III: In-House
"Most Dangerous Game"
UNSC Infinity
Inner Colonies
The vacuum-sealed energy field that barricaded the way gave a brief warping sound as the Pelican passed effortlessly through it. The Infinity's internal atmosphere was maintained in a delicate balance, which was deceptively difficult considering the ship's colossal size. The rapid adoption of light fields as essentially bay doors had not been a decision that had come without controversy—there were some engineers that had balked at putting the lives of 17,000 UNSC personnel in the hands of reverse-engineered Covenant tech, letting what was practically a pane of photons serve as a window between a livable atmosphere and the emptiness of the stars beyond. Energy fields were alien tech, the physics not yet completely understood. To co-opt such advancements in science so quickly seemed a little hasty to many experts. After all, there was merit in the spirit of caution.
The Pelican rotated, its engines emitting a roar once it was encased in atmosphere again, and settled down upon one of the raised platforms in the hangar. Marine engineers bustled to and fro on the levels below. Several wheeled cargo trams shuttled equipment from one end of the bay to the other. On the second launching platform on the bow-end of the bay, a mechanic squad, including a Huragok, were looking over a Broadsword all together. The all-range fighter had several panels removed, exposing its mechanical guts. Sparks fizzled from wielding torches and metal flowed in a liquid dance as the Huragok disassembled, reconfigured, and assembled sensitive components in a manner of seconds.
There was a faint hiss as the atmospheres equalized and the ramp door to the Pelican lowered with a whine. Kelly was the first one out, striding tall in her scuffed MJOLNIR armor, strobed orange by the rotating safety warning lights spread across the landing pad. Behind her, flanked by two Marines, the Elite she had encountered on Sonus V was escorted out, the zip-ties having been exchanged for traditional cuffs during the voyage. The alien towered over its handlers by a couple of heads, but she emitted no aggressive moves even though she could have easily taken on a company of soldiers in her bound state. Miraculously, the frigate that had shepherded them to the Infinity's position just so happened to have a spare vest and a pair of traditional Sangheili pants which the Elite now wore.
Two squads of Marines were waiting at the foot of the steps to the platform, having been radioed ahead of time. Prisoner detail. Kelly stepped to the side and gave a nod of indication toward the Elite.
"Find her a stateroom," she spoke to the squad commanders. "Not a cell. Make sure she's debriefed and provided a meal. We expect ambassadors from the Swords of Sanghelios to be in contact soon. That means she's not to be touched."
The commanders took the orders in stride, not changing their expressions a whit. Kelly narrowed her eyes behind her helmet, keenly scanning the men in front of her for any sign of hostility towards the prisoner. Many of these soldiers had friends fall to Elite blades, but it didn't change the fact that they had to put orders ahead of personal feelings. If the female were attacked on the ship by some vengeful grunt, it would likely cause a diplomatic incident.
Fortunately, Kelly's pessimism would not win out today.
"Ma'am," one of them said, acknowledging Kelly's directives. He then gestured for the Elite to step towards him. The female complied, walking with its head up right in a rather dignified matter. As she passed Kelly, she fixated the Spartan with a long and curious look, as if she was trying to stare through the golden barrier of the human's helmet with a piercing gaze.
A lieutenant that had also disembarked from the Pelican with Kelly stepped up alongside her. They watched the squads guide the Elite across the hangar bay and through a trapezoidal passageway.
"Strange, isn't it," the lieutenant commented. "Go back a few years and we would have shot the thing on sight."
"A few years ago, she would have done the same thing," Kelly said as she now strode across the bay.
Her HUD then blipped an information icon in the lower portion of her view. She looked at the glimmering symbol and blinked twice. A directive then popped up that was comprised of only two sentences. New orders. From a rather high authority, judging by the intel codes in the message. She was being summoned to a debriefing of her own, apparently. According to the time, it was to take place in one hour, on one of the upper decks of the ship.
ONI. Had to be. The firewalls in her suit's messaging system were already comparing the electronic signature to several different templates it had in its databanks. The metadata tags were limited, and in some cases, encrypted. Only ONI would be requesting such a meeting with any pertinent details, such as the topic or the attendees, omitted.
The question was, why did they want to talk with her at all?
Then she spotted the last line in the message. SERVICE A REQ. Service Uniform "A" configuration required.
Kelly suppressed a groan. Only ONI could be so paranoid—there were still several individuals who had difficulties in communicating with Spartans when they were in full MJOLNIR armor. This was either an unsubtle show of their influence or someone did not want to be unnerved from at a faceless helmet. Either way, Kelly was not happy with this arrangement. To officially order her to attend a meeting in a uniform of fabric was nearly as bad as walking into that room naked. Too many vulnerabilities, not enough contingencies. Kelly had to stop her mind from thinking of the distinct tactical disadvantage she would be experiencing by performing a rapid no-thought drill—focus on breathing, empty lungs of air, accept the flow of thought, breathe again.
She had now less than an hour before she was due to meet her ONI superiors, judging by her schedule. Without wasting another second, she followed the signage that took her from the hangar to the SpecOps Staging Area on S-Deck. Spartan Town, as the locals called it, due to the locals who inhabited the deck.
As she headed through the halls, Kelly was aware that she garnered quite a lot of sideways glances from the grunts and the officers as she passed them by. She paid the stares no mind. She been used to them for decades. With her obvious height advantage, plus the intimidating Hermes armor she wore, she cut quite the powerful figure among her brethren as she moved through the ship. She looked like a walking tank, something not quite human, falling into an uncanny valley that never ceased to draw attention onto her.
It would take her perhaps ten minutes to reach S-Deck. There was a tram that ran the length of the Infinity, but Kelly preferred to walk. At more than five and a half kilometers long, the Infinity was the largest human-made ship ever constructed. It had been launched three years ago, but was not technically commissioned into service just yet. It had been plagued by cost overruns during its construction, and at one point Insurrectionists had attempted a hostile takeover of the ship when it was in drydock, though the attempt had failed miserably. It was equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and even skunkworks technology that the Advanced Research group had been commissioned to create—tech that had not yet gone into mass production just yet. Despite its prowess as a warship, Kelly had heard rumblings that the Infinity was to be used as an exploration vessel in the next year or two, once it received its official commission. She wondered what that meant for the Spartans stationed on this vessel. They were soldiers, were they not? Peacekeeping was going to be quite the unfamiliar task.
Kelly strode across a bridge that spanned a chasm between the sub-bays of the ship. A few dozen meters below, Scorpion tanks and Warthogs churned along the jagged avenues, moving among the bright halogens and the flashing yellow bulb lights. Enough armaments were on this ship to subdue a small moon. Quite the large army for a peacekeeping force.
She didn't stop to dawdle at the sight, though, and kept on walking.
On a whim, Kelly opened her comms and scrolled through the list of tags that she had in her database. She looked for proximity contacts for Blue-104 and Blue-058. Fred and Linda, her closest compatriots and the only people in the galaxy she would ever consider friends. She solemnly looked upon the icons of their tags—they were gray. They weren't back on the ship yet. Evidentially, they hadn't returned from their respective missions. Next time, then.
She passed through a checkpoint after enduring a short elevator ride and strode out into an enormous bay comprised of several ringed levels, bathed in an intense white light. The white deck was spotless, with brushed matte gray railings, and the buzz of conversation. Despite the level of inhabitants in here, it remained as sterile of a place as one could imagine. Soldiers in MJOLNIR armor, comprised of all manner of configurations and colors one could imagine, strode about with a purpose, along with several comparatively diminutive techs. The entire deck was thrumming with activity, completely filled to the brim with Spartans. Indeed, for this section of the Infinity contained the largest congestion of Spartan warriors than anywhere else in the galaxy.
No wonder the name Spartan Town had stuck.
A few of the Spartans gave Kelly respectful nods as she glided by them. She returned the gestures in a stiff manner. The Spartans here were all fourth-generation. Cut from the same cloth as any regular Marine. They never had the same kind of upbringing that Kelly had, who had been recruited for the program before she had even turned ten, one of the last of the second-generation. That did not mean that the men and women all on this deck did not deserve to be called Spartans—on the contrary, they were very much the brothers-in-arms that Kelly would want watching her back any day.
Still, she sometimes wished the IVs weren't so chatty.
This feeling was only exacerbated as Kelly looked to the grayed-out tag for 117 in her HUD. Despite the inherent camaraderie with her fellow Spartans, there were going some cases in which she would stick by her friends above anyone else.
She now strode to the westward part of the bay, where a seemingly endless array of Brokkr Armor Mechanisms awaited, which stretched the entire length of the room. She chose an array that was empty, attended by three awaiting technicians.
"Spartan-087 for de-quip," she spoke to the lead tech as she approached, her heavy boots making clomping noises upon the polished tile.
The tech pointed to the empty array, which looked like a balanced Halo made of white porcelain. "You know where to stand, Petty Officer. When you're ready."
Kelly stepped into the raised boot inserts, and a duo of locking clamps immediately fastened themselves into tabs near her soles. The techs then began inputting commands onto the Brokkr's panel, and the multi-axis device swung a quartet of arms into orbit around the Spartan. Fine metal devices glinted upon the ends of the mechanical arms—surgical instruments for a different kind of extraction.
"Arms out," one of the techs said.
Kelly complied and raised her arms to perpendicular with her body. An X-shaped locking clamp as wide as the Spartan moved behind her and fastened to her back, gently cupping her body as the Brokkr's gyro mount tilted back ten degrees, now orienting her on an incline.
Two grips on ball-and-socket joints whirred into place at the armor on Kelly's wrist. The grips clamped down on the locking points located at the wrist and simultaneously gave a clockwise turn. Immediately, the armor along Kelly's forearm sprang open and flowered like petals, dropping away from her body in a clumped wreath. At her feet, two small pressure points were depressed and her boots both clicked and unfurled in an instant.
A multi-tool and actuator arm then swung forward and drilled at the locks located upon Kelly's chest. There was a hiss as the pressure seal was gradually released and the connection between the liquid metal crystal and the nanocomposite bodysuit was severed. The multitool then gripped the chestplate and gently lifted it away, revealing a resistant black suit made out of a titanium composite.
Finally, the main actuator swung over Kelly's head and fastened itself to her helmet. A quick diagnostic was run and a few software patches were queued to install once it had been connected to the ship's mainframe. Then, the arm gently moved upward, pulling the helmet off of Kelly's head.
She opened her eyes and blinked. It had been a while since she had felt air on her face that had not been run through personal environ filters. There was a distinctive taste to the air here. Metallic and cloying. The slightest puff of wind from the ship's filtration systems felt foreign upon her skin. Almost like she had been born with that particular sense dulled. Her blue eyes looked to the ceiling without focus and remained locked ahead until the gyro that held her swung forward, allowing her to step out, freed from her armor.
Absently, she lifted a hand to her cheek. Movements without the armor felt normal—MJOLNIR had been designed to feel as weightless as possible to the user. But standing outside it, there was distinct sense that something was missing. That to touch her own flesh felt… wrong, somehow.
She gave a look back towards the dismantled armor that the techs were now examining. She hid a sigh and headed for the barracks.
Were she not more than six feet tall, Kelly could have easily blended in with the other Marines on any ship. At forty-six, she retained an impressive form—all muscle, no fat. Her blue eyes were as cold as distant gas giants, always focused to the point that she looked almost alien. Her angular cheeks supported a beauty that was ill-defined and rugged, but distinctive nonetheless. Her brown hair was combed back, molded into a short ponytail that nearly reached her shoulders. There was a severeness about her that rarely cracked, weathered by years and years of fighting.
When she reached the S-Deck barracks, she headed straight for the showers. There was no one in here at this time—she had come in between rotations, it seemed. Without delay, she undressed, folded her empty bodysuit on a nearby bench, and stepped into the closest stall.
Kelly still had some time before she had to meet the ONI brass, but she still showered swiftly and economically—less than five minutes. After drying off, she strode over to where her locker was, placing her towel upon the same bench where she had placed her bodysuit. From inside, she withdrew her Navy-gray uniform and unfurled it out. Her eyes came to the breast of her uniform. Every time she looked at the thing, someone had always seen fit to add more ribbons and medals upon the jacket, to the point where it now seemed she was just flaunting a billboard of colors. After so long spent in the service, Kelly had completely lost track of what award had corresponded to which mission, or what she had done to deserve such an accolade. They were just scraps of cloth to her. Meaningless.
She quickly dressed into the uniform anyway, and ensured there were no wrinkles visible before she departed the tower and headed for the nearest lift. The Spartan bore a masked expression as the doors closed upon her, before the lift hurled Kelly up to those that had summoned her.
Kelly ended up waiting for fifteen minutes outside of the conference room, having arrived early. There were several padded chairs that had been situated in the tiled hallway, but she preferred to stand. Upon the polished walnut walls hung several portraits of significant UNSC admirals and other war heroes since the start of humanity's history in dealing with a modern warfare age. The occasional landscape of the military academies snuck itself into any free real estate on those walls, as well.
There were several muffled voices that Kelly could discern behind the solid door in front of her. The meeting in front of her was just finishing up, apparently. The door was thick enough that she could not tell what words were being said, but she could identify the genders of the people that were talking.
A click of heels on the floor came to Kelly's left. She turned her head to see a smiling woman in fatigues walk her way. A corporal.
"Would you like anything to eat or drink, Petty Officer?" A well-practiced question. Each syllable emphasized without a hint of demureness.
Kelly tried to muster a friendly smile, but that didn't go so well. "I'm fine. Thank you."
The corporal's expression faltered a bit. She must have been used to dealing with SPARTAN-IVs quite a bit more, Kelly figured. The IIs tended to be a little more direct.
"If you change your mind, I'm just down the hall."
The clicking of heels faded from audible range, allowing Kelly to focus on the muffled voices from behind the doors again. And from the sounds of the proximity of the voices coming closer to the opening, it sounded like things were in the process of concluding.
The golden doorknob rotated with a metallic clicking noise, and the wooden door silently swung outward. Only one person exited the room—the door slowly closed behind them. Kelly's eyebrows scrunched together in a brief moment of recognition before she recovered, but the person that exited caught the motion all the same—of course she would, for she had known Kelly for almost her whole life, had gifted her with the MJOLNIR armor, on top of being the brainchild for the entire SPARTAN program. She knew all of Kelly's tics, no matter how hard she tried to hide them.
Dr. Catherine Halsey gave a brief smile to Kelly, but it soon faded. Her silver hair was shorter than Kelly's, falling around her head. She wore textureless gray pants and a white lab coat with a stylus tucked into the breast pocket. She pushed up her antique bifocals, adjusting them upon her head as she looked upon one of the last of her original recruits.
"Kelly," she said. "It's good to see you again."
"Ma'am," Kelly said guardedly. Years ago, she would have responded more warmly to the doctor, but Kelly had since learned the hard way that Halsey always kept an agenda for herself, the memory of being drugged and split up from her team at Eridanus Secundus coming to mind all too well. Despite Halsey's involvement with her Spartans, the doctor only truly trusted herself, sometimes to the detriment of those that had seen her as a mother figure.
But what annoyed Kelly most of all was the fact that Halsey always addressed her by her first name. No one aside from her teammates did such a thing. To hear it from someone else's mouth, even Halsey's, sounded like sandpaper to her ears.
Halsey gave a cursory look to the door behind her to confirm that it was closed completely shut. She then stepped closer to Kelly, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "They're fools. All of them. This whole thing is just going to be a waste of time for you. Nothing but an excess of black box conversations and codeword saturation."
Kelly blinked. "I don't follow, ma'am."
"You'll see when you get inside. They didn't even give me the big picture."
The door to the conference hall opened and an aide stepped out, noticed Kelly. "Petty Officer? They're ready for you now."
Halsey affectionately placed a hand on Kelly's wrist. "Be careful, Kelly. Don't trust anyone."
The Spartan did not miss the irony. "Noted," she said, her voice trailing ever so slightly upward on the word.
Kelly was led into a windowless room that contained a long mahogany table and a dark green carpet. The door shut behind the Spartan and she noticed an acute adjustment of the pressure in her ears. Holographic displays glimmered metrics and graphs above the table and a screen just as long ran upon the far wall, displaying an animation of the Infinity in the background.
There were three people in the room—a vice admiral, a full bird colonel, and a man dressed in a sparse uniform with no insignia. He looked like a civilian. Kelly automatically absorbed the details of this man first: regulation-length black hair, hook nose, pointed chin, late thirties. Not ONI then. One of the other intelligence branches?
To the admiral and colonel, Kelly saluted, which was rapidly returned.
"Petty Officer," the vice admiral said, his bald head shining underneath the soft lighting, "I'm Vice Admiral Talbot. This is Colonel Leibow. Office of Naval Intelligence." He did not introduce the other man.
"Sir. Ma'am," Kelly said to the admiral and colonel, respectively.
Talbot motioned for Kelly to take one of the many unoccupied seats on her side of the table. He and Leibow claimed chairs on the opposite end. At the head of the table, the silent observer toyed with a datapad, his eyes never departing the Spartan.
"First things first," Talbot said as he settled into his seat. "Congratulations are in order on your successful op at Sonus V, Petty Officer. The level of performance we saw from your end, I'd say by the end of the week you'll have another accolade to add to your already impressive collection." He made a motion towards the wealth of ribbons that adorned Kelly's uniform.
Kelly took the praise in stride without any change in expression. She simply gave a nod. "Thank you, sir." There was a beat as she thought for a moment, then added, "It wasn't a complete success. Both sides ended up losing that day. The colonists, especially."
The one burning question that begged to be followed up on stewed in Kelly's head, but she kept quiet for now.
Talbot absorbed the comment. "Yes, you're referring to the nasty business of finding all of those civilians mutilated in the cobalt mine. Well, we've already been in touch with SXS, letting them know the fate of their contractors, and we've been assured that the next of kin will be sufficiently compensated for their senseless deaths. But, on the whole, the operation does have a positive spin to it. The colony was reclaimed from the Banished due to our forces wiping out the enemy complement. Not to mention that the TOI was terminated and you managed to secure a cooperative Elite. From our end, all objectives were completed and then some."
"Yes, sir." It wasn't prudent to argue with an admiral, Kelly figured.
Leibow then leaned forward, her kind face a contrast to the hardened men who flanked her. In her hands, she held a dossier on a clear digital pad. "It says here that you've participated in more than 100 full campaigns, Petty Officer. That number only increases if you count specific operations. Impressive. Very impressive, even for a Spartan."
"It's what I was trained for, ma'am. I don't believe I'd be fit doing anything else."
Leibow trained a smile towards the Spartan. She then gently set the dossier down in front of her and folded her hands together. "Petty Officer, I'll cut straight to the point. We are not here today to get into a full debriefing of the Sonus V operation. What we have to talk to you about today does not concern that particular campaign. Not directly, at least."
Kelly kept still. While she had been expecting to be fully debriefed on her performance of her most recent mission, the sudden tradecraft and discretion that the colonel was now displaying made her suspicious.
The full-wall video screen behind the brass now blipped up a static image, one that was filled with nothing but motion blur. The triangular "play" icon was superimposed in front of the image, waiting to be engaged.
"Spartan-087," Talbot spoke again, his voice now firm, "while you're in this room, you will be provided with Iota-level clearance. You will not receive any personal copies of the information that will be shared with you today. The purview of this briefing is under Three-Zero jurisdiction, the contents of which is not to be disseminated to anyone not currently present. If I recall, this is your first time dealing directly with Three-Zero, correct, Petty Officer?"
"I am not aware as to the significance of Three-Zero, actually, sir," Kelly responded honestly.
Talbot seemed pleased with that answer. "That's because our existence is strictly on a need-to-know basis. Three-Zero is a subdivision of ONI's Section Zero."
Now, Kelly had heard of Section Zero. "Internal Affairs for ONI."
"Right. Three-Zero operates under more specific parameters, though. Put simply, Three-Zero is the IA department solely for the Spartan program."
Kelly wasn't aware that the Spartan program had its own IA subdivision assigned to it. Though, considering that the attempted hijacking of the Infinity all those years ago was carried out by a SPARTAN-IV, she had to begrudgingly concede that ONI might not have extended the same level of trust onto the program as before.
Talbot then waved to the video wall. "This is the first of the classified material we wish to share with you today. Colonel?"
Responding to the query, Leibow grabbed her datapad and made a flicking motion with a finger. Everyone in the room turned to look at the screen, watching in wonder.
The video was poor quality, and subject to an unstable axis. This footage must have come from a personal recording device—Kelly recognized the handheld movements. The person filming must have been nervous, for the screen was shaking quite heavily.
The clip was thirty seconds in length, with most of the footage aimed at dark corners with heavy contrast. Kelly could hear several people loudly breathing in the video—the cameraman was making the most noise, given their proximity to the microphone. Occasionally, the video would pan upward, and a shaky rectangle of light would swerve into view—a window. So, the camera wielder was holed up in a building somewhere, trying to snap a peek at something just outside it. The lens of the camera was frequently focusing and refocusing to trying and bring the intended subjects into frame.
There had been a low rumbling throughout the entirety of the clip, which Kelly finally recognized as the continuous roar of explosions. Frag grenades… rockets… it was difficult to tell. But it wasn't plasma weaponry. Nothing made by the Covenant. The telltale whine of spooling energy would've been hard to miss. Instead, there was just the crackle of human-made weaponry.
Finally, the image stabilized long enough out the window for Kelly to get her bearings. She identified the industrial colony of Sonus V—the place she had just come from—through the brief glimpses that the footage afforded. The black and milky sky, the towering volcano, the dust-streaked buildings. She had a distinct sense of déjà vu, coming back to the planet in this manner. She leaned closer in interest. Was she about to find out who had killed these colonists? That had participated in that abject brutality she had glimpsed down in the mines?
She would have her wish granted in short order. At the twenty-second mark, Kelly was able to spot a trio of darkened figures slowly march their way down the dirt-laden avenue. They were shadows against shadows, tall and bulky. Fire rippled from their weapons as they smoothly rotated in place, letting off well-timed bursts, one after another. One of the figures waved their arm in an arc—throwing a grenade, most likely. Kelly detected the detonation of the device in the lower register of her ears just two seconds later.
Screams and prayers from people off-camera began to resound. There was the noise of breaking glass, the panes shattering as bullets tore through them. The camera's view wobbled again, but the user did not hunker back down. They kept the lens trained on the individuals that were marching this way, wrapped in metal and spitting fire from their weapons.
Kelly distinctly saw the lead figure, a gray blur on the screen, raise their arms. A six-pointed star of flame surged from their weapon and the camera immediately pitched end over end. A surprised grunt emitted over the speakers and someone in the room with the cameraman let out a shriek. Gunfire then popped into the building, the sound so loud that the audio was overwhelmed and only the sounds of things shattering and breaking could resound.
Then the image turned black and the circular "restart" logo appeared over the still frame.
Talbot turned back to Kelly, his face grim. "That clip was obtained by ONI when it was discovered that this raw footage had been streamed to the network as it was being shot. The perpetrators of this senseless act destroyed all of the useable hard drives on Sonus V, along with any memory crystals they could find, but they didn't count on one of the colonists unintentionally streaming their own murder."
"Every man, woman, and child in that colony was murdered by the three individuals you saw in the footage," Leibow said. "They were gunned down in the streets and piled into the mines, with their transponder chips removed from their skulls. I bet you're wondering why someone would bother to do such a thing, Petty Officer?"
Kelly clasped her hands together as she thought for a few seconds. The memory of looking into the bloodied recesses of the colonists' heads was not a sight she was liable to forget anytime soon.
"Terror tactics," she offered. "Direct actions designed to intimidate the enemy. The bodies were deposited in the mine because they were meant to be found, just not right away. Removing the transponder chips and destroying them was also a way to make it impossible for the UNSC or the SXS company to hone in on any beacons, ensuring that a search would be conducted to spread out our resources."
Talbot nodded. "Would you say that this sight demonstrated a… reasonable sort of method, Petty Officer?"
Kelly looked from the admiral to the colonel. It was obvious that they paying close attention to what her response was going to be, which they had an interest in seeing that it was going to be the one they agreed with.
"Not at all, sir," Kelly said, albeit carefully. "The method on Sonus V was completely unreasonable. Not in-line with UNSC ROEs."
The brass appeared satisfied with that.
Leibow was now lightly tapping her fingers against the table. "Therein lies the issue, Petty Officer. And the true heart of the matter of which why you were called here today. I was wondering if you had noticed anything in that footage you had just seen?"
"It wasn't clear, but the image at twenty-six seconds offered the best look. Could we pause there?"
"Colonel?" Talbot turned to Leibow, who fiddled with her datapad and the screen wall blipped the clip back up and froze on the frame in question: the three dark figures striding calmly through the town, their guns firing at anything that moved.
Kelly appraised the outlines of the blurred figures. Humanoid, clearly not alien. But tall for humans… perhaps too tall. And their proportions were too bulky. Almost recognizably so. To the point where Kelly realized that there was only one sort of person who would appear in such a manner.
She sat up in her chair in abject interest. "MJOLNIR armor," she said. "Spartans."
The officers across from her were stone-faced. They knew, Kelly thought. They already had all the information before she had ever stepped through this door. Now she realized why Three-Zero was involved in the first place.
"Sonus V was not the first incident," Talbot said. "It was the fourth. A… disturbing pattern has emerged in the outer colonies. Scores of human settlements on the verge of civilization are being wiped off the face the galaxy. Places where the UNSC cannot effectively police. Places where colonists have been found… desecrated. Places where all human decency has been abandoned, and the perpetrators are still roaming free, operating beyond any level of control."
"In each of the colonies, we also found that any ship stationed on the planet that was slipspace-capable had its Shaw-Fujikawa drive gutted," Leibow added. "For what purpose, we cannot fathom. One of those drives commands a high price on the black market, yes, but the level of violence directed upon the colonists seems overtly aggressive for something that boils down to petty theft."
Kelly had to agree with that initial hypothesis. A Shaw-Fujikawa drive was perhaps the most important creation that humanity had ever devised. It was the first propulsion drive that could transition matter to and from slipstream space, essentially culminating in the creation of FTL travel. It was what had enabled humanity to expand across the stars and how they had met the Covenant. But while an S-F drive, as Leibow had noted, commanded a hefty price tag, Kelly couldn't see the use in anyone wanting to stockpile so many drives, unless they were planning on building up a store to retrofit a makeshift fleet, but even that explanation was flimsy.
"The Spartans," Kelly said, her voice like cold iron. "Who are they?"
There was a distinct pause all around the table. Even the vice admiral seemed to be composing himself for a moment, before he reached out and tapped an embedded control in front of him.
Immediately, three holograms sprung up upon the table, where headshot images of three Spartans in full armor stared balefully at Kelly. Field accomplishments and specialist traits scrolled below each portrait at dizzying speeds, but Kelly was concentrating solely on the images in front of her.
So, these were the killers. The traitors to humanity. Kelly couldn't help but feel the cold flame of hatred begin to simmer in her gut, a feeling she had not experienced in quite some time.
"Phoenix Unit," a voice said. Kelly had to turn her head to see who was speaking. The man in the uniform without a rank at the head of the table held an unblinking gaze toward the Spartan. "A hand-picked squad for ONI use only."
"ONI use?" Kelly asked.
"Over the course of the SPARTAN-II and III program," Talbot picked up, "the grueling training period and augmentation run led to a glut of cadets being discharged from the program. Failures due to… physical complications, among other reasons."
Kelly kept herself as still as a steel beam. "Washouts. No longer Spartans."
"But not in the eyes to those not familiar with the program," Talbot said, his words carrying a faint admonishment. "ONI picked up some of the recruits that had failed to meet the rigorous standards that Dr. Halsey had set. For those, we had seen value in those candidates that might not have been immediately apparent to the good doctor's biased view. Some, we trained as agents. Others, we found we could pick up where their Spartan training had left off. In the process, Phoenix Unit was created."
"What did the unit specialize in?"
"Black ops," Leibow answered in Talbot's stead. "Smash-and-grab missions. To wage war on a scale of brutality that no one in the UNSC could have even considered. Phoenix was designed to be dropped deep behind enemy lines and wage guerilla wars. One of their most successful missions actually took place a couple of years ago; when an Elite despot was attempting to create his own army to rival the Arbiter's, Phoenix was inserted onto Sanghelios and the warlord's entire keep was decimated by the unit. Phoenix made it seem like a rival clan was responsible by openly displaying the bodies in manners that held some religious significance to the Elites, which concurrently triggered a minor civil war in the area in the wake of the power vacuum in the region."
"Victory at any cost," the unadorned military man spoke in his soft voice. "It was the only option after being on the losing end for so long."
Talbot looked grave as he tried to study Kelly's face for a tell—no chance, the Spartan kept herself guarded. "For whatever reason, we've lost control of the unit. Clearly, this violence against human civilians has gone beyond any acceptable scale of decency that we're willing to withstand. And… steps will need to be taken in order to prevent this situation from getting out of hand any more than it already has."
Leibow stood again, her glass datapad back in hand. She made two quick, decisive taps upon the spotless surface—the portraits of the rogue Spartans started to slide by in sequence.
"Currently, Phoenix Unit has only three members, two of which are Spartan-IIIs," she said. First up was the image of a Spartan with a modified AKIS helmet with an oversized GRD optical suite attached in front of the visor. "The ranged specialist: Rina-P101. Responsible for over 600 confirmed kills. The sniper rifle is her weapon of choice. Anyone's in danger if they're caught out in the open with her scoped in on you."
Next up was a Spartan with a War Master helmet. The visor was hexagonally-pattered and matte-gray with an orange scaling. They had bulky, explosive-deflecting shoulder pads and looked armored to the core.
"Logan-P888," Leibow continued. "Camouflage and survival expert. Can fashion a trap out of anything, if you put him in the right environment. He's a veteran of deep-line infiltration and many of his exploits will remain classified for the foreseeable future."
The last Spartan wore a Security helmet. Their armor was gray and white, the color of volcanic snow. Kelly locked "eyes" with the golden visor, trying to gauge the hatred of such a person, to figure out how they had come to lose their way so badly.
"The final member of Phoenix," Leibow looked to the image of the Spartan, then to Kelly, knowingly wanting to see the reaction on the woman. "Came from the SPARTAN-II program, originally, before being recruited into ONI's internal division. Spartan-119. Phaedra."
Were she wearing MJOLNIR armor, Kelly wouldn't have tried to suppress her reaction quite so much. She remembered her training just in time and let the revelation wash over her without clenching a muscle. But behind the visage, something long-buried stirred, finally awoken. Something that manifested as a cold chill in the roots of her teeth.
Talbot had been concentrating on the portrait of the last rogue Spartan. "The unquestioned leader of the unit. Spartans P101 and P888 were brought to us with behavioral issues. Deferential traits unlocked over the course of their training. 119 was… different in every way. She took command of the unit, led them through the deadliest of campaigns—the other Spartans would follow her every order, no matter how insane it might sound. Perhaps, in their eyes, she's like a god. Which makes what has to come… all the more troubling."
The vice admiral tapped a control and the holograms dissipated. Kelly found herself staring at the space where Phaedra's helmet had previously occupied.
"Petty Officer," Leibow said, "I know that you had been expecting to link up with the rest of Blue Team once your business on Sonus V had been concluded—if I recall correctly, you had been slated for OPERATION KNIGHT ERRANT?"
"That was the case, ma'am," Kelly nearly missed answering the question, her thoughts a chaotic blizzard.
"You see, Petty Officer," Talbot swiped his hand across the table several times, almost as if he was unsure where to place it, "for the longest time, this war was easy to digest from a moral point of view. It was only natural that we could imagine humanity fighting as if the angels had our backs, staring death in the face against the alien forces that threatened to destroy us. But that was then. This is now, where the lines have started to blur… and our better natures may have shifted alongside those lines. The mandate of war has obviously shifted for the Spartans of Phoenix Unit. Which is why… we have decided to bring this mission to you."
Kelly slowly inhaled. A mission. Good. She would be walking away with orders and a plan.
"This mission," Talbot continued, "will not exist on paper. There will be no record of what you have been tasked to do. Not just because of the inherently clandestine nature of the work involved, but because of the political aspect that would naturally follow, which we don't want to expose you or the program to."
"Political, sir?"
It was the unadorned man's turn again to speak. "The Spartan program was perhaps the most successful program the UNSC had ever devised. The decision to go public with it was a calculated move, one that carried many risks, but it performed its job in enhancing morale. Unfortunately, that choice came with the known consequence of extra scrutiny. The program's image is built upon the integrity and abilities of its participants. To have that image tarnished due to the actions of a few would lead to irreparable harm. Not just to the program, but to the entire UNSC."
Talbot had fixated the other man with a long stare, one that Kelly noticed. Perhaps he was hiding his discomfort in what he was saying.
The vice admiral then looked back at Kelly. "Your mission will be to track down the members of the Phoenix Unit by any means necessary. Any requests for equipment or pertinent information will be granted—we will provide you with the necessary access level. You will also be provided a Prowler and an AI to fly it, as you will not have a crew assigned to your command. When you locate each of the wayward Spartans in turn, you are to immediately take action by retiring them on sight."
Kelly was almost certain she had misheard, but Talbot's face was set and his cohorts were not contradicting him. He had not said "capture." He was dead serious about what he had just ordered her to do.
"Termination," she spoke lowly, the syllables heavy on her tongue.
"We can use every synonym in the book," Talbot sighed. "It won't change the fact that these Spartans have deliberately attacked human colonies and have demonstrated the worst of what our imaginations could conjure. They are still out in the galaxy, running their reign of terror, not content to stop with the atrocities they have committed. No, Petty Officer, these soldiers are too far gone to be reprogrammed into any decent mindset. Their beds have been made and they will need to lie in them. We cannot afford any half-measures on this, Spartan. In order to ensure the security of our tenuous position in the galaxy, the members of the Phoenix Unit must be destroyed."
By the time Kelly had been dismissed from the conference room, her discomfort had reached a palpable peak. The contours of the Infinity's interior appeared shrouded in some ancient gloom, even though nothing had changed in the half hour she had been in that limbo with the brass. The lights seemed too bright, only accentuating the shadows. She blinked several times, as though as that would "reset" the malfunction in her.
She took the elevator back down, but she did not stop at S-Deck this time. Instead, she exited at one of the gym levels, a windowless room illuminated by the same sterile lighting. Here, there was a track that ran a quarter of a mile, one that ringed around a few courts that could be configured for a variety of sports. No one else was in the gym at this hour—Kelly was glad that she could have some time alone with her thoughts.
The Spartan stepped onto the track, but she did not run or jog. Instead, Kelly merely walked at a slow gait, head held high and hands behind her back. The sound of her footsteps became absorbed by the synthetic floor.
Phaedra.
It had been too long since she had heard that name. Long enough that she had sworn that she had forgotten it, even though she knew that was impossible. She remembered almost everything.
"Washouts. No longer Spartans."
That had been the case with Phaedra, hadn't it? A washout from the program. A more delicate way to say that she had been a complete failure.
That had all taken place years ago. Before Kelly knew what being a Spartan truly entailed. Before she had been gifted with MJOLNIR armor. Before the Covenant. Before Halo.
And now…
"Lights out!" she remembered the DI barking into the darkness of the barracks.
The memory poured into her head, cold and unwanted.
The cots were thin, the pillows just as flat, with only itchy blankets afforded to the cadets. They hardly kept anyone warm during the night. The barracks were made of cinderblocks, colored an ugly gray. Just outside, planet Reach. Home of the SPARTAN program and of its seventy-five recruits. The faint roar of jets could still be heard past the walls.
Kelly stared upward at the bunk above her—Grace was already sound asleep, judging by the snoring. Her whole body ached. Mendez had put them through the ringer this morning and afternoon. They had run six miles today after their calisthenics—more than the usual amount. Kelly didn't mind running. In fact, she probably enjoyed it the most out of any of the other kids. The obstacle course was the toughest part of the gauntlet, though. Mendez kept changing the configuration, forcing the kids to learn a new route every day. It was a challenge, but one that Kelly relished, even if she wound up covered in bruises after taking one fall after another.
Yet, she always got back up. And if she didn't get to her feet immediately, John or Sam would always be there to help her. Five days in and already they made a great team. Great friends. Boot camp would've been hell had she not been paired up with them.
Noises from the hall caused Kelly to lift her head. The doors open, throwing in a rectangle of light upon the assembled cots. One of the DIs had returned, and they were dragging someone quite smaller than they were with them.
This again.
"Lights out means you too, boot!" the DI said as he tossed the child upon the cold floor. The cadet hit the ground and rolled, but did not cry out. The DI had already headed back to the hallway and dispassionately shut the door behind them.
Kelly turned on her side, towards where the disturbance had taken place. She kept a close ear out. Everyone else seemed sound asleep—they were so worn out from the day's exercises that they had not noticed the momentary intrusion. They had failed to notice one of their own trying to escape for the fourth time, the attempt most likely seen as a pathetic effort by the guards, considering how dismissively their attitudes were.
The child that the DI had deposited was still sitting by themselves upon the floor, hunched slightly forward with arms slack like a forgotten toy. At this point, it was a nightly routine. She wondered if the cadet was going to continue to resist for as long as they were meant to be here.
She turned to the other side, willing sleep to come. It didn't. Five minutes passed, but they seemed like hours. Kelly grumbled and turned back again. The child on the floor had not moved.
What was it Sam had said to her on their second day? It had been an innocent statement, but after he had asked it, things had immediately changed for the better for her… and them.
"We can be friends... I mean, if you want. It'd be no big deal."
Right away, she had said: "Sure."
What a simple thing to say.
Concern gripping her, Kelly sat up in her bunk. In that moment, she didn't care if she was going to get caught being out of bed after lights out. She padded over to the girl and placed a hand on her back.
"Hey," she whispered, but the girl was content to stare at the floor. Kelly could only see a wavy mass of hair. "Hey."
There was no response. Kelly was about to give up before she gave it one last try.
"Phaedra."
The child looked up, revealing an olive face with shining cheeks. She had been crying.
Kelly gave the other girl a small smile, but in this darkness, it probably wasn't visible. "Come on," she said. She helped Phaedra to her feet. This time, she was compliant.
The bunks were tri-level—Kelly led Phaedra over to her assigned space and kept close in case she needed to help her up. But Phaedra clambered onto the second level and slowly, numbingly, flopped upon the bed, only emitting a few sniffles.
With a frown, Kelly knew that Mendez was going to give this girl hell for just sleeping incorrectly. Suppressing a grunt, she clambered up to where Phaedra was lying and helped slip the covers over her, taking care to tuck the taller girl in. As she turned Phaedra over, Kelly's eyes flashed to the girl's bare wrist, where a dark bruise was just starting to purple. It looked sprained.
"You fought them again?" she whispered, trying not to sigh. She was not expecting an answer. Kelly knew that there had been some melancholy amongst the group when they had first been brought to Reach. The thought of never seeing their families again had been a touchy spot for some, but after a couple of nights, they had suppressed the miserable thoughts, those feelings becoming only faint twinges in their minds. They had another family now: each other.
But Phaedra was the only one who had not realized that yet.
"I don't want to be here."
Kelly stilled herself. The ashen face of the once-weeping girl was staring back at her, only her head sticking out from the sheets. She had thought that Phaedra wouldn't have wanted to talk at all. She tried to smile to soothe the girl, but that failed.
"I don't think we can go back," she admitted. Lately, Kelly had wondered if she really did want to go back. There was something tying Phaedra to her old life, though. Something that Mendez had not yet broken in her.
"It's not fair," Phaedra shut her eyes, squeezing out the last few tears. She started to turn her head to the wall. "It's just not fair."
Kelly tried something else. "We're here because Dr. Halsey said we're important. She wants us to be the… the protectors of Earth and her colonies! You don't want that?"
Her words had no effect. Phaedra started to shake, as though she was trying to vehemently deny what Kelly had just told her.
There were noises from the hallway now. The night watch was coming around. Kelly had little time—if she was caught out of bed, she'd be running laps from sunup to sundown. She may have liked running, but she didn't like it that much.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, preparing to drop to the floor, but before she did, she placed a hand on Phaedra's shoulder. She didn't speak until the other girl finally looked at her.
"Find me on the obstacle course tomorrow," she said. "I'll wait up for you."
Phaedra lifted her head, perhaps astonished at being treated like a person instead of a nameless grunt. The poor girl did not have so much as a friend on this planet.
Not too late to be the first one.
"But I'm not as fast as you," Phaedra whispered, confusion flitting across her face, almost as if she didn't know to smile or gape. "I'll just slow you down."
I slow everyone down, was what the girl meant.
But an infectious grin spread across Kelly's face and she gave Phaedra's shoulder a quick double-pat.
"Nah, I'll speed you up."
Kelly inhaled and she was back in the gym. She didn't know how long she had been pacing the room. The silence here was so deep she could hear the blood thundering in her ears atop the mechanical thrum of the air recyclers.
Her mind felt like it weighed several tons. There was a distinct ache in her fingers. She flexed her digits until she could feel her tendons start to strain. She stared hollowly upon the next curve in the track that continuously turned, never truly reaching a terminus.
She could not help stacking this mission up against similar ones she had undertaken in the past. Kelly had been sent to kill people before. Covenant. Humans. She had not thought twice about her targets then. The UNSC had always had a reason for their termination. That reason always had made sense to her.
In some part, the reason for this mission made sense now. But… dread still resonated upon Kelly. Kill a Spartan? Had such a thing been ordered before? Despite their actions, at some level, they were her comrades-in-arms. Her brothers and sisters who had chosen to turn their backs upon what had made them. If it had been anyone else she had been ordered to kill, would she have been as compliant?
Would she have obeyed if she had been ordered to kill one of the Onyx Spartan-IIIs?
Or if the target was a member of Blue Team?
Or if that target was John?
Kelly gave a grunt as she banished such thoughts from her head. She couldn't think of this. This was not what she was ordered to do. There could be no room for doubt. She had her orders and they made sense. For now. She wasn't the one who was broken.
But she was going to have to kill the one who was.
A/N: I can say that I've been having to go back to the original Nylund trilogy quite a bit to get some of the details and quotes exactly right. If nothing else, this has been rekindling my interest in the Halo books, which have mostly been excellent.
Playlist:
Infinity Landing Pad
"To Ilus"
Clinton Shorter
The Expanse (Season 4) (Music from the Amazon Series)
Introducing... Phoenix
"Wallace"
Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer
Blade Runner 2049 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Barracks Vision (Kelly's Theme)
"Proud Nation"
James Horner
Thunderheart (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
