Chapter 9: An Exercise in Humility
Author's Note:
This one took quite a while to put out, sorry about that everyone. Unfortunately, midterms wait for no fanfiction. Hopefully today's update will make up for that! Enjoy!
"...The Office of Naval Intelligence will be holding a further press conference at 12:30 Earth Standard Time, I will be taking no further questions." The room exploded, papers, tablets, and people leaping to their seats, all of them screaming questions about military maneuvers way above their pay grade. The Chancellery had paid good money to streaming services across human space to prioritize this conference, HeadSpace had a banner on its front page marking the announcement, media channels were live streaming Durazo's press release like it was the Second Coming of Christ. There was some benefit to ruling a former police state, she supposed. Low prices on air time.
Patricia was glad her marine escort was with her, bulky soldiers with guns tended to spook all but the most desperate reporters, which meant that only three or four tried to pull the old 'interview while walking' routine. The Barrow Star's reporter, a woman with a future in football judging by her ability to dodge her escort, got the closest.
"Chancellor Durazo! Can you comment on the fact that enemy troop numbers greatly exceeded stationed garrisons!"
The Chancellor stopped when she heard that. Troop numbers hadn't been released to the press. "What's your name?" The Chancellor asked, letting the commotion of reporters sweep around her. The reporter handed her a folded paper, before disappearing into the crowd. As her procession began to march through the waves of cameras and questions, she opened the card, finding two golden energy swords crossed behind a Sangheili skull.
She muttered a choice word, before calling Amorey from her neural lace. "Schedule a quantum link with Barrow's Sangheili Embassy, the Arbiter wants to chat."
Barrow was a beautiful planet, one of the few colonies spared the onslaught of the Great War, and as a result one of the most populated planets in human space. Patricia had enjoyed almost 59% of the vote from Barrow during election year, being that the planet was a bastion of xenophiles and forward thinkers. Logically, it was the best place to put an important Sangheili embassy. Or several, she supposed. Although the Sovereign State of the Swords of Sanghelios (you almost miss the Prophets with names like that) was far and away the most powerful Sangheili empire, various small-frys had popped out of the State following Thel 'Vadam's death nearly two decades before. Sure, ostensibly they were still 'Protectorates of the State,' but in reality the Swords of Sanghelios could scarcely secure their own borders, much less impose their will on a bunch of lowly rascals calling themselves "Republics" and the like.
Still, it was best not to talk about the 'Satellites' around the Swords, and doubly so around the Arbiter. Ah, right. She pondered the pure scale of the distance between the two Heads of State. Earth was "only" 11 light years from the Procyon System, sure. But Barrow was merely a waystation for her message. Sanghelios? Nearly a kiloparsec. The Arbiter was about 3000 lightyears away, and she'd be talking to him in real time. It'd take an average ship the better part of a week to travel that. Sometimes she regretted not getting her engineering degree. This was one of those times.
"Chancellor, we're receiving on this end, do you accept the call?" A technician asked nonchalantly, as if this space magic wasn't insane.
"I do. Thank you Pašić, you're free to go."
The screen flashed to life unceremoniously, and she was face-to-face with the Arbiter. Him. Jul 'Darim struck an imposing figure on a screen. Most Sangheili did, to be fair; though most Sangheili didn't wear suits of silver armor on conference calls either. 'Darim spread his mandibles wide in what amounted to a Sangheili greeting.
"Madam Chancellor, it is a blessing to have your beauty grace my screen once again."
The Chancellor suppressed a rolling of the eyes, "You know you could just go through the normal diplomatic channels for something like this 'Darim."
The Sangheili loosed a chuckle. "You and I both know it is not as fun that way, and from what I can glean from human news, you could use a bit of entertainment."
Patricia sighed. "Is there a reason we're talking Jul, or are you just trying to annoy me?"
The Arbiter pulled back in mock surprise, "I suppose Shanxi truly has gotten to you, Chancellor. Very well, we shall cut the small talk. We have advanced reconnaissance from Shanxi."
Patricia said nothing, hiding her curiosity with an expression of bored impassion, "Thank you Arbiter, could you add it to the pile so I can be on my way?"
"I thought we agreed to cut the crap Durazo? Despite the fleet's state of disrepair, we both know our sensors are still superior to yours, as are our stealth frigates."
"So you're admitting to violating human space again?"
A smile (a macabre display to human sensibilities) graced 'Darim's face, "I only figured you could use all the help you could get Madam, is that not true?" The Sangheili inhaled deeply, before releasing a great sigh. "I suppose this is itself entertainment for you?"
Patricia let her own smirk show. "You know the answer to that already I imagine. I will admit, I would be willing to bargain for such information."
"Don't worry Durazo, the information is free." 'Darim's voice dropped it's joviality, "I'm afraid your relief force won't be enough."
Patricia's eyes narrowed. "Setting aside for the moment how you have details on troop movements, based on what evidence?"
"Based purely on ship numbers I'm afraid. You can take a look for yourself." A Sangheili report (Top Secret if she remembered her Sanghese script correctly) appeared on the screen, along with a series of long range radiographic scans that appeared to be a star system. Enemy ship movements… Christ. It seems Admiral Hsu's Theory was right, the Fork really was a transport system. "As you can probably see, the 200 ships of your garrison detachment will be facing up to 350 enemy crafts, and that's the low estimate."
"I'm grateful for this information, Arbiter, but I wonder why you'd even give it to me?"
"Is the spirit of cooperation not enough?" He chuckled at his joke, "If those aliens dared attack your colonies, why not ours? Though I suppose that is beside my point Chancellor, I've contacted you to offer our military's services."
Surprise drenched her face, "Arbiter? I…"
'Darim held up a hand, "Hold your protests Patricia, and let me finish. Your people have given ours a great deal, helped us find a place in this galaxy after we learned of our betrayal, helped us turn swords into ploughs, if that's how your idiom goes. Helped us deal with our own strife," Patricia hid her wince at those words, "to the best of your ability. Sanghelios is in your debt, and it is now that we will begin to repay it."
Existing in the realm of data was a difficult prospect to explain. Humans always asked the question; a jarhead in 3rd Recon used to fit it into almost every conversation they had. "So, is it like a series of tubes?" Sometimes he'd say it with a straight face, in a lull of conversation, or interject it into one of his operational readiness reports before busting up. She really liked... what's his name? Always said, 'call me Indiana, the dog not the ERROR$)$.' The first few times she tried to explain what her mother taught her, the old rivers and streams metaphor for 'surfing the web' as a digital sophont. But that damn jarhead always asked, "but what's it really like?" and she'd just sigh and ignore him for a bit.
If she was honest, dataspace really was like swimming in water (at least as she understood swimming) murky, yet almost weightless, easily swept up in the currents of the data sphere. Right now, that current was a rapid, trying to rake her over the riverbed and slam her into cliffs. Such were the trials of infiltrating alien 'dreadnoughts.' A cute name for a 1 kilometer vessel.
Another hastily built logic virus latched onto her, and she disarmed it casually, navigating the ever more securitied ship systems. Honestly, this electronic assault wasn't so bad in context. In training… hell in the security sims there was a tougher fight. Another logic virus, another clean dispersal, you'd think they were trying to bore her to death. She set up several hundred decoys, and jumped currents, heading back to her ultimate target, the FTL engines.
Unlike most of their other systems, (including their main weapons, as she'd learned to her utter delight) these ones were protected with difficult firewalls, and as a result she was going to need some time to beat them. Chasing dumb copies of herself running amock would surely buy her some time to do just that. It was a short, stealthy journey there, dodging the increasingly clumsy scans of their "automated intelligences" as she'd taken to calling them, and abusing a relatively well hidden chink in their armor to access… more firewalls. At least these ones had fun names: Eezo Core Access, Hyper-array Charging, Static Discharge Array, lots of buttons that shouldn't be pressed. It made the inner rabble-rouser blush with possibilities.
She recognized eezo as one of the important things that powered their FTL, and decided to try and access that. Bing bang boom… oh? Her initial approach only seemed to increase security… Shit.
A quick 'dodge' saved her from a monstrous little virus. This was no logic plague, more a Ddos on steroids. If they'd hit her with it she'd have been out of commission for too long. But it wouldn't have disabled her. Really, the stun it would have imparted might have kept her occupied only a few seconds… what would the point of that be? Ah, a query virus. She slipped out of the room just as the network she'd infiltrated became a closed loop. These bastards were getting smart. She left a dummy copy behind to fool them for a time, while she worked on a new plan.
She took a look at the scanning data the Reticent was picking up, and did her own look over. Even if the Turians couldn't see it, the remnants of the defense fleet were beginning to show up on scans, at least in the radiographic ones. Small distortions in background radiation might be ignored by a species that didn't know about slipspace engines, but to her the fleet was a burning star, the gas giant they had taken shelter in could do little to hide the hawking radiation signatures. This little check-in was routine, and she was ready to stop scrutinizing her readout when she caught it herself. In section 14 subsection 1A4, was that a cloaking signature?
The warmth of the bed was intoxicating, but she shrugged it off anyway. There was no time to waste, indeed, there was rarely any time to sleep. Kile had left a glass of Nasur on her bedside, and she gulped it down eagerly, the biting sweet barely noticed by a mind already in overdrive. On her other hand she activated her omni-tool, and scrolled purposefully through the news feeds and her own intelligence reports simultaneously, eyes darting this way and that over 'urgent' reports and fascinating rumor. Even with a full time staff of feed editors, garbage still filtered in regularly, sometimes at her request. The plot synopsis for the latest episode her favorite serial was always included somewhere in the list, even Councilors had their guilty pleasures after all. Laiel has his liquors, Tevos has her maidens, and she has her Broodmothers on Gilinox V. And her Nasur, which was less well known. Can't have Sur'kesh know about the child's drink she's addicted to. That might be scandalous.
Kile came in with her breakfast right as she was getting to the more consequential business in her daily report. Batarian redeployment of their 1st and 4th fleet to the Terminus, might mean some unregulated expansion the STG would need to deal with, troublesome, but ultimately unconcerning; DurzTech was being acquired by Elkoss Combine, another change to the supply fleet means another headache for Logististics, will try to throw some weight around, stop the acquisition; Another Turian fleet rerouting to Attican Traverse, region approximating 314, what are those bastards doing? Contacts in the Border and Patrol Complex had been silent, either they'd been kept in the dark on purpose or… what?
She called her STG contact. The line only rang once.
"This is Liaison Jiry, to what do I owe the pleasure Counselor?"
"Jiry, can you update me on the status of our deep cover Frigate assigned to the Batarian Raids?"
The agent was typing before she'd finished her sentence, "Which callsigns Councilor?"
"Wandering Eye."
"Last comms were about two weeks ago, typical for this particular type of mission."
"I suppose, do we have whereabouts for the 172nd Patrol? Or the 175th for that matter? To my eye they've both dropped out off the face of the galaxy."
"Do you think they were destroyed?" It was a casual question, further belied by the efficient typing of the Salarian agent.
"No… but I do find it suspicious that we haven't learned of their status officially, particularly in the face of seeming Turian indifference."
The Agent's eyes brightened, "You think they're hiding something? Shall I liason with our handlers at BPC?"
"Don't bother, they don't have any applicable information. Talk with Deep State, and keep me posted, I have a meeting to make." The feed was cut, and she was already slipping into the shawl fitting a Dalatrass of her rank. The suit was on in moments, though she noticed a growing pain in her shoulder as she donned her hood. Such are the pains of duty, She mused, before continuing down her list of info.
The Private Council Chambers were only a (relatively) short lift from her Suite, which gave her plenty of time to digest what remained of her mountain of reports. She'd come up with a strategy for nudging her colleagues into an anti-merger stance, and perhaps she'd bring up the 314 shenanigans to Sparatus in a roundabout way, as a treat. No need to spring this on a Junior Councilor just yet, it would be quite rude. The Salarian didn't seem to spare a thought to the awesome view from the Citadel Elevator's windows, or even to the uncomfortable glances given by the various aids in the elevator with her. An Asari tried to keep her eyes on everything except the Dalatrass, a pair of Turians seemed to squeeze themselves into the far corner. Of course, the Dalatrass was still cognizant of the awkward silence, she just didn't care. If anything, it was amusing to the old woman, who began to hum a quiet jingle as she read.
When the elevator finally opened to her floor, she walked out leisurely, enjoying the warm aromas of the citadel garden, and the bustle of activity. Of course, not with her eyes, which were still busy looking over details on a Hanar colonisation effort being proposed in contested space. Before she knew it, the Councilor had made her way to the Private Chambers, passing by the stationed Turian guards as if they were statues at attention. She came upon an empty room, upholstered well enough she supposed (it was nothing like her summer home on Sur'kesh). She poured herself a glass of water, and sat in her designated chair, staring intently at her screen. If she was right (and she rarely wasn't) Tevos would be here right about-
The door gracefully slid open, and the Asari mirrored it's grace, nodding respectfully to her tailing bodyguard, before entering alone.
"Early as always Olene?" Tevos cracked, as she made her way to the wine cabinet.
"I've not so much time to waste as you Tevos, nor as much liver." Olene didn't know eye rolling could be so loud. "In other news, the Batarians are up to something in the Terminus again."
Tevos was pouring something impressively old into her glass. "And I'm sure the STG will handle it, as they always do." She raised the bottle, a Thessian 2099, to her colleague. Olene didn't even glance before wiggling her horns to the negative. The Asari sighed, "Besides, we already went over this yesterday, did we not?"
"True, though we are about 85% certain that it contains elements of both their 1st and 4th fleets."
"Ah, perhaps they're what's causing the hold up in 314?"
"Curious, but unlikely that Turian forces would engage in conflict without even alerting us."
Tevos only smiled at that, before taking her own seat. The Salarian Councilor finally looked up from her slate. "It seems Sparatus is a bit late today, does it not?"
"Later than usual, yes, he doesn't like missing a good vintage."
The door struggled to open before the Turian Councilor stormed in. Tevos smiled tightly, "Speak of the thresher. Sparatus, how nice of you to join us!" She aimed her voice an octave too high, trying to irritate the hangover that was his usual cause for tardiness. However, instead of the normal signs of post-drunken recovery on a Turian: loose phalanges, slightly lagging step, grey eyes, the man simply looked tired. Exhausted was perhaps a better fit.
"Room, activate information security protocols." Was his reply. The room quickly followed his orders: the luxurious view of the Citadel was closed off, and the air took on an almost static quality as sound dampeners and frequency jammers took effect.
He gathered himself, "I'm afraid I have some bad news."
"Spirits! Spirits damn them all!" The air grew considerably more still as the Litrinox smashed tablets, and scratched deep rivets into the sound-dampeners in the wall. Somehow, despite literally blasting a hole into the center of their presumed comms hub, their electronic attacks was only growing in strength. Civilian internment camps were only getting rowdier, and and the last pockets of resistance were hidden either in underground bunkers that had to be painstakingly cleared, or in the countryside biding their time. Why were they still fighting? Their city in rubble, their fleet in hiding, their armies dead and scattered!?
"WHY!" the Admiral roared, anger coating his every action.
One officer, an infosec leader he supposed, spoke up. "W-we think they were able to escape the trap sir, and set a decoy to keep us thinking we'd succeeded in capturing…" he trailed off.
"Let me ask all of you this, just so I can be clear. We are hunting a direct control electronic warfare package that is somehow able to anticipate when we are going to attempt to trick it, and navigated itself through our firewall while we were blasting every jamming signal and interdiction array we had -practically irradiating ourselves in the process might I add- and it did all of this, with no time lag, in less than a millisecond! A FUCKING MILLISECOND!" The Admiral looked like he was about to collapse.
"Correct me if I happen to be wrong, officers, but I know of not a single comms device that could be both invisible to surface scans, powerful enough to reach this high, and also, ah, FASTER THAN LIGHT!" The room looked down, a mixture of shame and fear keeping their heads low. "So, does anyone have any idea how these savage primitives have managed to break every known principle of physics, or should I have all of you arrested for incompetence?"
"Sir." One of the officers stood, though her eyes didn't meet the raging fury of her superior's. "I think we may be dealing with an AI."
A ripple of protests bounced across the cluttered room, some of disbelief, others of pure incredulity. "They are primitives!?" "Impossible!?" "Are you out of your mind!?"
The Admiral, however, was less skeptical. "Quiet! Officer, explain your rationale."
"Well, if all other methods are impossible, what is left but the improbable?"
The Admiral pondered that for a moment. "And what would you recommend we do, if this were the case?"
"Geth protocol states we should evacuate personnel and prepare for a system wipe in the case of an infiltration we can't repel, which-"
"Which is infeasible when you're the flagship." Litrinox finished. The man sighed, in recent weeks he'd gotten quite good at that. "Spirits… keep me posted on this, and adjust your methods to account for possible artificial intelligences. Increase network lock downs while you're at it, restrict its movement as much as possible. I will be on the bridge." With that, he left the room.
It was a quiet walk to the command deck. And not simply because of the tense atmosphere surrounding the Admiral. All over the ship, subroutines and programs had been shut off, trapped, or otherwise disabled. That left lights intermittently on, ventilation systems barely running, and the corridors practically silent, as crew members avoided these areas like the plague. The worst place to be in a starship is the place without power, and now that 60% of the Reticent was shut down, that was pretty much everywhere but work areas and bunks. When the Admiral finally reached the bridge, it was equally silent.
"Status report." Litrinox asked. His voice was taught, and cracked through the air like a whip.
Comms spoke up, "Sir, another hit and run strike was attempted by the Primie remnant, we sustained no casualties, however they didn't either."
"Did our forces attach the tracking beacon?"
"They did sir, but we haven't received any location pings. However, Sensors does have an update."
Sensors swiveled in his chair. "Sir, I've been studying our records of their FTL jumps. I've noticed an interesting pattern of radiation signatures, strange interactions between some sort of mystery particle and normal matter. I think we can detect their FTL signatures, if I'm cleared to calibrate the fleet's sensors?"
"Granted Officer, however, I want you to do your calibrations elsewhere. Take your necessary staff and equipment into the quiet room."
The excitement on the officer's face dampened slightly, however, he still jumped into action, gathering a bundle of slates and crew from his station.
"Is there anything else for me then?" The Admiral intoned.
"I believe the ground forces have a briefing for you when you're ready, Admiral, mostly strategy and general progress reports-"
A sharp ringing sound interrupted Comm's spiel, and directed everyone's attention to Sensor's console, where Sensors had become frozen. He quickly turned to shut off the alarm, but stopped. He stared at the screen, mouth agape, before frantically typing into the console.
"If possible, could you explain what's going on here?" Litrinox sighed. The alarm really was earsplitting, even if it was playing from a tiny speaker.
"I-I'm not sure Sir, I installed a subroutine into the sensor array to try and test my theory out, but there's something triggering it's search process. I have no idea what it could be, this program was designed to test radiation disturbances only meters from the hull!"
"Place us on high alert Weapons. Sensors! Where is the disturbance coming from?"
"Nowhere nearby Admiral, external cameras confirm. It must be a glitch, but I can't find any procedural faults… unless?" Sensors grabbed a junior officer, "Watch these readouts!" he shouted, before racing towards Comms. "Can you tune your receptors to high-frequency γ and ν outputs?"
"I guess? Why?"
"Just do it!" Sensors watched over the officer's shoulder as her readout shifted into an ugly violet. "Spirits…"
"Sensors?" Litrinox questioned.
"I think something's coming."
It would be more accurate to say consciousness regained Zaeed. The universe greeted it's new partaker with an endless and concentrated agony. Zaeed couldn't help but gasp and moan pitifully as his mind tried to work again. He tried to move, to clutch at his face, to do something to stop the agony. But it wouldn't stop. It wouldn't even pause. He cried for help, for a medic, for his mother, anything he could think of. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn't budge. At least, one of them wouldn't. The other was a concentrated ball of pain that sent him into a terrible convulsion.
He tried to feel his face, but his arms moved sluggishly, violent pinpricks pierced his skin like so many tiny needles, each one slowing his laborious task. When his fingers finally brushed his eyes, he found them crusted with dirt and blood. He tried to rub away the congealed mess, but the careful ministrations did nothing but let the light through.
At least it still works. He thought between rolling tides of pain. The sheer volume of blood did not bode so well for the other.
He heard something, and turned to face his head towards it, propping himself up. "Who's there!?" He managed to wince through his teeth. It was silent for a time, so much so that Zaeed flopped back to the earth, exhausted by the effort.
"You're better than I thought Marine." Came a deep, rumbling voice. He tried to rise, before a clawed hand kept him firmly planted to the ground. "Don't be alarmed, human. I am only here to help." A soft hissing sound signaled the dispensing of biogel, and his pain began to diminish ever so slightly. "I am a Knight of the Swords of Sanghelios, we are here to find the Master Chief."
Author's Note:
Hey guys! Sorry about the huge gap between updates. Life has been sorta difficult lately, and I gotta admit, I had to rush this one out the door before I was totally satisfied with it. Unfortunately, I can't make any promises about when the next one is going to come out either. I am still going to work on this fic, but uploads are probably just gonna be slower. I hope you can all be understanding about that.
-Turtle
(PS Reviews are still appreciated, as are questions! Also, any syntax errors you find are also appreciated!)