"Fine weather we are having this evening," said Mrs. Marquett in jest, as her finely dressed butler Gillian gave her a courtly bow while opening the door to her R-Type Bentley, umbrella still opened to shield her from the faintly falling rain as the skies over Indigo Seven's Capitol City continued to darken from the foul weather blowing in from the nearby green seas adjacent to the rocky continental shelf.
"Of course my lady," replied Gillian as he closed her door, rounded the vehicle, and hit the ignition to her heavily armored limo. Within seconds the Bentley was leaving the front of the Administration Tower for the UNSC Colony while being cheered at by the massed mob of pro-secessionist colonists drenched in rainwater, or adorned in plastic drapery to shield them from the rain. Colonial police in black SWAT vests and plastic poncho's pulled away steel riot barricades to allow her vehicle free transit from the administrative complex.
In the days following her first visit to this facility, the mobs cheering in support for colonial succession had only grown with each continued public appearance by Mrs. Marquett. At first they were peaceful, merely cheering and whistling as she waltzed into the building, but now… with ONI clamping down on the major news outlets just in case other colonies started to feel similar sentiments at leaving the Earth Union… they were starting to become more violent, more on edge. Many of them now chanted openly their desires for a full succession from the UNSC, "Home Rule. Earth Go Away," she repeated numbly to herself with a grin, as her limo fully pulled away into the metropolitan city with the same eerie chanting slowly fading away into the background of noisy traffic.
"Makes you wonder," she said to no one in particular with unique wistfulness despite her butler being the only person who could overhear, "Do these people even realize the dangers of complete independence? The UNSC may not be perfect, but under its political umbrella these people do have some modicum of protection from the navy... or what remains of it following 'the war.'"
"It's not always about the military might my lady," spoke her butler with a chuckle, "As with all things in life... Sometimes… people just get tired of being told what to do and think. It's a matter of subtle manipulation… something ONI has grown increasingly lazy towards."
Mrs. Marquett laughed to herself, "Now isn't that the truth. Spartans? The Infinity? Information Control? Such heavy handed methods and symbols leave the weak and powerless with an alternate impression to reality. Symbols meant to embody strength can also be used as potent weapons which demonstrate absolute authority. ONI… truly doesn't understand how blatantly they flaunt their power before the masses. It's only natural for people to be scared and resentful."
"Resentful my lady?" asked her butler in a coy voice.
Mrs. Marquett grinned to herself and uncrossed her legs to lean forward and pour a glass of scotch from her limos minibar, "People fear what they don't understand. It's a natural evolutionary trait… so I've been told. The problem with ONI is how they keep secrets and flaunt the power they wield to silence just criticism. Their methods make sure that people never understand the threats they deal with, as they claim, to protect those people in question. This creates fear. Those people back there," she motioned behind her limo window with a raised thumb, "Don't want succession from the UNSC. What they really want… is for an end to ONI."
Mrs. Marquett sipped her scotch and twisted her lips from its bitter flavor, "ONI has done its job too well. They've become too much of a bogyman with too far of a reach over the colonial authority. And now… people are scared. They want a way out…" the young woman gave a whim sickle chuckle and started to pour herself another glass of scotch, "But that's enough politics. To the penthouse Gillian. I feel the need some Bach… would you be so kind?"
"Of course, my lady," replied her butler as his fingers danced across the dashboard to start the vehicles sound system. Violins, Courante, by Johann Sebastian Bach, now started to play within the vehicle as Mrs. Marquette continued to drink, while picking up a pin and provided newspaper to do a crossword puzzle on her trip back to the hotel.
...
"We have confirmation," said BB as Captain; no, Commander and Chief Admiral Serin Osman, oh how things change, took her seat aboard the Port Stanley bridge. Her AI secretary, for the lack of a better term, had already taken the time to heavily encrypt the necessary incoming transmissions for the main event. Yes, main event, how very morbid.
As it were, wanting to watch Black Ops in real time was becoming something of a guilty pleasure from the new ONI Director. BB really didn't approve of this particular type of barbarism, but... part of him wanted to see this particular assassination himself given the importance of the target itself. Mrs. Marquett had become a threat, a beacon to rally support for colonial home rule separate from the UNSC. This was a nasty political assassination on paper and in popular politics, but in the background shadow game secretly an attempt to remove a very dangerous armed warlord capable fielding units already proven to be a match for Spartans. Her death was chess etiquette, removing a valuable Indie piece on the game board before it became too much of a threat later on down the line. It wasn't revenge.
"Have the assets been deployed?" she asked while sipping from a cup of coffee. The question was purely rhetorical; of course BB had already deployed the necessary hatchet-men who were already awaiting on standby to spring their trap.
"Of course," he replied optimistically, "Time till target..." he cocked his boxy self to the side as if reading some sort of hidden timer just over his holographic shoulder, "thirty seconds."
"Are we live?" she asked. BB bobbed up and down, the equivalent of a nod, while changing the closest monitors on the bridge to show a live broadcast from Indigo Seven. The broadcasts were a mixture of angles from Black Widow Communications Satellites and atmospheric spy drones. The one thing each image had in common was what they were followed, an armored limo moving along an elevated highway.
"Most impressive," smiled Osman while taking a deep gulp of her coffee and skimming over the provided video feeds before taking a keen interest on particular view from a nearby spy drone giving a nice side image of the limo as it weaved through traffic. She selected this particular live feed to follow the operation upon.
BB took his commanders compliment at face value and decided to elaborate upon the technological display of power, "We're relaying directly through FLEETCOM One Actual, perhaps a slight misuse of authority but I don't think anyone will take much offense all things considered. Everything is being broadcasts with real time encryption just in case the signal gets high-jacked."
Osman nodded and took another sip of her coffee, "And the fire team?" she asked coyly as two blue minivans started to ominously encroach upon the armored limo from behind.
"Two fire teams of ODST and a couple of Spartans... just for insurance. Unfortunately, I couldn't obtain any non-obvious air support for the ground teams so they'll be going in mostly on their own."
"What's the threat assessment?" she asked dryly.
BB bobbed from side to side as if considering this for a socially unnecessary amount of time. In truth, he had the numbers processed milliseconds after she had asked him, "Mission has an 87% chance of success. This includes factoring in the logistical concerns over exfiltration of the wet-work crew we have dispatched..." BB stalled briefly, "However..."
"However?" asked Osman. She didn't like 'howevers.' Not in this line of work.
"However, the files we have on the targets leave me... less than enthralled. We know of Mrs. Marquett's past as a surviving clone of Dr. Halsey, but... the requested files for her butler Guillian is frankly almost non-existent. Frankly, we have nothing on the man which wasn't clearly fabricated prior to 30 years ago."
Admiral Osman took a second to process that little bit of information. They had information on Gillian dating back years, but most of it was falsified. The only hard information they had on his past was 30 years old. Something about that made the ONI Admiral nervous."
"Let me guess," she uttered dully, "He's the extra 13% in the calculations?"
"Quiet," said BB optimistically.
...
Gillian saw the two ominous blue vans pulling up to either side of Mrs. Marquett's limo in his mirrors. Sloppy, very sloppy, whoever taught those drivers to stalk their targets on an open highway deserved to be dragged out into the street and shot. Surely, he thought, the high art of 'tailing' a target wasn't lost to the ages of espionage and assassination? No matter, if these idiots were clearly getting ready to attack then he might as well do his job properly, "My lady," he addressed his mistress through an imbedded com to the passenger compartment.
"Yes Gillian," she replied curtly.
"It would appear, that we are about to have some unexpected complications. It might be wise to perhaps fasten your seatbelt," calm, mannerly. He could hear her chuckling and clicking the waist restraint as advised.
"I trust you can 'handle' this situation?" she asked him. Through the intercom he could hear her wrinkling the newspaper to start the crossword puzzle as if the upcoming roving gun battle was nothing more than a background trifle to her daily commute.
"Of course my lady. Any butler who can't handle such ruffians isn't worth his salt to the Marquett family..." instantly he heard her retort, "Gillian... was that an old Earth cartoon reference?"
"My lady," he replied in mock shock, "A butler has his hobbies."
...
"And so it begins," said Osman as the two powder blue minivans slid their passenger doors open revealing two multi-barreled vehicle mounted minigun's manned by black armored ODST operators. However, before they could open fire the armored limo hit its brakes and swerved hard into the right guard median. The unsuspecting blue minivan flanking to fire into the armored vehicle grinded against the guardrail raining sparks and broken vehicular steel down the interstate.
Concrete sharded onto outbound vehicles causing their drivers to panic and swerve behind the limo as the second minivan tapped its brakes to come back into alignment. Instantly, the ODST fired his minigun into the bulletproof glass leaving spider-webbing along its tinted windows.
The Limo floored the gas and broke off of the battered blue minivan now limping along the highway. Expecting the acceleration, the second minivan tried to keep pace, but underestimated the movement of mass from his targets customized engine in comparison to his cheaply rented moving box. While the driver of the second minivan attempted to over-compensate for the speed difference, the limo driver slammed his brakes again and took his ill-attention and slow responsive self in the right corner. The second minivan fishtailed and crossed-the-t in front of the armored limo, almost tipping over and burning rubber sideways along the highway.
Osman watched as the driver of the limo pulled to his right, forcing the second minivan to break off from in front, and form fishtailing cover for the emerging second minivan to his immediate corner. The two minivans swerved behind the limo as the traffic behind the roving gun battle braked and pulled back wanting no part in the conflict.
...
"Hum..." hummed Mrs. Marquett through the coms as Gillian laughed to himself like a maniac. They were rookies, green, gloriously green. He took both drivers by complete and total surprise. What sort of idiot assassin didn't know how to recover from a 'pit maneuver?'
"Yes my lady," he addressed her.
Coyly she replied, "Four down. Uncultured Tribal. 6 letters, 3rd letter 'v?'"
Gillian watched one of the blue minivans coming up alongside his left, using a semi-truck for cover. He frowned, hit his brakes, rubber burning against asphalt, the limo suddenly speeding quickly towards the semi-trucks grill. The semi-truck braked hard. The blue minivan suddenly found itself exposed outpacing its own cover as Gillian slammed it into the guardrail blasting away huge chunks of concrete and broken metal.
"Savage, my lady," replied Gillian as the limo once more accelerated.
...
"Oh my," said BB out of the blue, as his full run time synced with a smaller semi-autonomous AI fragment of his core programming, to fully read and comprehend the vast data archive recently declassified by ONI Section Zero."
"What is it?" asked Osman, suddenly puzzled as she watched the roving gun battle play out from a side angle upon a nearby viewing screen. Things were going unexpectedly poorly all things considered… odd.
BB bobbed from side to side, his boxy shape giving off the illusion of nervousness, "Section Zero just sent us some rather unfortunate information from their archives. Apparently, they had a facial match to the Marquette family butler buried deep in their classified files... It's... not good."
"Define not good," replied Osman with sudden peeked interests.
BB skimmed through the vast array of recently declassified materials, reading them all in seconds. Some of this stuff was ancient history. All of it was... messy. "He's a former member of the 'Hangmen.'"
"Hangmen?" asked Osman, "Is that some sort of old Operations Team?"
"Something like that..." BB stalled briefly, "Look, you need to see this."
…...
It appeared as though the rookies had recovered. Gillian watched the two battered blue minivans flooring their engines and coming up from behind once again. The one on the rear left had two ODST's leaning out of the passenger compartment with M57 Pilum rocket launchers, their bodies held in place by harnesses and bungie cables despite the rush of air against their exposed bodies. 'Perhaps they should have lead with that,' muttered Gillian to quietly to himself while looking at the other vehicle.
He watched, puzzled, as it's boxy suspension suddenly leaned sharply to one side as a large green metal hand griped the obscured side of an open side panel. Then it emerged, a fully armored Spartan, scaling the side of the van, standing on its roof, getting ready to jump onto the limo from thirty yards away on the interstate.
"Hum…" hummed Mrs. Marquett from the passenger compartment.
"Yes, my lady," replied Gillian while studying the Spartan's pose. He only had one chance to get this right, or that Spartan would land on the limo and tear it apart with his bare hands.
"Nineteen across, Royal Execution. Third letter 'o.' Eighth letter 'g.'"
Gillian waited patiently, watching calmly, and then… the Spartan jumped, vaulting between the minivan and limo. Instantly the butler hit the brakes and pulled left as hard as he could. The Spartan landed prone on the roadway next to the passenger side of the driver's compartment. Gillian floored the limo and swerved hard right into the guardrail. The Spartan held up his hands to try and push the limo away, but mass worked against him and he was slammed against the guardrail on his back. Gillian continued to grind the Spartan into the guardrail leaving a trail of sharding concrete rubble and sparks in his wake until finally something akin to a red smear appeared in his rear view mirror running the length of twenty meters. Just to be sure, he continued to grind the Spartan into pulp for another twenty meters before finally pulling away. Beneath the vehicle he felt something large bump below the tires and watched in the rearview mirror as the mangled body of man and metal twisted under the tires of a city bus causing it to flip on its side in a spectacular crash.
"Blood Eagle, my lady," replied Gillian.
"Blood Eagle? Ah yes, of course," she replied.
…..
BB discretely pulled up a scrolling data log of Gillian's official ONI record, "Fireteam Hangman, Former ONI Section One, Rank Major, prior ONI record holder: sniper, demolitions, infiltration... Officially all of these records were held up until the implementation of the Spartan II's. His real name is... Leon Price..."
"So these Hangmen... what are they? Former ONI Deathshead?" asked Osman as she continued to skim through 'Leon Price's' war record. It was bad. Really bad. With the exception of perhaps the Master Chief no living Spartan had anything this lengthy or distinguished compared to this single ODST.
"Fireteam Hangman was ONI's flagship Kill Team prior to the full implementation of the Spartan II's against the Indies during the Pre-Covenant War. Their members were usually rotated into and out of certain ODST units which operated under ONI authority. They all but founded Deathshead. As for most of their members... once we fully implemented the Spartans into dedicated operations the Fireteam was officially disbanded and reintegrated back into the marine ODST. In hindsight... an extremely wasteful decision. Mr. Price..." BB stopped briefly for dramatic pause, "was forced into early retirement following a 'training accident' with a known Spartan on Atlas Station, a skull fracture, broken ribs, but the real issue was security. He resurfaced during the Fall of Reach, leading a civilian militia during the last night of New Alexandria. He was assumed dead when Reach was glassed. In hindsight... an incorrect assumption."
…..
The second minivan with its most likely mysterious second Spartan cargo remained distant from the limo while its compatriot with the rocket armed ODST's decided to take no further chances. Gillian watched as they fired their rockets from the hip. There was little he could do against that type of incoming fire except take the punishment. Both rockets were near misses exploding along the flanks to the limo, blowing up large chunks of pavement, blackening the paint, but not actually wounding its armored body.
Desperately, Gillian searched for an out. Something he could use for cover, or… he saw it. Off in the distance was a suspension bridge leading out over into the bay. That was an eighty meter drop into cold water. Almost there, almost.
As the ODST's reloaded their rockets he cleared the remaining ground to the bridge and grinned wolfishly to himself. They were targeting him again, but unfortunately were far too late. Gillian hit the brakes hard, and the vehicle lurched to a sudden hard stop. He intentionally fishtailed the massive armored body on its customized shocks and the driver of the blue minivan had precious few seconds to react.
In the fraction of time before the minivan hit the limo on its rear corner Gillian took pleasure from the fear in the eyes of the ODST's leaning suspended out of the side panel. They knew, he could see it, that their driver had just killed them both. As the vehicle hit the side of the more effectively grounded armored limo, it's rear axle spun and it's front tipped forward, sending the minivan up and over the side of the bridge and down into the water's down below. Gillian liked to think that he heard them screaming as they fell to their deaths…
Traffic slammed to a grinding halt in the background to avoid the wreckage as the second minivan came to a halt nearby. Instantly another green armored Spartan leapt from its side and ran towards the limo driver's door with a raised rifle. He covered the distance in lengthy strides, grabbed the door, and tore it free from the hinges, throwing it aside like a drape.
"You mother fuc…!" he never got to finish that sentence as a very high velocity bullet blew out the front of his helmet visor, pulping the brain beneath, sending a brief geyser of blood flooding out of the bullet hole in his face before his armored body fell backwards unto the asphalt with a metallic clunk.
Gillian stood from the limo holding an antique human firearm with a wooden stock and ornate silver engraving. He opened up the rear back breach and pulled free a ridiculously large shell casing, dropping it casually to the roadway, and reloading with ease a replacement from his coat pocket.
"All of that technology," he glowered, "Defeated by a twenty-first century 700 Nitro Elephant Gun." He finished reloading, and while using his vehicle as cover took aim of the driver of the second minivan. He watched the man struggle to free his sidearm before pulling the trigger, blowing the moronic soldier's body into pulp above his shoulders.
Gillian then climbed back into the limo and, minus the door, continued to drive his mistress back to her penthouse, "Hummm," she messaged him through the embedded coms.
"Having trouble my lady?" he asked her calmly.
"No…" she paused briefly, "I was just thinking that perhaps we should have the vehicle detailed this week. When was its last oil change?"
Gillian looked at the sticker in the upper left of the window, "My word… you are correct madam. I'll see to it first thing tomorrow," replied the butler with the wind from the missing door blowing through his grey hair.
…..
"Fucking hell... this mans a ghost," mumbled a disgruntled Osman. BB perked up from here rare usage of profanity and slowly shook from side to side, his impersonation of a blink and headshake she assumed.
"This man should be dead... and we find him here... considering the company he's keeping we are finding ourselves with many reemerging ghosts from ONI's past," said BB as the roving gun battle ended with the battered armored limo pulling away towards Mrs. Marquett's hotel.
Osman sat numbed for a brief second before finally coming a decision, "We can't let this continue any longer. I want a full combat ready Killteam assembled from the UNSC Infinity. Have Sarah Palmer lead it. All Spartans. Stealth infiltration, but once they are inside that hotel they are to go weapons hot."
"And the civilians?" asked BB.
Osman continued to look over the footage from the highway chase and the numerous deaths caused by Mrs. Marquett's butler, "Keep the collateral damage to a minimum, but sanctioned nonetheless."
"Understood," said BB without emotion before blinking away. He was part of the ship and could still hear and see everything Osman did on the bridge so the effort was more... symbolic than anything, letting her know that he considered himself dismissed.