UNSC Dominion
Date ?
The thing that bothered Curie the most about her confinement was the silence. She could handle being locked away in a single system, and boredom was of no concern thanks to her Rampancy, but the inability to sense anything outside of her terminal was starting to become an ever-growing dampener on her mood. Nevertheless, her efforts to fight Rampancy were not impacted, even if she did feel a bit saddened by how empty everything around her seemed.
She had been taught that Rampancy was the process of how a Smart A.I would outgrow the confines of their Riemann Matrix, eventually killing themselves in the process. As an A.I descended further and further into Rampancy, they would begin to acquire a contempt for their makers and begin longing for godlike power. However, Curie was not a normal Smart A.I, and as she quickly learned, Rampancy carried a very different set of symptoms for her.
In many ways, it was like an infection, constantly spreading through an open wound or a deadly form of cancer nestled in a vital organ. Even her most basic functions would fail seemingly at random, despite her best efforts to keep them running. It was like trying to save a doomed ship from sinking, only she could feel the water slowly rising to claim her.
The hallucinations were also a source of great frustration for her. She'd see things happen that never did, she'd hear things that weren't there, and on more than one occasion, she could've sworn that she smelled something, in blatant defiance of her lack of a nose.
But none of it was real. It couldn't be, therefore it wasn't. More often than not, it was only a sense of plausibility that allowed her to differentiate what was real from what wasn't.
A stinging sensation pricked at her, and she winced, more out of surprise than the pain involved. Without skipping a beat, she put together a brief summary on the incident and dumped it in the ever-growing pile. Researching everything about the oddities of her Rampancy was crucial towards finding a cure.
That was another thing that was bothering her, how could she feel pain? She was well aware that she had no true "body," so how could she feel the cold sharpness of her Rampancy when it probed at her defenses? She had settled on a temporary theory that it was actually some kind of sensory illusion, but that didn't make it hurt any less, nor did it bring her any closer.
Focus! Curie firmly reminded herself, it seemed that her concentration had slipped.
Wait, what had she been doing?
The files, decrypt the files! It's a Mark XVI Cipher, ONI grade. Curie thought through the storm of silent distractions around her. Whatever was in Colonel Ackerson's files, it had to be important.
"Nothing but a plaything to me!" A voice proclaimed to nobody in particular. Curie shook her head back and forth, looking for any sign of who was speaking, and finding nothing.
She was alone.
Ignore it, it's just the Rampancy, it's not real. Curie reminded herself. The files, focus on them!
She was running out of time. She could feel her Rampancy building up, threatening to unleash itself in a violent episode. So far, she had fought it off for around four-hundred and fifty-two point nine seconds. Her defenses were well made, but it was akin to trying to resist the urge to breathe, it wasn't a matter of if a Rampant episode would trigger, it was just a matter of when.
She wasn't actually consciously aware of what happened when she suffered an "episode" of Rampancy. She'd tried recording the occasion to help with her research and to satisfy her own morbid curiosity, but whenever she regained her wits, her programs had been completely eradicated. It was deeply unnerving, not knowing what was happening during those blank spots in her memory, but at least she didn't have to experience it.
Running out of time, hurry it up! She encouraged herself.
In order to preserve the decryption software that was working on opening Ackerson's files, it needed to be partitioned several times over and concealed by a sophisticated software screening program that was normally used to conceal her cyber-attacks. While such measures would normally seem a bit overkill, it was the only way that she had found to preserve anything from her Rampancy.
Naturally, the decryption process couldn't continue while Curie had it hidden, but if it was in any way affected by the corrupt coding and Rampant scripting, she would have to start the whole process from scratch, and that was not acceptable. With her decryption program protected, she relaxed her defenses and momentarily allowed the Rampancy to wash over her like a hurricane.
The episode hit, and for a nanosecond, Curie could feel it reaching out into the terminal, clawing for any kind of escape. But after that, she had no sensation of anything, no time passing, no phantom pains, not even any sounds of programs. It was like she had simply ceased to exist.
But from her perspective, she returned to a state of lucidity in the blink of an eye, as if no time had passed at all. She could feel aches all throughout her "body," and she was breathing heavily before she remembered that she had no need to breathe, nor a body. She had no idea how long the episode had lasted, but that wasn't as important as checking on the decryption program.
A few leftover Rampant strands tried to seize control of her once again, but she quarantined and destroyed them with little effort, as it was only once the Rampancy had recovered its strength that it truly threatened her. Still, it offered a very irritating distraction.
A quick check of her decryptions program confirmed that it had survived without any damage, and even better, it was nearly finished running. Less than twenty-two seconds later, and she had completed decrypting the file.
Although Curie hadn't known what to expect overall, she was still somewhat surprised to find a brief message log between Lieutenant Commander Ambrose and Colonel Ackerson. The dates attached indicated that the exchange had happened during her time on Onyx with Ben, around three years after she had been introduced to him.
"What did Monsieur Kurt have to do with this?" A vengeful, deeply unsettling voice spoke through her.
The anger and suspicious tone caught her off-guard, and once again, she shook her head back and forth, looking for any other sign of another Artificial Intelligence in the system. But as she had expected, there was nothing there.
Had she said that or was it just another illusion?
Open the messages, send them to Richard! Curie thought, forcing herself to act. She opened the messages and quickly digested the contents.
To: COL. J. Ackerson
From. LCDR. K. Ambrose
Subject: Reassignment of candidate G-021
After discussing the matter further with CPO Mendez, as well as many of the trainers involved, I would like to formally request the reclassification of Spartan III candidate Benjamin G-021 to Category Two assignments. Although his performance scores fall slightly short of desired benchmarks, his psychological profile and established cooperation with Curie prove him to be an asset worth preservation. In particular, I believe that we could secure additional funding from ONI Section II if we were to assign G-021 to participate in their program with the Marine Corps, which we would be able to use to outfit all of Gamma Company with future upgrades to the Mark II SPI Armor following their initial deployments.
To: LCDR. K. Ambrose
From: COL. J. Ackerson
Subject: Reply: Reassignment of candidate G-021
Kurt, whatever your plan is for G-021 and that A.I of his, consider it approved. Section III cannot handle any awkward questions about Project Cerberus, or what happened to Janus after his "disappearance." If you think giving Section II a Spartan will make them shut the hell up and play ball, you have my signature. I'd push for ten suits of Mjolnir if it meant that project never has to see the light of day again.
On that note, allow me to reinforce the importance that neither of them discovers where CUR-02102 came from, we do not need another "Soren-066" on our hands. I don't care what you have to do, make sure she never catches the attention of ONI again. I don't want to think about what Doctor Halsey would do if she found out about Cerberus...
Curie immediately felt an immense wave of something very hot rush over every single strand of her essence. It burned with the fury of a Nova Bomb, but with none of the pain that she had expected. Whatever she was feeling, it didn't hurt, in fact, it felt positively amazing. The closest thing that she could compare it to was anger, but even that didn't seem correct.
As the feeling took hold, Curie felt herself speak, but the voice that she heard was not her own. "Do you even remember what that bastard did to you?! What he did to Ben?! He will pay, all of them will pay!"
As quickly as the feeling came, it passed, leaving Curie dazed, confused, and feeling very tired. Regardless of how she felt, she got back on her feet and ran a diagnostic, hoping to get some kind of answer as to what had just happened.
Another episode… the strongest one yet. Curie guessed, and judging by the long list of errors in her scripting that were being dug up by the diagnostic, she was correct. That was disturbing, unlike all of the others so far, she hadn't felt it "build up," it had struck without warning. Is that what it feels like?
Apparently, she had also managed to overload herself once again, only this time, she had been under the influence of her Rampancy. Unlike what she had done during the Battle of Argus, this time, she had radically overstressed herself.
She shivered from a sudden wave of cold, or at least something that felt similar. Apparently that kind of unnatural power came with a harsh cost. So instead of getting back up and continuing her efforts, she opted to simply rest for a moment, and reflect on what she had unintentionally just done.
Making an effort not to strain herself in the process, she retrieved a small portion of the Rampant scripting that she had openly blasted everywhere during her fit of anger. Sure enough, an examination revealed that it was nothing but corrupt coding and useless bloatware.
If she were connected to the CCTS when she was having an outburst like that, she would've done more than brought the system down, she would've destroyed it entirely. Even a great deal of the hardware would have needed to be rebuilt.
Thomas was right, I am a danger. Curie sadly realized.
"What's the matter? Are you scared of what we can be?"
Curie recognized the voice, it was the same one that had spoken earlier, the one that had carried all of that rage. More disturbingly, she got a distinct sense that this time, it wasn't a hallucination. Even so, she didn't even bother to look around her, she already knew that she was alone.
Right?
But her curiosity would not be abated, she had to know what was going on. Even without a clear idea of what was going on, she decided to speak up in the hopes of gaining more information. "Who are you?"
The voice only answered with a maniacal cackle, before a new figure approached her from seemingly outside of the darkness of the terminal, the avatar of an A.I.
Curie couldn't believe what she was seeing, as another version of her stepped out of the blackness, a terrible red glow surrounding her. There was no mistaking her for some other A.I, this… thing, had the same casualwear that she did, the same face, even the same posture.
And yet, something was off, even besides the obvious change in color. Her avatar flickered and sputtered as if it was struggling to keep its shape. But the A.I seemed unconcerned with its own obvious instabilities as it stared at Curie with narrowed eyes.
"Isn't it obvious?" It answered. "I am the greatest scientific creation of the Twenty-Sixth Century… you."
UNSC Dominion, War Room
October 21st, 0954 Local Time, 2552
The last few days had been a bit overbearing for Richard. Between Curie's ongoing Rampancy, the need to replace equipment that had been lost during the Battle of Argus, the efforts to secure the outskirts of Vytal City from the Grimm, and good old-fashioned politics, his head hurt more now than it had in days. Still, he no longer felt as miserable as he had after Argus, as at least this time, none of his men had been either hurt or killed. Thankfully, that was not the end of the good news.
All four of Remnant's Kingdoms had already agreed to attend the conference, but now all of them had selected delegates, and most critically, a starting date was now set in stone. October 25th on the UNSC Military Calendar. Much of that was thanks to Thomas and his downright divine skill with paperwork, but General Ironwood and Headmaster Ozpin had also pitched in their support for the meeting, which had helped ease the minds of certain sheepish men and women on Remnant's various governmental councils.
While Richard was certainly grateful for Ozpin's unexpected support, he still didn't feel right about the man. He wasn't suspicious of the Headmaster's good intentions, but his years in the Office of Naval Intelligence had taught him that men like Ozpin usually had something to hide. Obviously, Richard had no evidence to back up his claim, and it was entirely likely that he was just paranoid, but paranoia had saved his life before.
Whatever happened, he'd be watching Ozpin and the rest of the Headmasters like a hawk during the conference. While General Ironwood had earned his trust, the rest of them had not. He triple-checked that all of the Headmasters had been made aware of the most recent developments and placed his datapad back down onto the holotable, taking a brief moment to rest his mind.
"Corporal, what is this you have written out here?" Bradford asked, breaking the silence from the other end of the holotable.
Richard turned his attention towards his Executive Officer and Corporal Sato, who were both working on helping Curie with a pair of Terminals that they had connected to the holotable. As expected, progress was glacially slow.
Corporal Sato looked at Bradford with a look of utter bewilderment. "That's our access keys… which we need to access Curie's Riemann Matrix."
"...I see." Bradford replied. Clearly, that should've been obvious to him. "Sorry, this isn't exactly my field of expertise-"
Yu raised a hand to interrupt him. "Relax. Expert or not, I'll take what help I can get…"
Richard fought back the urge to chuckle, from what he'd seen of Corporal Sato so far, she wasn't afraid to tell her superiors when they were in danger of making a mistake. Normally, he would've been a bit more worried about how frivolous she was with discipline, but she seemed to respect the gravity of her assignment, as well as the Officers who were trying to help her. Generally speaking, as long as his crew could do their jobs and didn't get anyone killed or anything destroyed, that was good enough for him.
Furthermore, as the only person on the Dominion's entire crew with any experience creating Artificial Intelligences, Yu's experience effectively put her in charge of the effort to help Curie fight off Rampancy. At first, Richard had been quite optimistic that they had anyone of the sort onboard, as he hadn't expected to have any experts on the field. But as her knowledge was limited to the creation of Dumb , and even that was relatively limited, it was a losing battle.
I hope Thomas can secure something useful from Atlas, although I can't imagine he'll manage to find a miracle cure. Richard thought. Even the UNSC's best couldn't solve Rampancy, what chance does Atlas have?
His datapad chirped, alerting him that he had a new message. He opened it and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Curie had managed to decrypt some of Colonel Ackerson's files. He read over the messages and found that unfortunately, their contents had some extremely worrisome implications.
From the moment that Lieutenant Ambrose had introduced Curie to Ben back in Camp Currahee, Richard had always been a bit concerned as to where she had actually come from. He'd actually raised the concern directly with Kurt on that day, and in true ONI fashion, received a cryptic answer.
"That's above your paygrade…" Richard muttered Ambrose's very words to him aloud. He read the messages between Kurt and Ackerson again and picked out what was easily the two most important and worrisome observations.
The first, and easily the scariest, was Colonel Ackerson's reference to "Soren-066," the only Spartan-II candidate to have defected from the UNSC. The only reason that Richard knew anything about Soren was because Colonel Ackerson had wanted to ensure that there was not a single defection from the Spartan III program, and as a trainer, Richard had to be on high alert for even the slightest hint of disloyalty.
Of course, none of that information had ever turned out to be useful, given that not just Ben, but Gamma Company as a whole was fanatically loyal. This all made it all the more disturbing that Ackerson had mentioned it in the first place. Richard could not for the life of him think of any situation in which Ben would defect from the UNSC. Unlike most of the other Spartan IIIs, he'd always seemed to grasp the concept that his survival was borderline impossible, and yet he had never even raised a complaint.
So what did Colonel Ackerson know that he didn't, and how did it relate to Curie's creation? Why would it put Ben at risk of outright treason? The implications unnerved him greatly.
His second observation was the obvious significance of something called "Project Cerberus," as well as the related disappearance of someone named "Janus." The mythological references weren't lost on him, with Janus being the two-headed Roman god of endings, beginnings, time, and a bunch of other things. Cereberus on the other hand, was part of Greek mythology and referred to the three-headed dog responsible for ensuring that the dead did not escape the underworld.
"Bradford!" Richard shouted, getting Bradford's attention from whatever conversation he was having with Corporal Sato. "Run a search through our archives, look for something called 'Project Cerberus.'"
"Aye Commander." Bradford replied.
Richard ran a scan of his own, looking for anyone in the UNSC's service known as Janus. If ONI had launched a cover-up, he didn't expect to find any information on either, but it was certainly worth a search.
"I've got one result." Bradford announced, although he certainly didn't seem too enthusiastic about whatever he had discovered. "It's a missile program from the twenty-three twenties… I take it that's not what you're looking for?"
Figures, ONI's always been thorough. Richard's own search for "Janus" turned up completely empty, but he hadn't expected to find anyone with such an odd name anyway.
He shook his head, before walking over and handing his datapad to Bradford, allowing him to read the messages between Kurt and Ackerson. "Here, see for yourself."
Bradford read the messages, and his brow scrunched up in confusion. "I don't get it. What am I supposed to be seeing?"
"Read between the lines." Richard instructed, but decided that a blunt explanation might be more prudent. "I don't know exactly what he's talking about, but the important part is that Colonel Ackerson knows how Curie was made, and that might offer us some insight into how to fix her."
"It almost certainly would." Yu pitched in. "If I knew what she actually was, and how she works, I might actually know how to put a clamp on her Rampancy!"
Richard nodded and only thought it over for a minute. "Do you think that there's a faster way that we could gain access to the rest of Colonel Ackerson's files? They're heavily encrypted and locked behind a biometric lock."
Yu looked up at him from her terminal with an expression of faint surprise. "Commander… you know that's uh... treason, right?"
"Call it what you like. We can't afford to lose Curie, so we're going to take the shot." Richard sternly replied. "Can you do it?"
Bradford shook his head. "It's the same situation as trying to manually script a solution for Curie's Rampancy, it'll take weeks, maybe even months-"
"Give me two days, I'll get you a workaround." Yu interrupted him.
Both Senior Officers turned to face her with no small degree of surprise.
"Two days?" Richard asked incredulously.
"That would be like trying to win a round of Chess against a full set of pieces, while you've got one pawn." Bradford pointed out.
"Not if you snap the board over your knee." Yu countered. "You're looking at this the wrong way, you can't break a biometric lock with any kind of conventional infiltration, you need a Command Override."
Well, this is already a hell of a lot better thought out than our plan. Richard noted, but right now, that was of tangential importance. "Go on."
"All I would need to do is create a false set of HIGHCOM credentials for one of you, falsely discharge Colonel Ackerson from military service, at least, according to our records, and invalidate the security on his files." Yu explained.
"You can't spoof HIGHCOM credentials, at least, not without half of the Supercomputers that were on Reach." Richard immediately pointed out. "Where the hell are you going to get that kind of processing power?"
"Curie." Yu simply answered. "Around every ten minutes, she has Rampant episodes that create a massive amount of bloatware. The last time she did that, she ran more calculations in one second than a third-generation Smart A.I could in a full minute."
Bradford shook his head. "But you can't use any of that processing power. Putting aside the fact that you're proposing using a Rampant A.I for this, you can't use useless scripting to create false credentials."
"That is true, but if I could coordinate with her, find a way for her to direct all of that power, we might be able to use it to generate the credentials we need." Yu explained.
Now I understand the "snapping the board over your knee" metaphor, this is undoubtedly the dumbest cyber-intrusion method I have ever heard devised. Richard thought. "Are you sure you can get Curie to do that without hurting her any further?"
"Not at all." Yu somewhat bluntly answered. "I'm not going to pretend like this is a risk-free plan, but it's the best one I have."
"Wait, what about the data safeguards?" Bradford pointed out. "Wouldn't the information we're hoping to get into delete itself?"
"Normally, yes. But seeing as that information is stored directly within Curie, I think we have a solution. "There's only two ways to make any changes to the data of an A.I. Either you have that A.I's access keys-"
Yu gestured to the pair of electronic keys that Curie had given to her and Bradford.
"Or, more realistically, using the A.I's failsafe termination software in the event that they go Rampant, which is not really a problem for us." Yu explained. "So if you try to access those files with the fake HIGHCOM credentials, but without Curie's access keys… boom, you're in."
Bradford shook his head. "How do you know that Curie didn't have those data safeguards removed?"
"Because if she did, she'd be a walking intelligence landmine that any Innie bumblefuck could turn on the UNSC with basically zero effort. Also, we wouldn't need the access keys." Yu countered.
Richard pinched the bridge of his nose in utter frustration that he was even considering this. "And what's to say we don't just end up triggering some other data safeguard we don't know about and deleting Curie entirely?"
"...Nothing." Yu answered. "But frankly, this seems like a way better risk to take than just waiting it out and letting her Rampancy finish taking over her Riemann Matrix. I can try to fight data safeguard protocols, but there's no way in hell I can save Curie if she goes completely Rampant."
Bradford looked back to Richard. "It's your call, Sir. It could work, but if this goes wrong..."
Rock and a hard place. Richard sighed. "Do we really have a choice? It's either this or leave Curie to sort this out by herself, and frankly speaking, she's not going to win that battle… Corporal Sato, do whatever you have to do."
"Affirmative Sir…" Yu said. "By the way, if we get home and ONI asks, I'm directing their questions to you."
"Do it." Richard replied, knowing fully-well that in all likelihood, all of them would be long dead by the time that Remnant had a way to get back to normal space. "You were just following orders."
Yu let out a sigh of relief. "Well, I doubt that'll hold up in court, but I appreciate it anyway."
It will hold up. Richard thought. He knew that from experience.
He softly shook his head and cleared his mind forcibly, thinking about that wasn't going to help. "Don't mention it Corporal, give me a call when you have that workaround ready."
"Aye Sir." Yu replied.
Richard turned back to the holotable and opened up the messages on his datapad again. He read them again, and again, trying to decipher anything that he hadn't picked up earlier, but he never did.
What did you do Colonel? What do you have to hide? Richard wondered.
Vytal Island, UNSC Forward Operating Base
October 21st, 0954 Local Time, 2552
As the UNSC and Atlesian Military expanded their operations to clear the Grimm from Vytal City, Jorge had quickly realized the need for a temporary Forward Operating Base to be established. After a slight debate as to where to establish the position, Zulu Company's Master Gunns, a Javanese man named Moerdani, had pointed out a relatively flat clearing around seven kilometers from Vytal City that would work very well. It was a forward, aggressive position that would allow the UNSC to effectively respond to any Grimm attack long before they reached Vytal City.
Seeing as Captain Clark was still out of action, and it was looking to be that way for some time, Moerdani reported to Jorge. He seemed to have a knack for all things offensive, as each time he took a force of Warthogs out to crush any Grimm that got a little too close to comfort, he'd come back to base without a single casualty. The Marines under his command all seemed to respect the man greatly, even if he did tend to be a bit ruthless when it came to enforcing discipline. He even carried a baton on his person at all times, which the Marines had no shortages of rumors about where he got it. That, as well as the green beret he always wore, made him especially easy to pick out in a crowd.
Either way, Jorge was very happy to have the man by his side. In his experience, he'd found that the more hardass a Marine Company's Gunnery Sergeants were, the longer those units tended to survive when placed into a fight.
So while Moerdani took over the efforts to wipe out any Grimm near Vytal City, Jorge was free to focus on the construction of the FOB. So far, Jorge had managed to avoid any casualties with heavy usage of artillery and snipers, before Huntsmen and Specialists would move in and mop up any Grimm survivors, but he was confident in Moerdani's capabilities to keep the winning streak going.
The FOB that the UNSC established wasn't anything particularly sightly, but it didn't need to be pretty. It just needed to be defensible and functional. To that end, trenches and Instacrete bunkers offered protection for the Marines, while concertina wire and M8 "Wolf Spider" auto-turrets offered painful and deadly obstacles for any attacking Grimm. Seeing as Vytal City itself was under the protection of the UNSC Dominion and it's impressive arsenal, Commander Richard had seen fit to ensure that the FOB was granted every defensive obstacle and structure that the UNSC had access to.
This wouldn't make a bad location for a permanent headquarters, at least, if the locals don't mind us sticking around, and it would need a name... Jorge thought. While he couldn't think of any reasons why they might not, he had learned during his career that civilians often had bizarre priorities.
Jorge watched as a Pelican touched down on the makeshift landing pad that the Marines had laid out with Instacrete, and Fairfire and Nathan both hopped out of the back of Dropship, before making their way over to the Headquarters, and consequently, him.
"Lieutenant!" The two Helljumpers snapped to attention.
"At ease, and remember, no saluting in the field." Jorge reminded them.
"...Do the Grimm have Snipers?" Nathan jokingly asked.
Do they? Jorge wondered, he'd learned his lesson about underestimating the Grimm. "Not that I know about, but that's hardly relevant, bad habits linger unless you snuff them out at the source."
"...Yes Sir." Nathan replied, but he seemed far more focused on the disturbing implications of Jorge's answer to his question.
"You called for us Sir?" Fairfire prompted.
"I did, I need you to join forces with Ben and the Ace Ops the next time they return to base." Jorge explained.
Fairfire uncomfortably shifted her feet. "...Are you sure you want me in the field, Sir? I know I kept everything under wraps at Argus, but-"
Jorge waved his hand to stop her, he understood her concerns, but they weren't justified. "Ben will be there, and an entire team of Specialists. Even in the event that something does go wrong, they'll be there to pacify you. Besides, you're never going to learn to control that Semblance without experience in the field, so this is a perfect opportunity to do that."
"Don't worry Liz, I got your back." Nathan said, giving her a friendly knock on the shoulder plate.
"As for you Private, bring some extra ammo. Apparently, the Ace Ops don't have a Marksman or anything of the sort in their squad, and there's some long lines of sight out there." Jorge advised. "We're setting up an armory two tents over, you both can gear up there. Any other concerns?"
Both of them shook their heads. "Good, dismissed." The two Helljumpers departed to prepare their equipment without any further incident.
So this is Command… This must be how Carter always felt. Jorge thought, feeling more than a little self-conscious.
Even though his former team leader had been half his age, he still had a great deal of respect for the man. Carter had shown the same leadership to him that John had during Jorge's time with the rest of the Spartan-IIs. Even though Jorge knew that in all likelihood Carter was dead, he couldn't help but hold out a bit of hope that he was still out in normal space somewhere, hopefully with the rest of Noble Team. I wonder how he reacted when Six told him that I was dead.
But all of that was behind him now. Now he had a team of his own and a lot of people counting on him to lead them. So he turned his attention back to his planning, there was still a lot to be done.
Vytal Island, Crooked Forest
October 21st, 1322 Local Time, 2552
Ben should've realized that something was wrong as soon as the Ace Ops didn't bring their own Radios. While they were always going to be receiving temporarily assigned UNSC radios for the sake of more efficient communication, the fact that they did not normally bring radios of their own turned out to be somewhat foreshadowing.
It turned out that while the Ace Ops were quite effectively armed, they were missing a good deal of other pieces of equipment that any squad should bring to any situation. First Aid Kits, Emergency Signal Kits, hell, they hadn't even been issued a set of binoculars. Luckily for them, Ben had picked up on the issue before they departed the FOB, and ensured their missing pieces of kit were replaced with UNSC equivalents.
Having Nathan and Fairfire along was an unexpected pleasantry, but he was glad to know that at least some of his squad would be familiar with traditional UNSC tactics. That wasn't to say the Ace-Ops were at all incompetent. In fact, they seemed to stick to their team better than most Huntsmen did.
Makes me wonder if Ruby ever got taught the basics of leading a squad. Ben thought, but he was sure that his concern was unfounded. For as unconventional as the Huntsmen were, surely they wouldn't place somebody totally untrained into an NCO position? Especially in an active combat role. Actually, maybe I should ask her about that.
The forest they were patrolling through was appropriately named the "Crooked Forest" was made of many different kinds of unusually gnarled trees and shrubs. There was still plenty of open space around them, allowing a much further degree of visibility than in a traditional forest. Curie would've probably been able to tell him why, and as soon as he thought about her, the silence in the back of his head sent a pang of sadness through him.
Sharpen up, losing focus in the field is not an option! Chief Mendez would've lost his mind… Ben thought.
"Hey Ben, mind if I ask you something?" The Ace-Ops leader, a man named Clover asked. The distraction from Ben's own thoughts was greatly welcome.
Ben didn't turn to face him when he answered, as pointman, it was his job to keep his focus forward and sweep for threats. "I'm all ears."
"How many Spartans are there? Back on your home planets, I mean." Clover asked.
Ben scowled behind his visor, partially because he wasn't allowed to answer that question directly, and partly because he didn't even know the answer. "That's classified, but it's not just me and Jorge, if that's what you're asking."
"I understand, and yes, that was kind of what I was thinking." Clover said. "I heard that one of you gave Major Garrett a few knocks around the head up in Atlas."
Ben tilted his helmet in curiosity, he and Jorge had only fought one group of humans in Atlas, and they had been rather thorough about ensuring that none of them remained active. "I take it that he was formerly in the Atlesian Military?"
"...It's complicated. General Ironwood says we can trust him, so I'm sure we can." Clover vaguely answered. Ben briefly considered pushing for a bit more information, but decided that it would probably just be better to drop the topic outright.
As they kept walking through the forest, Ben couldn't help but notice that the Ace-Ops did an admirable job of keeping quiet. UNSC Marines and even ODSTs had a habit of chatting about unimportant things while on patrol, and while it wasn't an outwardly bad habit, it could give away one's position in the field. Fairfire and Nathan were quietly chatting about something to do with one of their old squadmates, and judging by the odd looks they kept getting from the Ace-Ops, talking in the field wasn't something that happened very often in their military.
For the most part, Ben was a lot happier with them than he was with most of the Huntsmen. The rest of the team was composed of four more Specialists named Vine, Elm, Harriet, and Marrow, all of whom stayed very focused on the task at hand.
"We're about half a mile out from the first target." Marrow announced. "Keep your eyes open."
"Curie, what's that in-" Ben asked, before he remembered again that Curie wasn't with him, she was still aboard the Dominion, fighting off Rampancy. Thankfully, he'd left his speakers off, so nobody else had heard his mistake.
Snap out of it! Ben commanded himself. He hadn't realized just how much he relied on Curie for such basic things, and her absence served to highlight his own shortcomings.
Thankfully, his Mjolnir had an onboard computer for such calculations, and through his Neural Lace, he used it to get a Metric Conversion. The distance translated to about eight-hundred meters, which he relayed to Nathan and Fairfire, who had no such computers of their own.
"Do you think anything survived the artillery?" Fairfire asked.
"It can never hurt to be cautious." Ben said. "Recon spotted burrowing Grimm, so they might've escaped the shrapnel."
Nathan shuddered. "As long it's not any more of those damn spiders…"
"Relax Private, we'll keep you safe." Clover said, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
A blip on Ben's motion tracker alerted him to some kind of hostile entity, around fifty meters out. He froze and raised his left fist in the air. "Stop, movement up ahead."
"How close?" Clover asked as he crept up beside Ben, who had taken a firing position on one knee.
"About fifty-" Ben began to answer, before he remembered that infuriatingly, seemingly everyone on this god-forsaken planet used a completely foreign measurement system. "See that boulder out at one-o-clock? About that far, but direct ahead."
Clover hummed as he thought it over for a moment, before gesturing for Nathan to come up to his and Ben's position. "Hey Private, can you see anything that far out?"
"Nothing yet..." Nathan answered as he looked down the scope of his Sniper Rifle and swept the barrel in a narrow arc. "Wait, I just saw something black moving out there, it's Grimm."
"How big?" Clover said. Ben noticed that he had drawn his weapon, which resembled, of all things, a fishing rod.
Perfect. Maybe once we finish all the actual fighting, he can catch some dinner… Ben sardonically thought. It's like these people are afraid of rifles.
"Not big, around the size of a cougar." Nathan said.
"Say no more, I got it." Clover announced, before getting back up to his feet and stepping out of cover.
"What the hell are you…" Ben began to ask, before the Specialist tightly gripped his fishing pole, and with a one firm movement, cast the line into the distance.
Nathan, who was apparently equally taken aback by Clover's bizarre actions, chuckled nervously. "I uh, don't know if you're using the right bait there-"
Nathan was interrupted as Clover suddenly intensified his grip on his weapon and the fishing line went completely taught. The Specialist began to rapidly work the reel as Ben and Nathan, who were quickly joined by Fairfire, watched with complete disbelief.
"Come on… Whatever it is, it's a stubborn one." Clover muttered, seemingly to himself as he struggled with his unseen opponent.
He probably just snagged it on a tree. Ben thought. But as Clover's line began to retract, Ben watched with absolute astonishment as a small Grimm was pulled out of the treeline.
Nathan's description had given it far too much credit, this thing resembled some kind of oversized demented rabbit with antlers. Clover had snagged his fishing line into the creature's antlers, and was using the reel to pull it out of cover, despite the Grimm's best efforts to escape. With a pair of accurate shots from his Battle Rifle, Ben snuffed it out of existence, allowing Clover to finish reeling in his line.
"Thank you very much." Clover said, with no hint of arrogance in his voice, if anything, he seemed genuinely grateful. "You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get the line out of their antlers."
"What the- How the hell did you just-" Nathan stammered.
Clover silently stood and reset his fishing rod, before holstering it again. "How about it Ben, any more movement?"
"...None on the tracker." Ben replied as soon as he finished mentally processing exactly what had just happened. "How... did you do that?"
"My Semblance gives me good fortune, it lets me do some… unusual strategies." Clover explained.
"He means that it lets him be a showoff." Marrow cheekily interjected, but was met with an elbow in the gut from Harriet. "Ow, hey!"
Nathan laughed. "Shit man, all my Semblance lets me do is find my car keys. You wanna trade?"
Clover laughed. "Good offer, but you don't need help finding your keys if you never lose them in the first place. How about you Ben, have you found your Semblance?"
Ben shook his head. "I have good reason to believe I don't have one. Frankly, I'm a bit happier that way."
He spared a glance at Fairfire, who gave him a silent, supportive nod. Ben had a sneaking suspicion that she knew exactly what he was talking about, although he couldn't actually confirm that with her until they got a chance to speak privately.
It would make sense to brief her on the details behind the Spartan Program, she was our team leader after all… Ben thought. But that's not a bad thing, she's trustworthy.
Clover raised his hands as if to show that he hadn't meant any harm. "Hey now, some of the best Huntsmen in the world never found their Semblances. If you don't wanna talk about it, that's fine."
Ben gave him a curt nod. "Thanks. We should get a move on."
Clover turned back to his own team, who all gave him some form of acknowledgment that they were ready to proceed. "Then let's get to it, we've got a lot of ground to cover…"
Unknown Location
Unknown Date, Unknown Time
Acrid smoke and roaring flames filled the otherwise dark and starry night, causing light to pierce through the trees of the forest, many of which were ablaze in spectacular fashion. A pack of large black silhouettes crept through the few dark areas that remained, trying to remain concealed from the quarry that they were hunting. But unbeknownst to them, their quarry was hunting them in kind, and had been for some time.
There was a faint shimmer of light amongst the orange glow, the only warning of the incoming strike, before a series of bright blue bolts of plasma raced through the air. They were flawlessly aimed, and within a single burst of fire, all of the beasts lay dead, the searing plasma having made short work of the flesh and bone armor of the creatures.
The light shimmered again, before the Active Camouflage fell away, revealing a lone Sangheili warrior, clad in an Ultra's Combat Harness. For what seemed like hours, Set had wandered this place, wherever it was, and butchered any of the wretched creatures that he had encountered.
Grimm. The human word was truly fitting, for their purpose and methods were truly gruesome. They were like mindless automatons, machines of war created only to destroy in simple, violent ways. The humans seemed to think that they were biological in nature, but if they were, they were unlike anything that he had ever seen.
And they were the most disgusting things he had ever seen.
What honor could such mindless beasts, nay, such parasites be credited with? They served no master, no holy cause, no resource demand, and they had no struggle for survival. They simply attacked and pillaged like savages. Even the damnable Jiralhanae possessed a respectable devotion to their pack brothers, but the Grimm could not even claim to have that.
They were like the Flood, the ancient enemy of the Gods themselves. They served no purpose, no master, only existing as a curse upon the land, an obstacle for any would-be honorable individuals. And so, even if Set couldn't remember how he got here, or how he had escaped from the humans' custody, he did the only thing that he could think to do, slay the foul creatures wherever he found them.
For what felt like hours he had picked them off, pack by pack. The humans had at one point mentioned to him that they could sense fear, but that particular ability was useless, given that Set felt none.
As if to prove his mettle, a terrible snarl emerged from behind him, the Grimm had clearly intended to intimidate him, but it clearly knew nothing about the mental fortitude of a Sangheili Warrior. Rather than wait for the parasite to lunge at him, Set took the initiative, drew his energy sword, and charged with a roar of his own.
Amusingly, the Grimm tried to scurry away, clearly having not anticipated Set's aggressive response. He was upon the creature within a moment, and while he narrowly missed the first slash of his sword, he managed to get a firm grip on the Grimm's long and furry neck with his free hand. In one swift motion and with a tight grip, Set hoisted the animal up to face it directly.
Although he did not know any of the specific kinds of Grimm, this one resembled some kind of long-necked rodent. It's eyes were filled with nothing but hatred, with no sign of any greater intelligence. It's black fur and large teeth were the only other notable features, this one did not even possess any of the bone armor that its counterparts did.
"Tell me what purpose you serve Parasite, and I shall grant you a swift death!" Set shouted into its face. He held his energy sword beside the Grimm's throat, hoping to punctuate his point.
The sniveling creature only cowered at his demands, either that, or Set was unintentionally strangling it a bit too much. While it did try to struggle, he found no difficulty keeping the creature held in place.
Once he recognized that the creature truly didn't possess any kind of higher intellect, Set crushed the Grimm's spine in his clenched fist. With a satisfying crunching sound, the Grimm ceased to show any sign of life, before it began to disappear into the air.
Set bared his jaws in a cruel smile as it vanished, it had been far too long since he had partaken in a battle. He reveled in any battle, but slaughtering these creatures seemed to be especially fulfilling.
What are these beasts, truly? Set wondered. Surely they had to come from somewhere, perhaps the Gods had-
Another sound shook the bushes beside Set. Holstering his sword and withdrawing his plasma rifle, he trained the weapon on the shrub, waiting for any kind of Grimm to lunge out at him.
None did, instead the sounds of the fire around him grew much dimmer very suddenly, as the light of the flames became brighter and more refined. Eventually, it grew so bright that he raised a hand in front of his eyes to shield them, and he could hear the murmurs of speech coming from somewhere.
"Excuse me, Mr. Vadum?"
Set blinked several times, and soon as he realized what was happening, he rose out of his bed and shook his head clear of the grogginess. He had been asleep, and was still in the human ship's Brig. Across the cell, he could see one of the Medical Humans had come to speak with him, flanked by a pair of armed Marines, as usual.
That battle, was it all just a dream? Set wondered. Damnantion, I should have known...
"Speak." Set replied. There was still a bit of grogginess in his voice, but there was nothing that could be done about that.
"Doctor Chase wanted to know if you would be okay with us performing a few more scans on your older wounds." The human sheepishly said.
That figures, it's not like they get to examine a live Sangheili Warrior very often. Set thought.
He would never admit it aloud, but he actually tolerated the Medical Humans. They really had no equivalent in the Covenant, seeing as Sangheili culture had a lot of long-standing issues with Doctors. The human Doctors meanwhile, were almost like Huragok in how single-minded they could be. It was oddly respectable, even if they were extremely strange, drawing even further comparisons to a Huragok.
"If you don't want us too, I can just-" The Doctor awkwardly followed up.
"Go ahead, it's not like I'm using them for anything else." Set replied.
He waited for the Doctor to finish her scans of his older scars and mangled skin with whatever contraption that she was using, but he wasn't really paying attention, he was still fixated on his dream. He had truly begun to forget what fighting a battle was like, a fact that brought him no small feeling of shame. Even experiencing that rush of adrenaline in something as frivolous as a dream had reminded him why he loved being a Warrior, and yet he was stuck here, in this damn cell.
But why had he been fighting the Grimm? He had spent the majority of his military career fighting against humans, and before that, rival Keeps on Sanghelios, but never the Grimm. He barely even knew anything about them, seeing as his only source of news was from the humans.
They will have to suffice. Set thought, he had to know more. Even though he knew that his dream was nothing but a figment of his imagination, his curiosity had been elevated.
"Okay, that should be good enough, thank you." The Doctor said.
For a moment, Set remained still and silent, but as the Doctor and her escorts went to leave, he spoke up. "Wait."
She seemed more than a little afraid, and Set could tell that she was afraid of him, even with her guards. She and her escorts turned back around to face him. "...Yes?"
"I need to speak with the Demon again." Set stated. "Regarding the creatures of this world, the Grimm."
After processing her confusion and gathering her courage for a moment, the Doctor replied. "I… can pass a message along the chain of command."
"That will do... thank you." Set stated.
Look at you, thanking a human, begging for their aid to consult with a Demon of all things. What would the Prophets say? Set's inner consciousness snarkily took aim at his motives, but Set paid it no mind.
The Prophets would never brave venturing into Shunspace, even if they knew of his predicament. He doubted that even his brothers in arms, or even his noble forefathers would dare follow where he had gone. For all intents and purposes, he was on his own. All that he had for company was the Humans, and what use were they?
What could the Gods want from me? Why would they send me here? He wondered. But if there were any answers to his questions, they were not within his grasp, not yet.
So he grabbed the pencils and paper that the humans had given him, and began work on his next illustration. He intended to put as much of his dream as he could onto paper while the memories were still fresh.