Chapter 8: Fleet High Command
FleetCom Council, Melbourne, Sol System, Council hearings…
"Thank you captain, what is next on the agenda?" asked an elderly man in the blues and grays of a UNSC admiral.
"The failed recovery mission on Terra II," replied a voice from the shadows. The FleetCom council was sitting in a huge dimly lit room deep under the rebuilt Melbourne. The eleven council members sat at a raised, curved mahogany table under the scrutiny of the three hundred spectators in the dark seats thirty feet in front of them. There were four large tables around the bottom row of the seats for the presenters.
"If I may ask, what are the exact details for this mission," asked a salt and pepper haired man on the far end of the table. He leaned forward looking at the nervous ONI and UNSC lieutenants at the two middle tables. They shuffled through their papers looking at each other.
Fed up he said, "I'll come back to you," he turned his gaze to the far left table but stopped. In the darkness there were three golden objects floating in the air. A small smile crossed his face and he rubbed his chin slowly. "Spartans?" There was a slight stirring in the audience when he finished. The three golden objects moved forward and materialized into three seven foot tall Spartans.
"Sir, yes sir," replied a male.
"Is it true that one of you were lost in that mission?" he asked, seeing how they would react.
"Correct, sir," replied a different male. The UNSC Vice Admiral looked at the three and saw small twitches between the three.
"Please take your helmets off, I'd like to see your faces." The three Spartans hesitated but complied. The two closest to him took them off immediately, but the third removed theirs slowly. A chestnut haired woman greeted the Admiral who was taken back.
" Vice Admiral! This is not time to display your dislike for the Spartan-II program," called out the white haired man in the middle.
"Yes Admiral Reinhardt," replied the man. He waved for the Spartans to return to their original positions.
"Back to the matter at hand," continued Reinhardt, "What was the exact purpose of this mission gentleman?" The Lieutenants had found their information and stood up. The UNSC officers started first.
" Captain Easley was leading a Longsword squadron on a recon mission in Terra's mountain ranges trying to find any Covenant outposts located there."
"Is that it?" asked a General three people down from Reinhardt.
"No, that's not it, but the information is classified at this point." But this wasn't from one of the Lieutenants; this was from an ONI Section Three General.
"I'd like to see this information immediately. All personnel with level X-ray clearance or lower are to leave the room ASAP." He said gravely; classified info usually meant something that could hurt the human moral. The soldiers at the tables started to get up but were stopped by Reinhardt, "But understand, you will have a memory wipe proceeding this conversation." They all nodded. The Spartans were halfway up the aisle way when they were stopped.
"I need to discuss some things with you so I'll have you stay. But no memory wipe, a Spartan's brain is to complex," he said half jokingly, half seriously.
The large room grew quiet as the ONI general started to speak.
"We were testing a new device that could disrupt magnetic, and possibly gravity fields. It used a type of EMP that could be sustained and controlled. Preliminary tests showed no effects on our technology, which was promising. Using a captured Covenant weapon we used it to test a theory of ours. Covenant weapons use a special type of magnetic field that contains and propels the plasma. When we tested the device on the weapons…well, they stopped working as far was we could tell. So we decided to see if we could use this device in space to, at least temporarily, make the Covenant vessels immobilized without weapons or shields." The whole room was quiet; they knew that this weapon could turn the tides of the war. The Covenant had been pushed back but they were attacking more frequently with more ferocity. It was their counter-attack. The General continued, "We wanted to see what it's full useful range was, and not under laboratory conditions. We wanted real life conditions, so we had Captain Easley and his squadron go test it on Terra II were we suspected there were small Covenant outposts. We lost contact with Captain Easley four days ago, and the recon squad…twenty-eight hours ago." He suddenly looked as if the life had been drained out of him. The group was silent again, but someone speaking didn't break the silence, it was a door sliding open and an ONI officer running down the stairs quickly.
"General! We're receiving the last signals from the EMP generator!" He reached the bottom of the auditorium and walked over to a small data screen on the side of the room and tapped a few buttons. The room turned pitch black, but filled with color as the UNSC insignia on the floor turned into a large holo-projector. A fuzzy image flickered on and then focused itself. It was footage from a small onboard camera in the Longsword. It showed the inside of the fighter with Captain Easley, his co-pilot and two ONI techs next to a large metal cylinder.
"Fast forward to the accident please," asked Reinhardt. The footage sped up and then stopped. The two techs powered up the EMP generator and then the image went blank. The officer fast forward again and stopped when the image came back. The Longsword was rocking violently and it looked like the pilots were yelling at the ONI techs. There was a hard jolt and the image again went fuzzy. It came back showing the inside of the Longsword. One of the techs was on the floor in a puddle of blood. The other was nowhere to be seen. Easley and the co-pilot got up and grabbed their pistols and started firing at the air. Then two beam swords materialized in the air and beheaded the Captain, and the co-pilot, a geyser of blood erupting form their necks as their bodies fell to the ground. One of the Lieutenants quickly got up and ran up the walkway only to vomit halfway up. The ONI officer fast-forwarded the video, Elites moving around quickly inside the Longsword. He played it again when an ODST walked into it and hid. This caught the attention of the group. He got behind the control consol behind the pilot seats and hid. After a while he got back up and started to mess with the EMP generator.
"Pause it and zoom in," called out the ONI general, the officer paused it and zoomed into the screen.
"That ODST activated the warm-up sequence for the generator," he stated. The officer brought it back to its normal size and played it. The ODST started to frantically search for something, apparently found it but ran back to the EMP generator. He tapped the screen and the image went blank. After fast-forwarding the image came back, but this time with a large creature in arctic camouflage. The three Spartans tensed at the site.
"Pause it, that's Spartan-117 isn't it?" asked Reinhardt, directing it to the Spartans.
"Yes, sir," replied Spartan-104.
"Play it." The image started up again and showed 117 activating the EMP's self-destruction mechanism. He sprinted out of the ship, seconds later the screen went dead. The officer turned the projector off and the lights returned to normal.
"So, as of right now we know that Spartan-117, the Master Chief, is MIA."