"The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
when they're ready.
when you're not."
-excerpt from Murphy's Laws of Combat Operations
AN: wow guys, hey!
For the few of you who are still following this story, thanks for hanging on, and don't kill me please. I know I haven't done anything with this in a long time, but don't worry, I've got some new chapters cooking up as well as some revision to be made to earlier chapters. I know this had been slow so far, but hopefully this chapter will help the plot line speed up a little.
Location: insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, 04:59 standard military time, January 7th, 2558
Neither of them talked for the entire rest of the supply run, or on the way back afterward. When they finally reached their room Alison sat down on the side of her bed and stared blankly at the wall in front of her, completely emotionless.
Brandon wanted to comfort her, but he wasn't sure if she would appreciate it, or if she would feel any better because of it.
He knew how awful a feeling it was to lose someone she cared about. Even the slightest reminder of seeing his unit obliterated with his own eyes was enough to drive him over the edge. He couldn't imagine the trauma Alison must be reliving right now.
He sighed. He may as well try.
He sat down next to her, trying to look her in the eye despite her thousand yard stare.
"Hey, are you feeling ok?" He asked, innocently enough.
She tore her gaze off the wall and glared at him. She looked as though she was a hare's breath away from snapping his head clean off his shoulders, and he would have been lying if he hadn't said he was afraid for his life.
"How do you think I feel?" She spat, before returning to looking at the wall in front of her.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
He racked his brain for some way he could show her, or tell her that he understood the pain she was in, but he knew the mental state she was in. It was an impenetrable fog of guilt and grief that little could pierce, and it saddened him beyond belief.
"Alison, I know you won't believe me, because I've been where you are many times before, but I understand, really, I do."
Her expression softened, if only slightly. That's wants to say that it became forgiving, only that it lost some of its anger, only to have it replaced by sorrow.
"No, you don't," she shot back without even looking at him.
He nodded, conceding that he was not about to pull her out of this state when it was so fresh in her mind.
"I understand. If you ever want to talk about it, I'm willing to listen, I promise," he said, getting ready to stand and leave her in peace, but his comment just seemed to anger her further.
Those few words made the angry fires that had burned a moment ago well up inside her once again. She shot him a trademark glare and barred her teeth.
"Why must you continue to insist you understand me?" She asked, her voice now slightly raised. "Why do you think you can help me? Why can't you simply accept the fact that I am not one of you, and leave me alone?"
Not one of you.
She said that like she didn't even believe herself to be human, like she was some cursed, soulless being, doomed to wander the world. If only she knew that he really do know how she was feeling, more than he would like to think about.
"Alison, don't talk about yourself like that," he said reassuringly, "you're not a broken piece of machinery."
She stood up and looked down at him imposingly. She looked almost ready to hit him, and he flinched, anticipating a punch that never came. Her fist dropped and she let out a pained sigh, her anger now replaced by sadness.
She began to pace back and fourth, clenching and unclenching her fists. The worry and stress was evident on her face, a stark change from a woman who typically showed no emotion other than anger.
He stood and placed a hand on her shoulder, wanting to do something, anything to reassure her. She stopped dead in her tracks, seeming to be completely out of energy, emotionally and physically.
"Alison, I didn't mean to do this to you," he said softly.
She shrugged off his touch and turned to face him.
He expected her to scream at him, maybe even hit him. He wished for a moment she would hit him. He couldn't feel more guilty for the things he had said to her and accused her of when he first met her, and maybe he would feel better if she gave him a black eye and a concussion and got it over with...
But she she did nothing of the sort. Her eyes snapped to a look of intense hurt for a brief moment, and then they were blank. The same kind of blank they had been a few days ago.
"You did nothing to me Lieutenant," she said flatly, "my team is dead and I stupidly never got over it. I need to learn to live with what happened by myself, because like it or not you do not know a thing about where I come from or what happened to me. Now, if you would please leave me alone, I would appreciate it."
Brandon almost shivered at the iciness in her voice.
She hated him, that much he was certain of. He wished he could convince her that he knew what she was going through, but that was impossible. Despite her attempt to convey nothing in her expression, he could see the look in her eyes. It was look of someone who had seen more horror than they would like to repeat.
Hurt like that wasn't healed in a day, sometimes it never was. He knew that first hand. That same look had graced his eyes all too many times, and he had probably just blown any chance of Alison ever talking to him again.
She turned without a word and walked over to the room's small desk, opening her laptop and pulling up ONI's electronic warfare software to monitor local signals, and left Brandon standing there.
Brandon walked over and sat down on his bed, wanting to hit himself as hard as he could for what he had done.
Location: UNSC Murphy's law, standoff distance from forerunner installation X50, 06:30 standard military time, January 6th, 2559
Devereaux sat outside the brig of the Murphy's Law, watching the two prisoners intently.
It had been quite a while now and neither of them had woken up, and although she looked impatient, Devereaux wasn't complaining. They needed data about X50 out of these two men soon. Whatever was going on there was too important to sit around and wait for Brandon and Alison to find something, and when ONI needed data, they were prepared to obtain it by any brutal means necessary, and when Helljumpers were around, brutal means were never in short supply.
Mal and Vaz sat next to her, sparking stun batons and waiting impatiently for one of the crewmen to make up.
Mal looked down at his baton with the closest thing to a saddened expression Dev had ever seen cross his face.
"Poor bastards," he sighed, "you know, I was fine with interrogating spilt-jaws "the ONI way," hell, it was kind of fun, but doing it to these kids is just brutal."
Dev nodded. "The ONI way" of interrogation was something that she was still getting used to even as a Helljumper. It involved a heavy beating, a chemical injection to cause intense pain, repeated electric shocks, or a combination of all three to "loosen up" a prisoner and then send in someone who seemed far less threatening to convince them to talk. Dev was used to battlefield brutality, she had seen enough of it in her life, but doing it to a couple of helpless kids that ended up on the wrong side of a war just didn't sit right with her.
And you know it should be illegal when Mal thinks it inhumane, she mused.
But none of that mattered today. This directive had come from Osman, and when she wanted something done, it happened, one way or another.
In a certain way she respected that. The woman got shit done, but sometimes she wondered if she lost sight of how she had gotten there far too often.
Devereaux heard a noise on one of the monitors, and looked over to see one of the crewmen, the one with the name tape that read "Collins" was waking up.
She tapped Mal on the shoulder, and he nodded, sparking his baton one last time and gesturing for Vaz to follow him into the cell.
"Come on, let's get this over with," he said irritatedly.
Dev watched the video monitor as Collins stirred in his seat then jerked back in horror as he saw the ONI logo emblazoned on the stainless steel table in front of him, and quickly discovered he was restrained.
"Shit," she heard him curse.
He looked up at the two ODST and held up his hands defensively.
"Hey, look, I don't know who you are, but..."
He was cut off by a vicious shock from Mal's baton, not even given a chance to explain himself. Even though Mal looked tough on the outside, now more than ever, Dev knew he wasn't enjoying this. She thought for a moment about ending this right here and now, but she knew that wouldn't get her, or the prisoner anywhere.
Osman would simply send all three of them to the brig and come down here to do it herself.
Dev glanced away as she heard Mal began to bombard him with questions.
"What's your name? What's your rank? What's your serial number? What's that forerunner device you're so fond of? What does it do?"
Between each question she heard a sickening electric shock, and then a yelp of pain. Mal really wasn't giving him a chance to answer any of the questions, that wasn't his job. He was simply supposed to loosen him up so Dev could pick up the pieces.
At least this wouldn't take long. This kind of interrogation could break even the most hardened of individuals in hours, and he was certainly not one of those individuals.
A moment latter the shocks and yelps stopped and Mal and Vaz walked out of the cell quietly.
"He's all your's Dev," said Vaz.
She nodded, and entered the cell to find Collins curled up on the table, his hands still restrained to his chair and a pitiful look of pain across his face.
He flinched as she approached. "Please, don't," he pleaded, holding his zip-cuffed hands in front of himself defensively.
Devereaux didn't say anything. She cut the restraints off his wrists, and instantly he curled the towards himself defensively, tightening his hands into fists. Every neuron in his brain looked like it was firing to defend itself from brutality.
"Stay away from me," he threatened, a look of anger and fear in his eyes.
Dev put on her kindest smile and say down across from him, hoping to put him at ease.
This was the other part of an "ONI style" interrogation. A much kinder looking and acting person would meet with the prisoner between interrogations. They would give him false hope of survival and offer him a way out. Little did the prisoner know that just because an ONI agent looked kind did not mean they could be trusted. In fact, the opposite was almost always true.
"It's ok Collins. My name is Lian Devereaux. I'm with the Office of Naval Intelligence. I'm not going to hurt you. I just need to ask you a few questions."
Smartly, Collins wasn't buying any of it. He recoiled back slightly and seemed to be getting more defensive by the second.
"You're lying," he said, "I'm not telling you anything."
Devereaux sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought.
She shook her head regretfully and frowned slightly. "Well, I can't make you tell me anything, but the Helljumpers can. Would you like that?"
Her voice contained just enough of a threat to get Collins to pay attention. His face went stark white at her comment, and he instantly dropped his hands to the table, panic building in his breathing.
"No, please, don't, I'll tell you anything. What do you want to know?"
She smiled reassuringly and slid her hand over his to calm him. Although the kindness was mostly an act, she really did feel bad for this kid. After this, his life was more or less over. ONI couldn't release him now, he was too much of a liability. He was either staying in prison for life or was going to end up floating in space somewhere. Either way was a horrible way to go.
"It's alright Collins," she said reassuringly, "all I need to know is your name, rank, and serial number."
Devereaux didn't need to tell him twice.
"Collins, Robert A, corporal, serial number 0184673982," he said without hesitation.
Dev smiled and nodded. "Thank you Collins, that was very helpful. Now, about those Forerunner devices. What can you tell me about them?"
An honest look of confusion crossed his face, as though he had no idea why on earth they would be important to someone like her.
"Those things? Hell if I know, I just know when they load one onto my ship for a supply run my pay doubles, and I get a speech from my CO about how I should never to talk about it."
Dev smirked. "So you do know something? How about we make a deal. You give me a little bit more than that, and I'll let you go."
Terror crossed him once again and he tensed, ready to confess over and over again to escape the hell he had wandered into.
"That's all I know about that, I promise. I can tell you other things, please."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Are they worth it to me?" She asked coldly.
"Yes, of course," he wise insistently.
She smiled warmly and nodded for him to proceed.
"Look, I overheard a bunch of these ex-military guys the CO keeps around talking about some UNSC traitors they were gonna bust. They snuck in saying they were defecting but they were really working for you guys. He's gonna take them out soon."
Dev's face went ghost white and she looked at the camera in the corner of the cell. Brandon and Alison were about to be left trapped and defenseless on an enemy world.
"What do you know?" She pressed, dropping the good cop act.
She honestly didn't want to put this poor man through any more hell than he had already been through, but if he didn't tell her what he knew now there could be a lot worse coming to him down the line.
He recoiled back and held up his hands once again.
"No. That's all I know. I swear. Please, believe me," he pleaded with her.
She shook her head disapprovingly and stood, pacing around him and trying to rattle him.
"I'm sorry Collins I can't believe you can't do better than that, but I can't force you to tell me anything. But the ODSTs can. Would you like that?" She said with a snarl and a grimace.
Collins had clearly had enough of this. He folded forward into a crumpled ball and began to mutter incoherently about how he knew nothing, quietly pleading with her not to hurt him.
Dev sighed. If he had known anything important he would have told her by now. He was just a scared kid who got mixed up with the wrong people.
She smiled kindly once again at him, hoping to reassure him slightly.
"It's ok Collins, I believe you," she said, trying to give him a bit of reassurance.
The moment he heard this he let out a long breath and passed out, relieved.
She dashed out of the cell to find Mal and Vaz had already begun to armor up, and Osman had come down from the bridge to meet them.
"BB, get us some tactical data now," commanded Osman.
"The URF comm frequencies on Taurus VI are alight with chatter about an impending raid," said the AI through the ship's intercom, "We won't be able to reach the planet in time to stop it, but they appear to want to take them alive and drag them back to their orbital dock for interrogation. Relaying coordinates to BOGOF now."
"Then that's where we're going," said Osman snappily, before nodding to the ODSTs, "God speed, get them out alive."
The three of them nodded and dashed off for the hangar bay, but on the way there they all shot each other concerned looks. They all more or less knew that that man's days were numbered the moment he had set foot on this ship, but none of them felt particularly good about shortening them further, even if it meant they might be able to save Brandon and Alison.
Dev shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts as she put her helmet on. Now was not the time for that sort of thought.
Location: insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, 09:45 standard military time, January 7th, 2558
Brandon sat cross legged on the floor, having not moved out of guilt and shame in well over two hours.
He couldn't feel worse right now, not if he tried. The pain Alison felt for the loss of her team had obviously been horrible, and he had done nothing but accentuate it, first by insulting her out of stupid, blind rage, and now by making her drop her guard at the worst of times.
Alison hadn't moved recently either. She was now completely engrossed in monitoring URF signals on her laptop. She seemed to be getting slightly more irritable as time wore on, but Brandon didn't ask why. He doubted she would appreciate it.
He was about to return to his aimless sitting and thinking when out of the corner of his eye he saw Alison move practically across the room in one, swift motion, grabbing her handgun from its hiding place and chambering a round.
"Lieutenant, on your feet, we are about to get hit," she said simply.
The urgency in her voice made him leap to his feet, not questioning what she meant by that until he had already grabbed his weapon from a nearby table. Before he could even ask for an explanation, Alison was already on it.
"There's chatter on the radio. Our is blown, URF forces are inbound. They intend to take us alive and they'll be here an minute in force. We need to move now."
"What the hell? What gave us away?" He asked.
Alison shot him a glare and shoved his backpack into his hands.
"Doesn't matter," she responded tersely, "move."
He nodded, and slipped on his backpack, clipping it into place and sliding his weapon into his holster before heading for the door. Before he could exit, however, he heard the unmistakable sound of a warthog APC entering the parking lot outside, it's overworked engine groaning at the weight it was pulling.
Alison checked the window, and sure enough, directly outside was the APC in question, painted black with police markings and a URF flag emblazoned on the hood. URF police in mismatched tactical gear began to pour out, ten of them at least. They dashed towards the building in a double file line, most of them carrying tasers and shotguns painted yellow to indicate they fired rubber, or other less than lethal rounds.
Alison had been right, they did want them alive.
"Secure the door," barked Alison.
Brandon didn't need to be told twice. He got into position behind a wall, aiming his weapon at the door. Alison did the same, and both of them listened as URF officers began to pound up the stairs in heavy boots, and then stacked up on their door, ready to breach it.
"No live rounds, we need them alive," Brandon heard someone say on other side of the door.
An uncharacteristically sadistic smile crossed Alison's face. This would be all too easy for her.
Brandon didn't have time to dwell on the change in Alison's demeanor. He held his weapon firmly on the door until he heard a low bang as the URF breacher blew the lock off the door, and five officers burst into the room.
Clearly they weren't willing to negotiate, and by extension, neither were Brandon or Alison. They both opened up them as they poured into the room.
Brandon's shots sprayed wildly at the funnel of soldiers, while Alison's were precise, striking them in the thighs, the head, and the arms, with not one of them ever hitting a helmet or a vest.
Two of them fell quickly to her fire, while the other two split their fire between the two of them.
Brandon hardly had time to react before a single rubber shotgun slug impacted him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to fall onto his back, desperately gasping for air. He was sure at least two of his ribs were broken, and regaining his breath wasn't going to be easy.
Alison hardly flinched as two rubber slugs impacted her in the chest and the arm. They hurt a great deal more now that she was out of armor, but rubber slugs were hardly a match for spartan augmentations. She dropped the other three officers, and lied in wait for the other five to enter.
Rather than risk it, she heard the team lead call for them to fall back, and as soon as she heard them leave she dashed over to Brandon, yanking him to his feet.
"Lieutenant, can you walk?" She asked simply, as though she was going on without him regardless.
He nodded, and shakily reloaded his weapon, moving to cover the door.
Alison grabbed the breaching shotgun from a fallen member of the URF team, the only weapon on them with live rounds, and followed. They dashed down the hotel stairs and into the lobby, looking out at the parking lot.
Curiously enough the URF had abandoned their APC and were running away on foot. Alison fired a couple of rounds their way to discourage them from looping back around before exiting the lobby and heading for the APC.
Brandon followed, but just before Alison could enter the diver seat several, harsh spotlights illuminated them.
It was a trap, they had draw them out into the open, and now they had no way to fight back.
At least twenty URF officers, armed with tasers and shotguns dashed into parking lot, yelling at the two of them to surrender.
Alison ignored them and opened fire, taking down two of them in quick succession before diving behind the APC.
She cursed her own lack or armor, and remembered why she usually never left it behind.
The soldiers opened fire with everything they had, quickly dispatching brandon as several slugs impacted him, making sickening cracks as they broke his ribs.
Alison attempted to hold out against the barrage, but without her armor there was a limit to what she could take. Seven slugs hit her, bruising and eventually cracking one of her carbide ribs as she continued to drop URF troopers, before the last round hit her square in the chest, knocking her down.
She was dazed. Spartans were built to survive explosions, orbital drops, and just about anything in between, but as Alison tried to stand once again she knew she wouldn't be able to keep at this much longer. In spite of the pain, she tried to stand anyway.
Seeing that she wasn't going to stay down, one of the URF soldiers switched to his sidearm, and fired a live round into her left leg, and then her right, ensuring she couldn't move.
She screamed out in protest, pain shooting through her. She buckled and fell, completely unable to stand, and barely able to think.
As she tried to fight for her own consciousness she felt a small prick in her neck, and slowly the pain faded away.
The degree of her vision began to blur as whatever she had been injected with began to take her consciousness and she drifted off to sleep.