Lena performed her usual duty of keeping an eye on the radars while waiting for something to happen. Today had been another silent day in the First Ward, it seemed. She had started tracking the UNSC Assets properly on her own Para-RAID device as they did work in the FOB, but otherwise she'd kept rather quiet about the whole development of their allies' arrival and form-up with the Eighty-Six.

Right now, though, she expected things would get somewhat more hectic. With the arrival of the Revolution Festival fairly near(read:about a week or so from now) and the immediate deployment of another supply bird happening soon, Lena wasn't sure she wanted to be asked anything about the UNSC when they inevitably made first contact with the San Magnolia supply corps and, by extension, with the wider governmental structure of the Republic.

She finished her last request form for the day and had handed it in and, as she walked, she decided she'd call up Shin. Whispering the passcode, "Para-RAID, Activate... Link to Spearhead Processor, target Undertaker..." and letting the device whirr to life, she walked down one of the corridors of San Magnolia's military HQ. Samantha was currently still undergoing Handler training and was about to be assigned one of their easier squadrons for her first mission.

Operationally, that squadron was in one of the least-attacked areas, so the most she would probably do is lay back and talk to the Eighty-Six as the days passed, somewhat akin to how Lena had started out on this job. It was just another day in paradise, huh? Eh, she figured that Sam would be fine. It was Mathieu she was concerned about. Him and Annette seemed to have calmed down, but there was something odd, something bothering him...

"Hello, Captain," She spoke as she strode down the wide halls of the Palace Blancneige.

"Major. It's good to hear your voice... But you're early." Shin replied, slightly surprised if his voice was anything to go by. She smiled.

"I figured it was as good a time as any to call. How are things between you and the 'new arrivals'?" She inquired. Admittedly, the UNSC was no longer easily considered 'new arrivals', seeing as they'd fought beside one of their squadrons already and were deploying their new bases around the FOBs belonging to squadrons like Spearhead, so they were like neighbors, now.

"The setup of their Forward Operating Base has been completed in record time and their defensive turrets are already online. All-in-all, the UNSC has set up manufacturing capabilities and a better bunking and storage area for their troops and vehicles..." He explained as calmly as he could. From the background, the sound of page being flipped resonated through the Para-RAID.

"I meant 'how are you getting along', captain Nouzen," She chuckled. Of course, he'd answer in technical terms.

"Ah. Just fine. Theo just joined Mary and the other Engineers down below as they're preparing the FOB's underground tunnels, Raiden and one of the Lieutenants were engaged in a discussion regarding the culinary arts, Kurena found herself a fellow clothing enthusiast with which to discuss the drab attire they'd been assigned as military outfits, Lecca, Haruto and Daiya are off doing god-knows-what with a squad of Marines, Anju's helping a nurse tend to some more wounded that came from a liberated camp..." And on, Shin went, listing everything his comrades were doing to the listening Major.

"Sounds like everyone got acclimatized to our new allies," Lena remarked absentmindedly, "What about you, Captain?"

"I am..." She felt his hesitation through the Para-RAID's link. He spoke nonetheless, "Still not sure what to think of them."

"Ah, the healthy dose of skepticism I heard about from my uncle, then?" She giggled, "I wouldn't worry, captain. Everything about our new comrades paints them as exactly what they say they are, including their actions in regards to the camps that they find throughout the place. Lucky for them, those they hit seem to all have been abandoned by the Military Police."

"Lucky, indeed..." Shin murmured, "Anyways. What about you, Major? How are you doing?"

"I'm fine... Save for the fact that we've got an incoming party within a few days..." She stated, then scoffed, "I'm being forced to wear a dress and go to this thing. I should be out here, assisting you and the Marines to the best of my abilities... The Legion could attack at any moment, or you could be required to engage as well. A simple party doesn't matter anywhere near as much as that..."

"Major..." Shin hummed, then started, "We appreciate the help you've given us so far and your desire to cooperate with the UNSC to help us..."

She smiled, proud.

"But..."

And now winced... Thank you for the whiplash there, captain Nouzen...

"But...?" She raised a brow.

"You don't need to focus only on work, Major. You still have a life outside of the military. One you should not disregard just for us," He offered calmly, causing Lena to pout. Of course, he seemed to act more like an older brother here than her subordinate. It was odd to listen to, but alas... He then asked, "What is this party about anyways?" as Lena continued walking.

"It's the Revolution Festival," She replied calmly, "It's in a week or so."

"Ah..." Shin sighed, then spoke, "Of course. I think I remember it. And that I went with my brother..."

"Oh..." Lena winced. Captain Nouzen had told her of his brother, Rei and the two had spoken of the man beforehand. How he rescued Lena after her and her father's aircraft was shot out of the sky by Legion AAA and how everyone but her had died at the hands of an Ameise that came to finish them off. She winced, then sighed and asked, "What did you and your brother see?"

"Fireworks. I... Haven't seen any in a while," Shin replied, the faintest hint of melancholy in his otherwise perfectly-robotic tone. It was a bit jarring to Lena to hear him speak like that, but alas, she tried to take the man's words and reactions in stride, including giving an understanding smile despite the man not being able to see it. 'Man' was probably not the best way to refer to captain Nouzen, though. He was still (presumably) her age.

"Perhaps that can be helped..." She offered.

"You... Don't need to-"

"It's nothing, Captain..." She replied, smiling.

"Hmm... Very well. I think we'd all appreciate what you're about to do, if I understood your hints correctly..." Shin offered, presumably smiling behind the com. She wasn't sure if he ever smiled or not. She could probably ask around, but right now she just needed to focus. Shin spoke again, inquiring, "Do you want to go to that party, Major?" while another page was flipped. The man was definitely reading. She could feel that his attention was split.

"I'm... Not sure..." She sighed, turning to climb up the stairs toward the mess hall.

"I would suggest you go and enjoy yourself. There should be no Legion offensive coming and even if there is, we have allies to help us cover any gaps in the counterstrike. The UNSC has just started deploying artillery pieces, too," He offered calmly as he flipped another page. The young woman breathed a deep sigh of annoyance, then hummed as she reached a balcony.

"I appreciate the thought, captain..." She replied, climbing up the next flight of stairs, "If it doesn't bother you that we won't be talking that evening..."

"I will let the others know." He stated firmly, "Enjoy yourself, Major."

"Thanks... I hope you will have a peaceful evening, too," She offered. Calmly, she spoke, "We will talk later today as well, Captain..." and, after receiving a simple hum from Shin as an answer, she flicked off the Para-RAID device. Her target today was the R&D wing. Entering R&D, she was met by Annette and Mathieu working on another bug, both of them seemingly focused on the issue at hand, with Matt leaning forward to see the problem on the girl's workstation.

He pointed toward the error line, then said "That one..."

"Huh... Color me impressed command missed this on the current OS. Must've caused several crashes on our computers that nobody else figured out until now... Including my own station," Annette remarked, cupping her chin. She nodded to Mathieu, then said "Good eye... As usual," before leaning forward and starting out the short process of replacing the faulty code with proper one. One test run later and the code worked. She hummed, then added the necessary notes and set it up for the future operating system updates.

"That's gonna knock out the Radars and our computer systems for another day..." Mathieu remarked, "Sis won't be happy. She was supposed to have her first patrol mission tomorrow."

"She'll have to undergo that test later, I guess," Annette shrugged. She leaned back and looked to see Lena in he doorway. The girl seemed somewhat surprised and it was understandable. Presumably, Mathieu had briefed the girl on what she'd said to him after he returned to continue helping her some days ago, so she figured that Annette would still be hesitant to work with the man.

Annette had learned pragmatism at a young age to survive her own guilt trips and other issues, so she found it pragmatic enough to keep Mathieu around as a helper. She wasn't sure if she'd call him 'friend' (again?) yet, but she was sure she at least trusted him to help her right some coding mistakes their IT department had made when setting up the Operating Systems for just about everything they used.

Offering Lena one of her usual smiles, her eyes peering at her from behind her glasses, she said "Hello, Lena."

"Hey, Annette... Mathieu..." She spoke with half a mouth. The ONI operative gave a nod to the woman, smiling too, before straightening up.

"Want me to pour some tea?" He asked Annette.

"I'll get the cream puffs out of the fridge," She stated, standing up from her seat, noting Lena's somewhat dumbfound expression once more. She stopped in front of the girl and asked, "Are you going to be heading to the party after all, by the way?" while outright ignoring the many questions that the girl seemed to have bubbling up inside her mind. She nodded weakly, to which the girl stated jovially, "Great. It means I can get your help with picking out a dress later today."

"... uh... Annette...?" She pointed toward Matt.

"We're cool for now. I'm still keeping my eye on him, however," She replied to many of her friend's unspoken questions with those two sentences, turning to the fridge. She then spoke, "Want him to make your tea as usual, Lena?" before poking her head into the fridge. She pulled back with a plate loaded with puffy pastries filled with custard. Lena gave an affirmative hum, still dumbfound at her friend and their ONI agent friend. Annette put the plate down on the table and retrieved three mugs. Her and Lena's usual and a black mug with a silver pyramid embedded in a circle of silver letters and Latin words for Mathieu.

"Ah, hey. That's where my mug went," He stated as the tea water inside the pot boiled.

"I cleaned it. You left it yesterday after that lightning round of OS updates," Annette remarked, setting it and the other cups down gently and bringing them over to Mathieu. She said to him, "Lena usually takes chamomile tea with milk and a cube of sugar. You already know how I like my tea and you can experiment some more with yours," to which the man gave her a mock salute.

"Aye, ma'am," He smirked.

After the tea was ready and they were all sat, Annette regarded Lena as she ate and drank with them, quiet as can be. She figured it'd surprise the good girl that Annette started getting along with Mathieu again, but she had to remind herself that this was still a foreign agent in their country. Both Annette and Lena looked to the man as he scarfed down two cream puffs in one go and chugged half his cup of mint tea before he noticed he was being watched. Annette shook her head, covering her mouth with her hand to conceal a grin while the man gave them an awkward smile.

As he started eating in a more... Gentlemanly... Manner, Annette snorted, then looked to Lena. The young Major stared at her friend with wide eyes, causing Tech Lieutenant Von Penrose to simply shrug at her friend, as if inquiring what was wrong. Lena let out a deep sigh, defeated, then resigned to eating the rest of her cream puffs and drinking her tea quietly.

Annette admitted to herself that she, too, was surprised by how quickly she had re-acclimatized to Matt. He'd barely been with them for a week when she'd gotten used to him the first time. That was broken by her asking questions and receiving answers she'd expected but somewhat didn't want in regards to Matt and his sister, Sam. Still, that she was talking to him again told her that, either the man was really good at his infiltration job, or she actually didn't see the fact that he was a foreigner as a problem.

Either answer didn't affect her judgement of the man any more than it should have. If he was good at his job, he was good at his job and there was nothing else to it, but if she actually didn't have issues with him being a foreigner, it meant that she had somehow outgrown a section of the propaganda programming driven into them from a young age, about how foreigners are inferior to the Republic...

Heh, inferior, her ass. They had god-only-knew how many Spooks working in San Magnolia and nobody was any wiser about it. Hell, from what Lena, Matt and Sam had told and shown her, the UNSC's assets had been deployed and actively reinforced the Eighty-Six in their combat operations beyond the wall. If anything, the presence of the UNSC made cracks in her view of San Magnolia as this impenetrable, incorruptible country that was perfect in every sense.

Lena had stood up and excused herself, departing after finishing her tea. The Tech Lieutenant and her First LT aide both started putting the dishes into the sink and turning back to work. The silence, however, was broken by Matt. He inquired, "Annette, apologies if this is too personal, but one more thing..." and, upon seeing her turn to him, he jabbed a thumb back toward the wall where all her ex-suitors were, "Who put up photos of your suitors like that?"

Annette snorted, "That'd be the rest of my team. We usually work night shift together when you're not around and they found it a funny idea."

"Ah..." He hummed, then chuckled, "Well, I guess if you wanna see the people you turned down... Though, I gotta admit, a disproportionate amount of them are either way older or way younger than you... And, uh..."

"Money makes men mad," She recited, "Or, in this case, old men and parents want to marry me because of my family's fortune. Being part of a family that's an acting defense contractor group owner is not easy."

"That makes sense, I guess," He shrugged.

"Okay..." Annette hummed, "Now, I have a question for you. Seeing as you mentioned Mathieu is not your real name... What is it?"

"Tsk, tsk. Still a bit early, Lieutenant," He replied smugly, sitting himself down at the table. She sighed dispassionately. Spooks were tough to get through to even in fiction books. IRL, they seemed even more concerningly hidden. He hummed, then smirked and said, "I guess I can say that it isn't exactly etymologically from... I'm going to say French and Belgian, like yours, the Major's or anyone else's, really."

"Oh?" She furrowed her brows.

"Yup... I'm originally from another planet, remember? I guess, to you, it'd be a San Magnolian name type, but to me it's French-Belgian," He offered.

"So what country would your name be from, then if you modified it to fit our own?" She asked.

"... If I remember the discussion I had with my parents properly, I think it's a combination of Romanian and Polish..." He hummed, then stated, "Probably one of the weirder ones you'd have found on Reach..." and his face grew grim. Annette noticed the sudden shift in expression and her heart suddenly sank a few levels, as if she knew that if she asked about it...

Fuck it. Info first. "Reach?"

"Home planet," He replied, his voice sour, his gaze growing a thousand yards as she looked at her, almost staring through her "Or... I guess, she was."

"... What happened?" She sat herself down in front of him. Mathieu was always the happy-go-lucky guy she'd first met, even after her little derision of his character and his mission some time ago. For him to change so suddenly just at the mention of his home world, a concept which still shook Annette to the core, something must've happened to it. The UNSC was the military arm of their government, she assumed. So...

He took a moment to ponder if he should speak of this, but he figured that if Annette and him were to build trust, he may as well. Plus, it'd pay for miss Henrietta von Penrose to understand what the UNSC was fighting for them to be so focused on saving every human they found. With a deep sigh, he relented to both himself and to Annette's question and answered with his own, "You know how we come from space, right? We have our own home-world, Earth, the birthplace and cradle of mankind for many tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years of life," He offered, leaning back into his seat.

"Yeah, sort of like how empires have the main country they spawned out of and the other states they conquered or assimilated," She nodded, then added "Just... On a much more massive scale."

"Mhm..." He nodded, "Reach. The planet Reach, second world from the sun in the Epsilon Eridani system, was one of humanity's first extrasolar colonies. We'd settled her way early in our period of FTL travel and exploration. Early members of my family were among some of the first to re-settle from Earth to it and build it up. Over the four hundred and some years of human exploration of space, Reach had become the military, industrial and technological center of Mankind, second only to Earth herself in terms of military and economic presence. It was also where I was born to a Romanian-Polish heritage, living among Hungarian colonist descendants."

"I presume all three of those things mentioned are what you'd call the citizens of those nations from Earth," Annette hummed, receiving an approving nod from Mathieu and the faintest smile behind the otherwise grim face he wore. She hummed, then asked, "So, what happened? Was it an insurrection, was it military conflict or something? Because every major empire has issues like that, even in its 'core'. Rebellions..."

The man snorted, "Yeah. We had Innies, the Insurrection, but they were mostly relegated to the Outer Colonies with few cells in the Inner Colonies. That's another tale that's not really relevant to what happened to Reach, honestly..." And he sighed. Rubbing his eyes, he spoke, "You know how every species hopes to some day visit the stars in search of intelligent life when they're young? Sort of like how your version of Mankind is younger than us and wants to go up there, probably, after the war with the Legion...?"

"Yes...?" She nodded, taking a moment to think this through. Why ask that?

He smiled sadly, "Well, as the old saying goes... Curiosity killed the cat..."

"What do you..." Annette started, then paused as she watched the man retrieve another holographic device. Setting it onto the table, he turned it on, revealing distorted images of what looked like a sea monster from the fairy tales one would hear from their parents. Four finds protruded from the maw of the strange, distorted vessel, its hull sleek, wide and bristling with what looked like dozens of needles that were, in fact, energy weapons, their tips burning a blinding white.

"This is a ship belonging to the enemy that caused us to be the way we are," He offered, "This is a CCS-class cruiser of the Covenant armada."

Before she could call bullshit, he pulled up orbital footage of a planet being attacked. Dozens of craft like this, not to mention many others, including more giant vessels that seemed to act as carriers hovered above the planet. Beams of incandescent light burned through the atmosphere, tearing asunder the surface below. A mix of views, one from the planet itself and the other from a space probe among a debris field showed the genocidal firepower of the enemy fleet.

The footage was real. Annette could tell from the first moment the playback started. The heat, the burning fire and the EMP effect that caused the static and white noise that rippled through the recording told of weapons several magnitudes of power above anything mankind or even the Legion could employ in battle. She watched for a solid five minutes as the playback of the drone footage showed the ships etching criss-crossing patterns of burning flame across the surface of the world.

"In 2525..." The man spoke, his voice hard, filled with spite, "Humanity made contact with the greatest enemy we've faced to date above the world of Harvest. The Covenant began a genocidal campaign here, on Harvest, where Colonial Military Administration vessels met this enemy in battle. A dozen ships like ours fought and engaged them... Only one cruiser, heavily damaged, survived and fled to warn our force of the impending enemy invasion. Since then, for about 27 long years... We witnessed this on every human world..."

"... Up to and including Reach..." Annette completed, her voice a fearful whisper as she grew paler than the white of her labcoat. She tugged at her collar as she felt something choking her as she regarded the footage like one would look upon the aftermath of a car accident. Boiling plasma burned the soil of the planet below while, in orbit, the burned husks of the UNSC Navy's battle ships hanged, melted by the enemy's advanced armaments.

"The greatest bastion of Mankind burned after a horrific fight that lasted mere hours," He stated, "My home, ash."

"... Mathieu, I'm... So sorry..." She looked at him, eyes filled with fear and regret. He sighed.

"Nah, I'm sorry... I... Probably shouldn't have spoken about this so openly, but..." He had realized he made a mistake. She was sure that the UNSC would have revealed to them the extent of what kind of war they were fighting that led to them becoming as they were. She decided, however, that instead of searching for anything to say, not to say anything. Placing a firm hand on his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze, the girl had said to him a lot without saying anything. He seemed to understand, however, giving her a smile as thanks before both turned back to work without another word.

Annette felt for the poor bastard... Losing your family hurt a lot...

But... Aliens...?

Lena was gonna lose it when she heard about this...

Spearhead FOB

While Matt had been having his little heart-to-heart with Annette, the Marines of the UNSC had been preparing. UNSC Assets had deployed planetside again, amounting up to several hundred more soldiers and more armored assets, as well as possible Air Support for the ground troops. Touched down near the main entrance to their Firebase, on landing pads made of concrete and steel, twin-engine VTOL-capable small-craft mounting twin MGs and missile pods sat. Their pilots checked avionics and thrust for all of them.

About a dozen of the UNSC's AV-14 'Hornet' VTOL craft had been brought down for air support. While well aware of the Eintagsfliege's usual attempts to fly into the engine cowlings of aircraft, the UNSC cared little for such details when it meant providing their allies a means of support from up above. They considered the Hornets flew low enough as to avoid detection by the enemy's 'bug swarms' as they'd been so affectionately called.

Shin watched a Hornet performing a swing-by landing on one of the pads, veering a hard right and powering its two vectored-thrust engines to the maximum as it spun about, turning a full one-eighty degrees and gently touching down on the skid it had at the front. The engineers and mechanics on the landing pad gave thumbs up to the Marine pilot, then watched as he got out of his craft and gave the bird a single bump of the fist.

"Enjoying the airshow, Captain?"

Shin looked up to see the Lieutenant of the UNSC Engineers approaching, a mug of standard-issue military coffee in one hand. He was clad in only the camouflage fatigues that usually sat below the heavy armor any and every Marine wore, so he was probably out on a break right now, much like the rest of his unit. Shin nodded to him, watching as the pilots spun up the guns on one of the Hornets. He spoke, "The Legion's still going to focus their swarms onto the aircraft. Their exposed air intakes won't help."

"It's titanium blades, kid," The man replied, "It's gonna take more than a few bugs being mulched to stop a Hornet's engines from spooling up."

"Hmm," Shin sighed, "Very well."

"Plus... Pilots said they're keeping them in for low flight operations, meaning real CLOSE Air support. You'll see them skimming the trees and firing Gatling guns and rockets into the Legion's ass if you're lucky."

Shin appreciated the reassurance, for what little it did to his own mental state. He'd seen videos from early in the war, where aircraft would get knocked out of the sky by enemy CIWS, or their engines would get destroyed by those 'few bugs' being 'mulched. The Lieutenant added, "Not to mention, they'll be serving as spotters for the artillery command sent planetside."

Pointing to the front of the motor-pool, the Lieutenant showed the Captain the half a dozen combat-ready dark-green Rhino plasma artillery tanks. Currently being looked over one last time by the UNSC's engineer corps and Lev, who wanted to learn a bit more about the equipment of their allies and was currently ripping his own hair out at the sight of these new vehicles, the Rhinos fired a focused ball of plasma that would explode upon contact, effectively melting the armor of any Legion close enough to be hit by it while a secondary electro-magnetic pulse would hopefully fry anything else that was close by to the impact area.

Legion were not EMP-hardened, if Shin recalled the briefing correctly. Still, with the voices of the newest Shepherd of the Legion, as well as his Black Sheep, the captain could do little else but worry that the enemy would know what and when to hit. Still, if what had happened across the board was mere testing of the UNSC and Eighty-Six's response speed or a test of their equipment and willingness to fight, Shin felt concerned for their allies.

They didn't know the Legion like he did. One mistake would give them another boost to their processing power.

He would speak to the Major and Admiral later tonight. He'd been postponing it for too damn long at this point. They all needed to know about the Legion and what it did with the people it killed or managed to capture. It was no longer an option to keep quiet about it. Looking to the Lieutenant, Shin said, "Counter-battery artillery could be useful. Do your men know how to operate it?"

"It's fairly intuitive, but we're not the ones running it, remember? We're the ones making sure they run for our boys to use'em in battle."

"Right..." Shin nodded. He stood up, then said, "I'll be inside..." before departing.

Entering Spearhead's section of the base, he found more engineers working on it. They widened the hallways, reinforced the walls and windows and in general were working to provide improvements to the livable area of Spearhead's FOB. Sat in one of the hallways, supervising the chances, Daiya was nursing a cup of genuine coffee, while Anju was working on decorations.

The young man noticed his captain and lifted his mug in a cheer/greeting to Shin, then said, "Yo, Shin."

"Daiya, Anju..." He nodded, "How're the upgrades coming along?"

"The underground tunnels linking the FOBs together into one are already done. Quick-drying concrete and everything's in place and they're pretty wide. We also got an underground fallout bunker, as they called it," Daiya reported, grinning. He took a sip of coffee, then continued, "The rest of the base's getting a general rework and reinforcement, since they saw the place was pretty run-down."

"We also just received another letter," Anju reported, poking her head out from behind a corner where she was helping the Marines set up decorations. She pulled it out of her uniform's breast pocket and extended it to Shin, stating, "It's from Sledge Hammer squadron, up North. First Ward's defenders and an apparent similar unit to our own. Its commander, Black Bird, has just returned from treatment aboard the UNSC Serene Mind."

"Thank you, Anju," Shin nodded, taking the letter and sliding it into his pocket. He then asked, "What about you two? How are you doing?"

Anju smiled, "Just fine, Shin. It's nice to know this place won't fold in after a single shell from a Legion artillery piece..."

"They're also lining the place full of wires and new electrical units are being installed to replace the old fuse boxes," Daiya added, tilting his head to an open metallic box containing several breakers and a central lever for cutting power. Several wires protruded from its top and bottom, insulated with ribbed rubber tubes and poking into what looked to be quick-drying plaster that was placed upon the concrete walls to give the place a more 'homely' feeling. The wall itself still lacked paint and looked dreary and grey, but it'd be... Nice... Once it was done.

"We're trying to be as non-intrusive as possible, captain," Reported one of the SeaBees as he approached, a bucket of paint in his hand as he passed by.

"Understood," Shin nodded. He looked to Daiya and asked, "Where are Lecca and Haruto?"

"Dealing with something in the tunnels, so they said," The boy replied, shrugging, while wearing a seemingly knowing grin. Anju chuckled at his antics, while Shin noted to himself he shouldn't visit the tunnels just yet. Nodding to the two, he took to the hallways once more. He passed by a medical room of some kind, clearly made by converting one of their base's operational storage rooms. It was set up with a multitude of what the UNSC called 'Sterile Room Kits', lamps that would sterilize the environment and ensure no infections, no matter how strong, would harm the patients inside.

Currently, it was occupied by a few kids from another of the camps. One of them, a youngster, waved at Shin, to which he waved back. Turning back to his commute, the young man was met by more patrolling Marines which stepped aside and gave him salutes, surprisingly enough. He'd heard that some of his squad had been telling tall tales about him to the UNSC. As long as it was harmless banter, he was willing to let it be.

He gave a quick salute back, feeling uneasy as he did so, before moving past the two Marines that had moved aside to let him pass. They were carrying Battle Rifles, their safeties on and they were smiling at him as he passed. Once more, after Shin had gone past the two Marines in the corridor began their patrol again, evidenced by the sound of marching boots.

He entered the Rec Room, finding Theo, Mary and Raiden inside, with the lattermost sitting there and looking through a computer that the UNSC had brought down for them to use. Mary and Theo were playing darts, meanwhile, on the newly-repaired board. Raiden looked to Shin, nodded to him and said, "Morning, Shin. Came for a visit or has something happened with the Legion?"

"Good morning, Raiden... I'm just doing the rounds..." Shin hummed, then took to Raiden's side and looked at what the man was doing. He raised a brow, then asked, "What are you doing exactly?"

"Playing something called 'Solitaire'..." The man replied as he worked on arranging a series of poker cards in rows and columns. He winced as he seemingly made a mistake, then said, "It's not so easy... And honestly, this thing's meant for reports for the Higher-Ups. It's a direct terminal to the UNSC fleet up above and also a communication system for when we need it... I think the UNSC's gonna make some sort of chatroom for all Squadrons to talk in once every base receives one of these and we get an intranet of some kind."

"The amount of shitposting that is gonna be happening on the chatrooms is gonna be legendary, I can feel it," Mary quipped, grinning as she tossed one of the darts and hit off to the right, but close to the center. Sighing, she said, "Your turn, Theo," before walking back to the couch and sitting herself down, a smile on her face. Mary had gotten eerily comfortable with the lot of them, more so than a lot of the UNSC personnel.

"'Shitposting'?" Shin and Raiden asked, dumbfound. The girl nodded, watching as Theo aimed and threw, then smirked.

"Yup. A term coined somewhere around the early years of the twenty-first century back home. It refers to certain items, images and the likes being sent to either cause laughter or derail general threads. We did it all the time while we were using the fleetwide low-priority Com-Net. ODSTs were generally the biggest bunch of shitposters, ironically enough..." She laughed.

"Huh..." Shin and Raiden hummed.

"I think our worst offender on that front will be Haruto," Theo added, approaching the board and removing the darts.

Raiden snorted, "I agree."

Shin sighed. Of course.

Raiden closed the game, stood up and said, "So, do we have anything to do today?" to which Shin shook his head. Truthfully, the UNSC had been doing much of everything that was needing to be done. Food, renovations and rearmament, as well as the deployment of air and extra ground assets. The only thing that was left was for them to learn what had driven the UNSC to develop so much armament and, frankly, Shin felt like that was going to be answered later today.

He nodded to Raiden, then stepped off, bidding a quick goodbye to both Theo and Mary before exiting and heading right for his room. They were being entrenched in the FOB, which he wasn't sure if he should see as a good or bad thing. It felt good to know that they had defenses in case the Legion decided to sneak up on them(which would be impossible, considering Shin's preternatural ability to hear them), but they had yet to tell them of the Long-Range Reconnaissance Mission they were going to be sent on.

Shinei Nouzen sighed, thinking for the first time that he was genuinely going to waste the time of some seemingly nice people that had come down and promised and brought actual help in the form of new armament, troops and even counters to the Legion's own weaponry. He stared out the window, watching as one of their Juggernauts, Myna's, going by the emblem, was racing a Warthog around the base.

He wondered how quickly their new allies would actually repeat the feat that Shiden keeps saying they'd done. They were treating the wounded and sick of their people and as far as he knew, hundreds had already been evacuated from camps near by the FOBs. He wondered just how long until they'd wind up face-to-face with the Alba Military Police in actually populated camps that weren't just villages so easily abandoned. How would they interact with the people that had so easily discarded the Eighty-Six beyond the safety of their walls, into camps and into warzones to die by the thousands until only so few of them were left?

What would they do to them? Would they actually go about beating them half to death because of a bunch of kids they barely knew and had just joined in the defense of a homeland that abandoned them? Would they talk them into letting those still in the camps go with them? Shin felt like he had enough questions to fill out a five-page interview for them.

Still...

They'd helped them in several ways. Shin knew that. He knew it very well, but something inside him didn't let him trust even these newcomers that came to them with open arms and promises of safety so easily. His mind raced, so focused on finding his own answers for these questions, the whys and hows and whens of these people's arrival and their timely aid after...

He sighed deeply.

What had even driven an entire fleet of theirs here?

He wanted answers and wasn't sure if he was going to get them quick enough to be at ease with what was going on. He watched the race between the Warthog and the Juggernaut as he picked out a book, his attention split enough that he couldn't hear the screams of the Legion. Myna was gaining on the Warthog, but that thing had four-wheel drive and moved blazingly fast for being an armored hunk of titanium. The two, however, seemed to be laughing, if the faint chatter he could hear on the Para-RAID was anything.

It seemed there were also people, betting...

Shin began to read. Not his damn problem...