0332 Hours, March 29, 2535 (Military Calendar) /
Delphi Noctem System, Big River Valley, Planet Daedalus
Camp Green River
Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey hummed absentmindedly as she warmed up the various machines and computers strewn throughout her makeshift lab. The area was tighter than what she was used to – it was certainly nowhere near as spacious or advanced as her personal lab back at CASTLE Base – but given the circumstances it was the best that could be done.
Camp Green River had once been a CMA base, situated in a shallow valley between lush rolling hills in the southern hemisphere. It was built in a strategically brilliant foothold – it was difficult to access except by air and the hills masked the base's presence to anything but satellite observation. However, due to a lack of Insurrectionist activity in the system, resources had been slowly stripped away as other systems became more vital to the war effort. Camp Green River was all but abandoned and forgotten by 2519.
It was for that very reason that Doctor Halsey chose Camp Green River as the base of operations for Blue Team's insertion on Daedalus. It was out of the way, difficult to locate, and empty. She and Blue Team could operate freely without the risk of revealing anymore about the SPARTAN program to the public.
She looked impatiently at the clock hanging over the door and drummed her fingers on her desktop. Whoever designed this lab must have had an awful sense of humor – the slow ticking of that ancient analogue clock was about to drive her insane. Blue Team had warned her that they would be arriving in a few moments with something they seemed to think she would be very interested in, and of all the adjectives that could be applied to Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, "patient" was not among them.
A beep sounded behind her, indicating that the most important machine in her lab was finally ready. She quickly rolled her chair to the machine and began pressing a series of buttons, almost frantically working the machine over. Just as the window overlooking the camp's parade grounds began to rattle with the arrival of Blue Team's dropship, the device chirped again to announce the completion of her most recent project.
The doctor removed the glass receptacle and poured some of its contents into a Styrofoam cup, humming contentedly as she took her first sip.
It wasn't often she had access to warm coffee these days.
She lowered the cup from her face, noticing with some irritation that the steaming contents had fogged her glasses, and stared at the clock. She subconsciously counted the seconds ticking away until Blue Team stomped their way into her lab. There was a part of her that wanted to meet them at the door and start examining whatever it was that John had so cryptically alluded to in his earlier transmission, but she tamped down on that urge. They would arrive soon, and it wouldn't do her any good to meet them there only to return to where she started.
It took her Spartans less than two minutes to report to her lab, filing in and quickly standing at attention.
"Mission accomplished, ma'am," John said. There was some hesitation in his voice – though the Spartans had always given her a certain amount of deference, it was a new experience for them to be reporting directly to a civilian scientist. She was not so egotistical as to not realize the discomfort the young soldier must be feeling as a result of that change in status quo.
However, nothing about this particular mission had been particularly status quo. The Covenant first arrived in-system nearly two weeks ago, though their original insertion amounted to nothing more than a quick fly-by scan of the planet and a jump back out. By the time they returned with a larger fleet, the UNSC had mustered a battlegroup large enough to make their next insertion a bloody mess.
Eventually, small troop deployments made their way to the planet's surface. Rather than systematically eliminating military ground targets, however, these landing parties were instead directed to some sort of excavation operation.
UNSC officials had no idea what the Covenant were after, but it was clear that if they succeeded in retrieving whatever it was, the people of Daedalus were as good as dead.
And so Doctor Halsey was sent. She hand-picked the Spartans she wanted to accompany her, and she picked this facility as their base of operations. She then began coordinating Blue Team's strategic strikes against the several excavation sites throughout the region. They were all still getting used to accepting her as their official superior for this mission.
"Good work," she said with a nod, keeping her voice measured and calm. In spite of whatever special relationship she had with the Spartans, she would need to play the part of superior officer to a T if they were going to follow her without hesitation. She gestured to a device near her desk. "Begin uploading your mission recordings immediately, and bring me your discovery."
John nodded smartly then turned to face his team. From the corner of her eye, Halsey watched as the Spartans carried out an entire conversation through almost imperceptible movements. Each of them removed their helmet and began attaching them to the device that would begin downloading and analyzing the recordings from their incursion into the facility.
"Ma'am," John said, passing his helmet off to Linda. He stood awkwardly beside Halsey's desk while the rest of his team busied themselves with their task. He looked uncomfortable like she hadn't seen him for a long time.
"Yes?" she asked, intentionally sounding absentminded. If she paid any sort of special attention to him, he was likely to try to shut everything out once again. After so many years spent away from her Spartans, she needed to walk a tightrope just to hold onto the modicum of authority she still retained over them. She made a show of scanning through some files while she waited for him to speak.
John subconsciously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, staring at his team. "We found some strange things back there, Doctor. The entire facility wiped itself out, and the only motive we could find was that thing." There was something strange in his voice – a mixture of curiosity and nervousness.
Halsey followed his gaze to his team, her curiosity piqued. Linda and Will were both occupied with downloading the footage from their helmets, Kelly was pulling her ponytail from its prison within her matte black undersuit, and Fred was animatedly telling a story, gesturing with both hands. In one hand, he held tightly to a slab of rock.
"That?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder. "Why on earth would the Covenant kill each other over a pebble?"
John's shoulders rose and dropped in what passed for a shrug when one was clad in MJOLNIR armor. "I couldn't begin to guess, ma'am. That's your department." His voice returned to normal, mostly, but he kept his eye on the stone. "But there's something else. Something set that reactor to overload, and it definitely wasn't us. I'd be willing to bet there's a survivor out there somewhere that could give us a better idea of just what it is we're dealing with."
Halsey nodded, biting the corner of her lip as she thought. "That could be. For now, though, I'd like you to join your team and for all of you to remove your armor. If it underwent the kind of radiation levels that you reported, I want the chance to give it a once-over."
John stiffened to attention and snapped a smart salute before conveying her order to the team. He then turned on his heel and marched through the door, followed closely by Linda and Will.
"Fred," Halsey said, turning to her computer and starting to compile Blue Team's footage while the Spartans filed past her, "leave that stone here on my desk."
It took her a moment to realize that Fred did not acknowledge her order. Instead, he remained stock-still in her peripheral, standing motionless and silent. The doctor turned in her chair to find that he wasn't even looking at her – he was staring at the stone with furrowed brow and uncertain eyes.
"Is something wrong?" she probed, drawing Kelly's attention to her teammate. They both stared in silence for a moment until Kelly reached out and bumped Fred's elbow with her hand.
"What's the matter, get attached to your new pet?" she asked teasingly.
Fred shook his head, and the dark look in his eyes dissipated. He shot a small smile in Kelly's direction before turning to Halsey. "Sorry ma'am, I got caught up in wondering whether this thing would be a good paperweight or not. But I'd guess it's too flakey – it would make a mess of all your files." He gently placed the rock on the desk as he spoke.
Halsey hummed some sort of vague response which the Spartans seemed to take as the invitation for their leave, filing silently past her. The moment they left the lab, she tapped a key on her computer that brought up the feed from the security cameras outside the office.
Fred and Kelly had stopped far enough down the hall to be out of earshot and were facing each other.
"You good?" she heard Kelly ask, the young woman's hands subconsciously spreading out horizontally at waist-level in the Spartan hand signal for a question. "You seemed pretty distracted by that thing."
"I'm fine, Rabbit," Fred responded. Despite the fact that his face was turned away from the camera, Halsey could hear the cocky smirk in his voice as he added, "What's the matter? Are you jealous that I wasn't focusing more on you?"
Kelly's mouth dropped open and she crossed her arms over her chest defensively. She sputtered for a few seconds before finally slamming her helmet over her head and quickly stomping away after the rest of her team. She angrily called over her shoulder, "That is not what I meant!"
The security system's microphones barely caught Fred's quiet chuckle as he followed her.
Doctor Halsey deactivated the security cameras and hummed thoughtfully, tapping one finger against her chin.
Catherine Elizabeth Halsey prided herself in the fact that she was not a woman easily surprised. She had seen and done more over the course of her life than most could truthfully claim. But what had just happened – John's discomfort surrounding the stone, Fred's strange behavior, Kelly acting so flustered . . .
She leaned back in her chair and noted with some interest that she was bracing the stone in her lap, having absentmindedly taken it from the surface of the desk. It was surprisingly light for its size and shape, but she was beginning to think that would be far from the most intriguing fact about it.
She downed the remainder of her coffee. She had work to do.