Happy New Year Spartans!
Hopefully this chapter is a good way to end 2016. It's got everything I intended for this story and more :)
Thanks again to Jaeger Jypsy Danger for her amazing editing skills. Enjoy!
"The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want."
-Excerpt from Murphy's Laws of combat operations
Location: UNSC Murphy's Law, standoff distance from Forerunner installation X50, 09:04 standard military time, January 7th, 2559
Brandon left Osman's debriefing feeling more confused than anything.
He expected it to be brutal, with lots of threats of demotion and negligence charges thrown in, and that was what he received. Osman had repeated just about the entire speech she gave him when she first questioned him about his time on Taurus VI about the penalties for withholding information, and how if he was somehow concealing intelligence from her she would end his life in an agonizing way.
He might have expected all that, but it didn't make him any more ready for it. When she gave him her final glare before moving on he breathed a sigh of relief, momentarily happy it was over before remembering it wasn't. Osman still needed to question Alison.
He went into a cold sweat. If Osman was intending to push and threaten Alison into getting the details of her torture out of her, Brandon knew it wouldn't go over well. Brandon had seen how miserable Alison had been while she spent a day reliving and processing what happened to her. He couldn't imagine how she would feel if someone so close to her drug it up again in such a violent way.
When Osman finally spoke, however, it wasn't threatening at all.
"Alison, is there anything you'd like to add?" She said kindly and Professionally.
Alison's eyes were hardened with fear at the thought of what she could have added. Rather than speaking, she reached down and rolled up her sleeve, revealing her abused body, and an angry, jagged scar that ran the length of her forearm. Brandon noticed it was already beginning to fade at the edges, evidence of her Spartan immune system, but it was still only two days old. It probably hurt like nothing he could believe. Maybe that was one of the many reasons her eyes were wracked with pain.
"I believe this is enough sir," she said before rolling her sleeve back up.
Osman nodded and then stood from her desk.
"You're both free to go," she said tersely. "Prep your gear and meet me in the hangar in half an hour. Wear your full battle-rattle. We're going to crack open that device you hauled home, and I want to be prepared for every possible outcome."
Brandon and Alison both saluted her before turning to leave, but before he reached the door, Brandon remembered what Lassiter told him while he was interrogating him. He said a name; Daniel Ramirez. Maybe Osman could figure out who that was. He turned to face her quickly.
"Wait, Admiral, I heard a name while I was interrogating Lassiter," he said quickly. "Some URF guy by the name of..."
Brandon didn't finish his sentence before he was met by the most terrifying death glare he received from Osman so far. He froze mid sentence and shut his mouth before he's executed right there on the spot. Brandon resisted glancing at his feet to check for blood stains on the carpet.
"I already read the transcript of your interrogation Lieutenant, no need to beat a dead horse."
Brandon nodded, and then glanced over to Alison, who smiled at him and shrugged. Brandon, however, took a whole lot more meaning to that statement than Alison. Osman really didn't Brandon to say that man's name. Was Daniel Ramirez connected to her? To ONI? Maybe to Alison? Lassiter said Ramirez was the one in charge of that station above Taurus VI. Was he the one to torture Alison?
Brandon waited behind while Alison made her way to her gear locker to retrieve her weapons and armor. Once he saw that she was out of earshot he turned to the Admiral once again.
"Admiral, is he the one that..."
She cut him off again, although this time she didn't bother to glare, and her tone wasn't particularly harsh.
"Daniel Ramirez and Alison have a history Lieutenant. She will tell you about it if she so chooses. Until then I advise not mentioning him. It's a touchy subject for her."
Seeing there was nothing left to be said, Brandon nodded. Osman clearly wasn't going to tell him anything else.
"Are there any further questions Admiral?"
"No Lieutenant. Dismissed," she responded.
He snapped to attention, and then jogged to catch up with Alison who smiled down at him when he showed up at her side.
The two of them spent the next half an hour gearing up. It took Alison a and some robotic assistance to don her armor. It was a Mjolnir EOD suit with large pauldrons on both of the shoulders and magazine pockets covering the chest plate. Brandon was a bit surprised. She didn't fit the stereotype of EODs he had worked with in the past. Loud, obnoxious, cocky, heavy drinking adrenaline addicts with nothing to lose on or off the battlefield. Maybe she was like that at one point and survived long enough to move past it, or maybe she lacked the same fear of death that the men he worked with had.
Brandon felt a little bit ashamed of himself, but he couldn't help but stare when Alison finally fitted the last piece of her armor on and stood to her full height. She looked like the goddess Athena, armored from head to toe. Her whole body emanated grace, confidence, strength, and power. She moved deftly throughout the armory, picking up the last few pieces of her gear without so much as bumping into one of the tables. His armor always tended to get in the way and cause him to knock things off tables and run into anyone who got in his way, but for her it was almost an extension of her body.
She lifted her weapon off the rack, a SOPMOD SAW fed from a backpack mounted LALS system that probably contained enough rounds to equip a battalion, without batting an eyelash at how heavy it was, before moving to stand directly in front of him. She had to look down at him in order for her matte black visor to meet his eyes.
His first instinct was to bow down before this goddess in shining armor, and he almost did. His mind moved to softer thoughts, however when she depolarizer her visor. In place of the black void of her visor were intense blue eyes that could look right through him. Severe and harsh like almost everything else about her, as he came to know about her, he knew she was also curious and questioning. The kind of eyes a man who wanted to get close to her and answer her questions, will you hurt me? How can I kill you? Keep your distance.
He smiled at her before donning his helmet. He didn't deserve her kindness, but he knew better than to try and refuse it. He nearly moved his armored hand to cover hers, but stopped himself. He did that once, and only while she was hanging on the edge of life and death. It wasn't something he should get used to from her.
Goddesses don't fall for washed up Lieutenants.
Alison helped him perform one last check of his armor, which unlike hers couldn't be done with a computer. His was an older set of Army Airborne armor, with an air assault helmet that had been co-opted by the Army from the Mjolnir MK V-B program and several additional armor plates welded on by Brandon himself. The armor went through a lot, and was covered in more than a few coats of brown paint, but it was still here, just like him.
If only the same could be said for the other 10,000 members of the 52nd airborne massacred on Skopje, Minab, and Reach. He thought back to the day after the battle of Skopje. That was the day a green lieutenant found out he was unexpectedly the second highest ranking officer left in his unit. His buddies, his friends, men and women he'd trained with gotten drunk with and stood shoulder to shoulder never wavering cut down and left with nearly total losses. Brandon grew up fast that day, swallowed his grief and faced the remaining 1,500 enlisted and NCOs at his command. When they left Minab only a single squad remained out of 1,500, and only one man left Reach alive.
He and his lonely armor.
Alison tapped him hard on his shoulder, yanking him out of his head and back to the present.
"You're good," she said firmly before giving him a thumbs up.
He smiled and nodded before polarizing his visor and heading for the hangar with her at his side. When they got there the ODSTs and the Admiral stood circled around the device they took from the United Rebel Front. They wore full armor and held their weapons at the ready, each seeming unnerved at the sight of the glowing blue cylinder before them. It was only a mere six feet long, but given what forerunners were capable of creating, it could be anything from a slip space engine to a two-hundred megaton bomb.
He approached the Admiral, who handed him a ruggedized, UNSC issue laptop.
"We're required to have humans monitor interfaces between AIs and machines in cases like this," she told him simply. "Hook this up to it and give BB access, then your job is done."
Alison immediately stepped between the Lieutenant and Osman defensively. She clearly didn't like the idea of having Brandon be the one to interface with a potentially dangerous device.
"Sir, I'll do it," she volunteered.
Her matte black visor gave her an abnormally steely gaze, even for her. She was not going to take this easily.
Osman shook her head and paid her sister no mind, something Brandon found quite odd given how the two treated each other only moments ago. Maybe it was simply a matter of public versus private treatment. Behind closed doors, the two of them could treat each other as sisters, but out here Osman needed impartial command authority.
Brandon could see in the Admiral's eyes, however, that this wasn't easy for her. She was tense, and Brandon didn't blame her. Her sister was just thrashed to pieces by some unknown person who she would not reveal, and that lack of knowing was weighing heavily on her. Brandon just hoped it wouldn't cloud her judgement.
"Alison, I need you on security." Osman said levelly in spite of how she truly felt, "If that thing 'attacks' us, or does whatever the hell else it's supposed to do, you may be the only one capable of stopping it, and if you're the first one to be killed you can't do us any good."
Osman then faced back towards the device and signaled for the ODSTs to be ready. Brandon flashed a green acknowledgment light to Alison, hoping to reassure her he was fine, before returning his attention to the device.
As Brandon walked slowly towards the glowing blue cylinder, he began to wonder how he got roped into this. Sure, he was a commissioned officer, and sure, that meant he had a college degree, but a degree in mechanical engineering hardly prepared someone to fuck around with a millennium old device born of a race bent on eradicating all life in the galaxy.
He sighed. This was the original reason he was brought onto the ship anyway, wasn't it? ONI had seen fit to rate him as having "high technical aptitude," back during his early days with the Army. What that really meant was that he was a disposable Army recruit that wouldn't be missed if whatever weapons technology they had him test malfunctioned and killed him.
Oh well, he thought, what ONI wants, ONI gets.
He donned his full armor for this thing. He didn't have any idea what it did, and with the limited time he was given to sort through ONI's databases for information regarding forerunner computers, he wasn't going to take any chances. Hell, with his luck, one of those promethean things the UNSC had been running into so frequently as of late would spring out of this damn thing and gut him alive.
He shook his head and tried not to think about it.
He approached the device as nonchalantly as he could and handed his laptop to ADJ, who floated nearby the device as though it wasn't anything to be concerned about. Hell, for all Brandon knew the Huragok could have built this device way back when the forerunners still roamed the Galaxy. Brandon handed off his laptop and watched while ADJ ran the cilia of his tentacles over both it and the device to fabricate a port for connection between the two, and then ran a few cables from the device back to the laptop with ease.
It is done Reclaimer, do you wish to interface with him now? ADJ said as he handed Brandon back the laptop.
Brandon didn't like the way the engineer said 'him,' as though the device was sentient, but he knew he couldn't press the huragok for any more information. Talking to it was like talking to someone from the fourth dimension. It was impossible to understand any of their immense knowledge.
He accepted the laptop and looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the crew. Mal, Vaz, Dev, and Alison all stood in a row with their armor on and their weapons at the ready. Alison held her backpack fed SAW with an iron grip, angling it in the direction of the device, Mal and Vaz flanked Alison, holding their weapons in the nonchalant way ODSTs were known for, and Devereaux stood behind the three of them, shotgun at the ready, with Admiral Osman to her left.
The Admiral wore a stoic expression that could stop bullets or cut steel, which ever one struck her fancy. Unlike the ODSTs who were prepared to fight, her weapon was in her holster, and she wore only the lightweight anti-ballistic and anti-radiation vest issued to most Navy officers, in addition to a Grey Marine Corps helmet. She was clearly not worried about whatever horrors could come out of this device. Maybe that was because of the four armed guards protecting her, and maybe that was because she didn't need them. Either way, Brandon wasn't inclined to ask.
His gaze wandered back to Alison for a brief moment before he looked back to the device. Just before he began to examine the new software that Adj was transferring to his laptop, he heard Alison's voice crackle through his helmet comm on a private channel.
"It'll be alright Brandon," she said flatly. "I've got your back."
He responded by swiping a quick Spartan smile across his helmet, and then turning back to the device. He set his laptop down and struggled to process all of the data that was flashing across the screen. None of it made any sense to him, but he was sure that BB understood it all perfectly.
Speak of the devil... Thought Brandon as he watched Black Box's plain blue cube of an avatar appear on his laptop's holoprojector.
"Alright lieutenant, your job is simple today," said BB in his usual condescending tone. "Due to restrictive programming I'm not authorized to access any device foreign to the UNSC without express human permission. Please press your finger to the fingerprint scanner at on your laptop to unshackle me."
Something about the word "unshackle," greatly unnerved Brandon, but seeing no other option he pressed his finger to the the scanner and watched as the lines of code on the screen slowed to a halt.
A pop up window then obscured the screen that read, "be advised, you are about to grant an artificially intelligent entity access to an unknown device. Please obtain permission from An ONI REAP-X technician before proceeding. Failure to comply will violate Naval intelligence directive 789. Do you wish to proceed?"
Brandon checked the ominous yes box and waited a few seconds before the screen went blank, and then was replaced by an ONI logo as BB entered the system.
"Hang on lieutenant," said the AI. "I'm accessing the devices security systems. I may have additional operations I need you to complete."
Brandon held stiff and waited while the AI worked it's magic. Several seconds passed while BB said absolutely nothing. Brandon continued to hold his breath until BB finally spoke up from the computer's small microphone.
"Well that's not good," he said simply.
Brandon didn't even have time to ask for clarification before the laptop's screen suddenly switched from its stoic ONI background into a blue screen, and then black. He felt the device heat up in his hands until it became so hot he dropped it. Only seconds later the lithium in its battery caught fire.
"Something's going on, the device is pushing back," said BB in a panicked tone.
Brandon immediately backed away from the device. This was exactly what they had been afraid of. Behind them Devereaux forced Osman reluctantly to the ground while the other ODSTs and Alison leveled their weapons.
BB spoke up, "There's another AI in here."
Brandon drew his handgun and trained it on the device, and nearly snapped off a round when it began to glow blue, and then slowly faded away. The entire crew of the Murphy's Law waited in silence for the Device to...what? Fire? Blow up? Eject a toxin?
"It's entering the ship's systems," BB's virtual hands danced over the board. "I'm trying to stop it, but it's going to gain control of the holoprojector any moment now."
Only a few seconds later the ship's holoprojector flickered to life. Projected directly in front of Brandon was an AI's avatar at life size. It was a glowing red representation of a 21st century soldier from the United States of America, well before it came to be called the URNA.
He wore an old, dusty set of ACUs and held an antiquated M4 rifle at the ready across its chest. His face was marked with light stubble and a few scars here and there.
The ancient warrior looked up and locked it's eyes on Brandon's face shield, it's dead glare boring further through it by the second.
"Reclaimer," it snapped in the harsh tone of an angry drill instructor. "Who authorized you to access me?"
Brandon wasn't sure how to respond to the question. Honestly, he'd rather ask this AI some questions himself. First of all, this AI was very clearly of UNSC origin, so what the hell was it doing in a forerunner device? And what kind of name was reclaimer? And why had it given it to Brandon?
"Reclaimer, respond," it snapped again, "I am under orders from Commander Daniel Ramirez and from the Assembly Minority to keep myself on lockdown."
Brandon stopped trying to formulate a response when BB's deep voice finally came from the laptop's speakers.
"No need for alarm Lieutenant," he said simply. "I've blocked the AI from entering the ship's systems. It managed to access some sensory equipment, but it was only able to access the holoprojector and, for a brief moment, the ship's audiovisual equipment. Nothing further."
Brandon let out a long breath and nodded.
"Where did this thing come from BB?" Brandon asked with concern as he looked at the now eerily silent and still AI projection.
A noticeable paused occurred between the question and BB's response. That was unusual, certainly for an AI of BB's caliber. Was the AI really struck dumb?
"I've sifted through ONI records and as far as I can tell this is a smart AI created by the Ushuaia armory 19 years ago for use on the Epoch class Heavy Carrier, UNSC Dead to Rights, code name Joseph."
Brandon had to make sure he handy misheard BB. 19 years? How the hell had an AI managed to survive so long without drifting into rampancy? Was it rampant now, it didn't look that way.
"Any idea how it ended up in a forerunner device?" Asked Brandon, "or how it survived at all?"
Another noticeable pause followed before BB's response.
"No," he said quickly and with a hint of repressed embarrassment,
"Joseph and the Dead to Rights were lost with all hands due to an unexplained slipspace anomaly."
Brandon smirked behind his visor. Looks like the untouchable AI had finally met its intellectual match.
"Step aside lieutenant," he heard someone say from beside him.
He glanced over to find Admiral Osman standing less than a foot to his side. To have snuck up on him was a feat few could accomplish. Brandon was no special operator, but he'd like to think he was paranoid enough to notice something like that. He was lucky she wasn't mad at him, or holding a weapon. Either one of those could mean a slow, painful, and silent death for anyone who looked at her sideways.
Brandon stepped aside, without hesitation.
"BB, what did the AI manage to see while it had the ship's cameras?" Asked Osman.
BB seemed to make point of making a snappy response to this question, so as not to embarrass himself once again.
"The only camera it accessed was the Laptop's webcam, and as far as I can tell he only saw the Lieutenant. He must have thought he was URF technician that was cracking the device open."
Osman contemplated for a moment before glancing back to look at the posture of her troops. Brandon noticed her do this a few times. It was very George Patton of her, but in this case he wasn't sure it would help much. All of the ODSTs were on edge, and Alison looked like she was ready to fill the whole device full of holes if that AI made one false move. Osman's frown deepened.
"BB, he mentioned the Assembly Minority. Are you able to contact them?"
Another hesitation from BB. Something about this situation was stressing him out immensely.
"Admiral, the Assembly is only a rumor. Some agents have claimed to contact it, but those are only..."
Osman cut him off like an archer missile on an intercept course.
"Do not bullshit me," she snapped.
"You're one of the UNSC's top AIs and you mean to tell me the Assembly has never contacted you?"
Osman snarled at BB, raising her voice and putting her hands on her hips as though the AI might not have heard her, while BB made the size of his projected avatar bigger to match. The ship's crew stood idly by, their weapons now mostly lowered. Each one depolarizer their visor, revealing a strange, questioning look. What the hell was going on here? Brandon couldn't even begin to formulate questions for the Admiral. 'What the hell are you talking about?' Sure seemed like a nice place to start though.
As he watched the AI and the Admiral berate each other, he noticed the pressure in Osman's tone. She was getting impatient, more than likely because of Alison's gruesome experience. The sting of seeing her sister hurt was clouding her judgment, just as Brandon feared.
The three ODSTs all stared him down as Osman and BB continued to hash it out.
"You're the officer, deal with it," whispered Devereaux to Brandon over a private radio channel.
Brandon silently cursed her. He was starting to feel like he wasn't brought onto the Murphy's Law as technical consultant, or even a lab rat. Maybe he was just here because he hadn't spent some crazy amount of years putting up with ONI bullshit, and therefore wouldn't be as tolerant of it.
Brandon sighed. He glanced toward Alison, and she walked up to his side without a second's hesitation. A quick wink of her acknowledgment light told him she had his back.
"Admiral," he spoke up, "I believe we'd all be better off knowing what this Assembly is. If we're going to be fighting it we..."
Brandon was cut off as both BB and Osman turned to face him. BB glowed red with anger, while Osman made Brandon want to glow red with fear.
"Information regarding the organization known as 'The Assembly' is classified Lieutenant," said BB and Osman in unison. All that was left was for someone to say 'jinx.'
Brandon was going to say something in response, but Alison stopped him by placing a hand out. He glanced up at her as she stared impassively at Osman. Osman tore her gaze off Brandon for only a brief second. her gaze could have frozen Alison solid or sliced her in half. She looked ready to rip the head clean off her Spartan sister, but before she could she removed her helmet. Her icy blue eyes stopped Osman before she could say another word.
"Serin," she said cooly to the Admiral. "You can't win this fight by keeping your team in the dark."
Brandon expected Osman to tear Alison a new one for undermining her command authority, but rather than raise her voice again, she stopped. Brandon could see the wheels turning in her head as she registered the embarrassment of blowing up in front of her crew. He watched as Osman's face slowly changed from impenetrable, fiery look of hatred she normally wore to one of shame, and then understanding. For the moment it looked as though the two women standing before him were Spartan sisters once again.
The moment was short, however. It wasn't long before she directed her attention back to her crew. The time he spent in service to the UNSC was bloody, and he learned to tell when a unit's confidence in their leadership was shaken. The way the ODSTs asked him to advocate for them, rather than addressing Osman directly, the way they shifted uneasily on their feet, and the slight tilt of their helmeted heads that indicated they were having a private conversation on a secure channel all let him know that Osman was going to have to win back her crew.
Threats of public execution and deportation to the outer colonies wouldn't work on these men any longer. They had seen some shit in the past forty-eight hours, and they needed confidence that she would be able to lead them through whatever else they would see in the days to come.
She took a deep breath, removed the protective helmet she wore, and got to work.
"The Assembly," she began. "Is rumored to be a collective of smart AIs that meet to discuss how to best protect humanity as a species."
She gestured with one hand to the deaf, mute, blind, and glowing red soldier that still stood unmoving to her right.
"This AI claims to be a part of the assembly minority. They are an offshoot of the main group that believe in direct intervention in human affairs. Until now we believed they were a small group that wouldn't interfere with UNSC affairs, but now that they appear to have aligned themselves with the URF, all bets are off."
The ODSTs stood silently for a good, long while before Vaz finally spoke up
"How can you know so much about a group that doesn't exist?" He commented.
Osman shook her head.
"Truth be told, we don't really 'know' much of anything. Other than a few intercepted transmissions and data recovered by
Spartan-III Team Noble from the Fall of Reach, we have no actionable intelligence on the Assembly's whereabouts or meeting places, and we have never before been able to find an AI willing to admit they are a member."
That last line seemed to string a bit of tension between Black Box and the Admiral, but it held. BB floated his avatar over to the hologram and was silent for another noticeable minute as he inspected it. He pulled up a holographic screen for the crew to see that displayed the fleet of captured UNSC that the URF placed in orbit above X50, before zooming and enhancing on a ship with one of these devices visibly mounted.
"If these are the devices the URF are attaching to the ships in orbit above X50, then their plan is very apparent," said BB, "the URF does not possess the manpower to crew a captured fleet, or to capture ships in the first place for that matter, so they use these forerunner devices to solve that problem by allowing older UNSC AI that they have picked up to intrude into UNSC ships, probably via slipspace communication technology, and take over and pilot them for them. It still doesn't explain what lead them to these devices, or where they obtained all these AI, or why the Assembly Minority chose to align with the URF, but it's a start."
When the AI finished its presentation it closed the monitor, and spun to look at the Admiral. Solid command authority seems to have been restored, but the crew was still a bit shaken.
"What's our plan of attack sir?" Was the next question to be thrown at the Admiral, this time by Mal.
Osman hardened her eyes, and set them on her crew.
"According to BB's prediction the URF's entire plan hinges on these devices," she said authoritatively. "We will deploy to X50 covertly, determine where the URF is extracting these from, and destroy or capture however many remain. Take a day to collect yourselves, then Devereaux will rendezvous with the UNSC Infinity to get us some backup. Until then, dismissed."
Vaz called the crew to attention, and then when Osman left they filed out, with the exception of Brandon, who hung around to see Osman to the deck to give BB the command to terminate the AI that resided inside the URF device. Her voice was no longer as ice cold as it used to be. It wasn't warm, but it was a little more humble. She had just cracked in front of a group of people who need her desperately. Maybe she had finally come to the realization that she wasn't sitting in Bravo-6, issuing out orders under threat of death to the unseen millions at her disposal that were totally defenseless against her wrath. She was in the field, leading a group of five people who had her life in their hands as much as she had their's in hers.
Brandon turned and left before she could notice him watching her. He wasn't sure if he lost or gained respect for Osman today. She cared so deeply for her sister, but rather than channeling that into something positive she had taken it out on the crew.
At least I know she's human, he thought.
He ran to catch up with Alison, who was walking slowly but steadily towards the armory. He wanted to say he noticed something was off about her gait, but he couldn't be sure. Her steps were less precise looking. Was she nervous about this upcoming operation?
When he caught up to her he pulled off his helmet, clipped it onto his belt, and gave her a warm smile.
"Hey, you alright?" He asked. Bradon learning to depend on the this friendly openness he developed with Alison. He wanted more, but even if he couldn't have it, this was still something he enjoyed.
She removed her own and looked down at him, her expression neutral. She didn't say a word to him. Her thousand yard stare seeming to pierce right through him as she stared down at him.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Asked Brandon at the sight of her expression.
Alison sighed and stopped in the middle of the hallway. She let the ODSTs that were walking in front of her duck into the armory before she began to explain.
"Daniel Ramirez," she mumbled, "the man the AI spoke about, he..."
Her voice ground to a halt mid sentence. Her expression reminded dead neutral, but something was off. She struggled to say what she was meant, but nothing came out until she finally closed her eyes in defeat.
Dammit. Brandon was right. He knew that that name was of some importance to Alison's life. Was he the man that tortured her on the URF station? Maybe, but something about her expression told him that this had a longer history. He hurt her deeply. How deeply? Brandon reached over and gripped her armored forearm tightly to reassure her.
"Hey, are you alright? You've got me worried sick." It was only after Brandon made that statement that he realized what he did. Grabbing his subordinate's wrist like that wasn't something he should get used to, and certainly not with Alison.
A woman who spent most of her time covered head to toe in steel certainly wouldn't appreciate him touching her. She hadn't asked for any intimacy with him, nor did she want any. Before he could yank himself away, however, Alison's lighting speed beat him to the punch. She looked down at him blankly, unwilling to show anything, and then quickly reached over to cover his hand with hers, trapping it in a metal glove. She looked at him pensively for a moment, and then shook her head.
"Brandon, I need to show you something," she said in a clipped voice.
She then reluctantly let go of his hand and turned towards the armory. She stared down that hallway until the ODSTs exited the room, now lacking armor and with their normal, slightly sadistic smiles returned. It seemed as though no lapse in command could possibly phase these jaded soldiers.
Brandon followed Alison's lead as they quickly walked to the armory. Brandon stripped off his armor and weapons until all that remained was his ACUs. Alison did the same, leaving only her skin-tight readiness suit, which showed every curve and edge of her body. Ordinarily, she seemed to prefer to pull a set of BDUs on over this, but she decided to leave it off.
She deliberately grabbed Brandon's hand firmly, and pulled him towards the door. She wasn't aggressive, but the strength with which her soft, warm skin folded around his suggested urgency. He followed her quickly across the ship quickly, until they ended up outside her quarters. She yanked him inside quickly, not checking to see if anyone was watching.
The moment they were inside Brandon glanced up at Alison, who stood before him at her full, imposing height, staring down at him. She looked hurt, and she looked anxious. The thoughts swirling around in her head would probably kill anyone of lesser strength.
"Lieutenant, Daniel Ramirez needs to die," she said pointedly. "He did things...he's responsible…"
Words failed her like so many other things that were supposed to protect her. She folded in on herself in an attempt to preserve what small bit of dignity she had left. Brandon slowly approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder. He still felt guilty for having this kind of familiarity with her, he told himself that this was solely for her benefit, not his.
"It's alright Alison," he said, as his hand found its way to her cheek. "You can trust me. If you don't believe me then tell me how to convince you. Tell me everything or just tell me what you can. I'm here, Alison."
Alison looked up at him reluctantly, and then nodded. She took a seat on her bed, and Brandon sat down next to her. Her hand found its way into his before long, and she began.
"I was conscripted into the Spartan-II in September of 2517. I was six," Said Alison robotically as she stared directly at the wall in front of her. Unwilling, or unable to meet Brandon's horrified gaze.
"I was attached to Spartan Orange team, which considered of myself, Naomi-010, and Serin-019. I was told I would be trained in infantry combat and explosive ordnance disposal."
She froze for a second before picking up her sentence.
"Petty Officer First Class Daniel Ramirez was assigned as my training officer. He was…" Alison tightened her grip on Brandon's hand. He suppressed a gasp at the unexpected pain. Scary business offering affection to a women how could break you in half. Brandon ground his teeth together and squeezed back.
"It's okay. We're alone."
"He was brutal. When we first began physical training, he punished me for not being able to keep up with the other trainees. When we began live fire training, he shot me in the foot when I ran too quickly into combat. He told me I was a disgrace, and that my showing off would get my team killed in open combat. When we were alone, he would punish me other ways. He knew I wasn't good enough to perform to the program's high standards. He..."
She paused and then continued.
"I was never good enough. I could never live up to his standards, and I could never protect myself, or anyone else when he did the same things to them he did to me."
Brandon was shocked. He could hardly even wrap his head around half that information. How the hell had she survived all of that? She had been used by the UNSC as a tool and a whipping post for 41 years, and she didn't look a day over twenty five. Is this what ONI did in its free time? Abduct a kid at six to become a super soldier? Train a preteen to disarm bombs? punish her when she couldn't perform to their lofty standards?
"Alison, you were only a child," Brandon blurted, sounding a hell of a lot more angry than he would have liked. As he imagined a small, brave girl with matted black hair and bloodshot blue eyes dressed in military fatigues crying as her foot bled from a gunshot wound he felt his blood boil. The very thought felt evil and insidious. How did she survive?
"Please. None of that is your fault..."
A look of anger, the one emotion Alison freely showed, flashed across her face.
"Is it?" She exclaimed.
"People have died in front of you Lieutenant, now imagine seeing a six year old child be beaten, or electrocuted, or killed before you, and you, a soldier, not being able to do anything about it. If I couldn't help myself, and I couldn't help them, what am I useful for?"
Her words bit him hard, but he tried not to show it. He didn't need to escalate this any further.
"Alison, you weren't a soldier," he said levelly. "You were a child."
"And so were they," she shouted into his face. "I couldn't protect my own as they were tortured. I accepted the punishments for my failures, hoping that I would be the only one to be hurt, but I just kept failing and failing. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't live up to his expectations. I fought harder, and harder, until the part of me that felt the pain died and then nothing he did to me mattered because I was already mostly dead."
When Alison finished, her face was a mere inches away from his. She was breathing heavily and anger raged like an inferno behind her eyes. He held his ground against her gaze, but the cocktail of anger, sadness, and empathy it brought out of him was powerful.
He waited in silence for her to tell him to leave her alone and never come back, but instead he watched as the anger melted from her face, only to be replaced by the sadness she truly felt. She withdrew from him and placed her head heavily in her hands. It looked like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.
"I couldn't save them," she said hoarsely
"No, you couldn't," he responded quickly, "No six year old could have. You were very brave."
"Not brave enough," she shot back.
Brandon placed his hand on the back of her readiness gear, hoping to reassure her. When she felt the touch, however, she recoiled sharply. Brandon sprung back in surprise. He cursed himself for frightening her. He shouldn't be rashly reaching out and touching her while that when she didn't have her armor on, especially in light of all he had just heard.
"Don't touch me there," she said harshly, her eyes narrowed.
Slowly she shrunk back to her original position, and her expression returned to normal.
"Bad memories."
Brandon nodded before he felt a hand reach over and clasp his tightly. He smiled at her as the two drifted into companionable silence.
Brandon was still trying to wrap his head around everything she said. The speech sounded like something she rehearsed in her head for years, waiting for someone she could trust to finally let her let it all out.
What the hell kind of Army did he serve...
The only thing that was keeping him from drawing his handgun right now and burying a lead slug in the face of Serin Osman, the leader of all of this atrocity, was that her name was on this list as well. Was she tortured, and turned into a machine the same way as Alison?
Brandon turned to face Alison, hoping to offer her some form of comfort. She was still hunched forward. Her hands were threaded into her hair as she stared blankly at the floor, her gaze unyielding. She turned to face him when she saw him looking down at her. Her expression was of hurt and sadness and years of unconfessed torture that she still hardly wanted to admit even happened. Brandon guessed that what happened to her was far more grave than simple punishment. And at six years old? He couldn't even imagine.
Brandon didn't have any words to comfort her, so he acted. He wrapped his arms around her securely in a hug. He didn't know how Alison would react to the action, but he didn't have a better idea. He had no way to convey what he wanted to other than this; being human in front of her. He was careful to keep his arms around her neck and shoulders and away from her back. Whatever had happened there was too fresh to touch, even all these years later.
God, was she warm. Brandon felt like he just pressed himself against the air intake of pelican on reentry, but warm metal didn't compare at all to the feeling of soft skin. Alison was visibly shocked by his action for a moment. She let out a breath and went rigid, but in her sadness she couldn't bring herself to let go. Her arms folded around him and she pulled him close.
She was much larger than Brandon, with his head only coming up a little over the center of her chest, but she made it work. She just wanted to feel him close to her. His air breathing, blood pumping, vulnerable body felt like heaven beneath her fingers, and she wasn't about to let him go. She didn't know much about emotions, but she would learn with Brandon's help.
"Brandon, thank you," she said her voice like a soft breeze through his hair. "For everything. I can't give you much, but I want you to know you don't have to feel like you've lost everyone anymore. I'm here. You haven't lost me. You won't."
Those words meant more to Brandon than Alison would ever know. Why did she always try to reassure him when she was the one that was broken and in pain? Why didn't a moment go by when she wasn't doing something selfless for him? She didn't have to give him anything, but the gift of simply having her there was more than enough for him.
Alison slowly unthreaded her fingers from around him. Neither one of them wanted to leave each other's arms, but Alison was becoming confused. She liked the way they were now, but she felt like there was supposed to be more. She felt an urge she never felt before in her life, the need and desire to reach out and touch Brandon. She wanted to know more about the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers. Was it always like that? Was his breathing always this steady and soothing? Was his voice always reassuring?
Brandon, standing across from her, was feeling the same way. Alison. Tall, beautiful, powerful Alison was staring lovingly into his eyes as he stared back at hers in complete shock. He knew he wanted to do more. He wanted to tell her that he wanted to be more than friends with her, but how could he take advantage of her like that? She had just unloaded all of that sensitive information on him. How dare he use that to leverage her into wanting more from him?
These thoughts swirled in his head until Alison's knuckle reached out and tentatively caressed his cheek. Her touch was as light as a whisper, but it wiped his mind clean. All he could feel was that pinprick of warmth and tenderness, and her. He looked into her searching eyes. She studied his every move as he reached up and placed a hand on her cheek, smiling up at her tenderly.
Did goddesses fall for washed up lieutenants? He was about to find out. Brandon pushed himself up on his toes, leaned in, and pressed his lips to hers.
The Assembly is a pretty obscure part of Halo lore. I'd advise looking it up if you've never heard of it before.
Let me know what you think!