XI: Talking Loud, Saying Nothing
"Hey, That's Mine"


Arbogast
Arbor I Docks - Docking Area B91

The docks of Arbor I were a monolithic-like structure that seemed to puncture the earth like a fractalized pyramid of deep gray metal. It was the size of a skyscraper and was sloped in odd places, terminating along a parallelogram-like edge at the very top, with multiple bays on several levels sized large enough to fly ships the size of troop carriers into. One of those bays housed a prowler, its engines slowly darkening after propelling it across lightyears to reach this place.

Heat was still warping off the panels of the Nighthawk by the time Kelly and Furan strode down the ramp and onto the deck. Several UNSC mechanics had already begun racing towards the prowler, some of them touting loops of hoses around their bodies while others drove mechanized carts filled with tools. The Spartan and Elite paid the mechanics no mind as they avoided the downward geysers of steam that hissed from the diffusion ports upon the ship. Through this ethereal white forest, they began to stomp down the ramp that looped around the platform the Nighthawk was now resting upon, the path of which was vaguely in the shape of a python constricting its meal.

They reached the bottom of the dock level, where the sloping ramp dropped them off. It was like they were at the base of a deep-sea trench where the tall plinths that were the landing pads seemed like massive rock pillars etched away by time and pressure. They followed the painted arrows on the ground and on the walls, which led them to the elevator further back from the bay. The lift was sized for cargo, judging by the fact that it was large enough that it could squeeze a Scorpion tank in it, that is, if the tank had its turret removed.

Kelly and Furan stepped inside. They were the lift's only occupants. The Spartan palmed the controls for the elevator and selected the ground floor. The Spartan noted the two cameras mounted on opposing ends of the lift.

A holographic screen then appeared just above the elevator codes. A virtual face devoid of gender or emotion appeared upon it.

"Please submit identification and clearance code, visitor."

Kelly paused before giving a small grunt.

"Spartan-087. Iota-level clearance. Transmitting near-field credentials."

She pinged her suit's ident code for a few seconds. Any device that could pick up the digital signature would be able to read it in that period of time. The face on the screen grew blank and, after a moment, gave a nod.

"Approved, Spartan-087."

There was a distinct beat, in which for a brief second, Kelly thought the lift had malfunctioned. However, that proved to not be the case, as there was a tremendous screeching sound and the elevator gently began the descent downward.

The elevator was slow—Kelly estimated it would take a good ten minutes to reach the ground. She and Furan headed over to the far end, where there was a window so that they could look outside while they descended.

A constant storm of rust-colored dust hurtled through the air on Arbogast, but it was all closely concentrated to the moon's surface. At around the halfway point up the docks, the air remained clear and fresh. The storm below looked like a bubbling pit of reddish mud, swirling in an angered fracas. As the lift dropped, its passengers were descending deeper and deeper into the quagmire until they were consumed in the thick haze that made it seem like they had just been doused with molten clay. Now that they were in the storm, they could see a motley collection of yellow sodium lighting from the facility's structures down below, an amber swarm that struggled to pierce the fog.

Kelly had reviewed the schematics of the facility before arriving on Arbogast. Arbor I was a primarily underground facility—the thin atmosphere in combination with the ever-present debris blowing around made walking around outside a contentious affair, even with full-body protection. The docks were the only manmade structures that had been built tall enough to rise above the lowland storms.

The two stood in silence as they seemed to play the same game of trying to ascertain when they could see the planet's surface approach to meet them. Furan cast a sideways glance at Kelly when they were about two minutes from their level.

"I would have thought there would be more guards," she said over their private COM channel.

Kelly did not turn away from the window. "There doesn't need to be. My HUD's picked up at least seven different active monitoring system devices embedded in this elevator, not counting the cameras. Security is being taken seriously. Perhaps too seriously, for an out-of-the-way facility like Arbor I."

"You think it means they have something to hide. A clandestine laboratory, no doubt."

Perhaps not even clandestine, the Spartan thought.

"Of sorts," Kelly agreed. "We'll know more when we have a look around."

Furan then eyed the empty port at the back of Kelly's helmet. On Odarferr, the Elite had noted that there had been a tiny electric blue glow there that had emanated in a steady throb. Now, there was nothing but errant blackness.

"You did not believe that your construct would be able to assist in our search, I presume?" Furan noted wryly.

Now, Kelly slowly turned her head, the raging dust storm outside creating reflections of vortexes upon her visor. "I entertained Armitage's request once. I will not do so a second time. He stays on the ship."

"You don't trust it."

"Trust isn't a specialty of mine."

Kelly had her own reasons for not including the AI as an equal-share partner on this mission. For one, she had not yet gotten used to the sensation of something with so forceful of a personality essentially taking up real estate in her head. She didn't know how John could ever manage. Secondly, it had never sat right with her that the AI was built by ONI, worked for ONI, and carried the expectation that he wanted to be aware of anything and everything that involved either him or the people he was traveling with, much like ONI. In essence, the AI was a spook and Kelly didn't like spooks. She had made the mistake of allowing the AI a glimpse into her world, but as long as she was alive, it would be the last.

The elevator then landed on the ground floor, which was technically a few levels underneath the surface of Arbogast. The large steel door groaned before it then automatically unlocked and slid to the side. Kelly and Furan stepped out, their hands now filled with their armaments.

Kelly slotted in a final shell into her shotgun and pumped the slide. Furan had a fully-powered plasma rifle that she had liberated from the storeroom on Odarferr without Kelly noticing at first. When Furan had come clean about her theft, Spartan had allowed the Elite to keep the weapon because of the alien's honesty, and also because the weapon had been lacking a battery when it had been stolen, rendering it as useful as a club. She had let Furan jury-rig a new battery from their supplies, out of consideration to their situation. While Furan had demonstrated her proficiency with a gun, the truth was that the human-made firearms were clumsily handled in the Elite's far-bigger hands. They looked almost like toys when she held them. A plasma rifle would eliminate that clumsiness and would enable the Elite to become a far more effective member in her squad, if not more accurate.

They came upon a security checkpoint with a full-body scanner. The area was manned by five guards, two of them with dogs that looked like crossbreeds. Kelly could see the influence of husky and German Shepherd in the two animals. The dogs immediately went berserk as the two soldiers approached. Their barking echoed wetly through the long halls. Their jaws, filled with gnashing and shaped teeth, snapped shut over and over again, the sound like hollow branches knocking together, white drool spraying as if they were on the verge of becoming rabid.

Kelly flinched at the sound, but the involuntary reaction had been masked by her armored figure. The drill instructors back on Reach had used dogs to hunt down trainees in the forest during SERE training with the promise that they would unleash the animals onto them if they caught them. No one ever got mauled by the dogs of course, but the sound of their howling and barking had been enough to drive the hairs on the back of Kelly's neck up without fail.

The soldiers were struggling to rein in their dogs as they strained forward, but it soon became clear that the target of their blind fury was Furan. The dogs had undoubtedly been trained to sniff out alien invaders. The Elite's knees bent slightly, preparing for the worst. Kelly, who had not broken stride, forged a path ahead.

One of the guards stepped forward. "You're going to need to register—"

"Not likely," Kelly cut him off, not in the mood to deal with red tape today. "We're going to pass through. Unimpeded. You have my credentials. You know I have the authority."

The guard opened his mouth, but seemed to quickly realize that there were more important battles to fight and closed it. His eyes then flicked over to Furan, understandably wary. "The Elite's with you, then?"

Kelly almost wanted to level a snarky reply back. Something along the lines of pointing out that the Elite was clearly not attacking anyone despite its close proximity and that any moron with an ounce of critical thinking could infer from her simultaneous arrival with the Spartan that they had indeed came here as a pair.

But that would not do, so Kelly swallowed her annoyance back down.

"She is," Kelly affirmed. She then pointed to the dogs, who were still howling their heads off while Furan was backing up a few steps to remain out of reach. "And if those things so much as drool on either of us, I won't hesitate to shoot them. Clear?"

There was a noticeable paling in the guard's face. "Quite," he mustered. "Yessir." The prospect of the Spartan killing the dogs clearly did not sit well with the man. They had cost quite a lot of time and money to train.

He then signaled the other guards to stand down. One of them said something to the dogs in another language, it sounded like Czech to Kelly, and the animals immediately quieted and sat on their haunches like their recent fury had been nothing but a trifling spell.

They headed past the guards, neither of them sparing a look at their faces. They took several winding turns down bland corridors and mundane locales all varying colors of beige. Eventually, the hallway straightened out and a set of sliding doors now acted as the final roadblock roughly twenty meters away.

Furan was now fiddling with the portable FOF tag she was still carrying about her neck. "This really isn't serving me much good, is it?"

"I'd keep it on," Kelly suggested, eyes ever forward. "No telling what this facility is going to be like. For all we know, we're walking into the hornet's—"

The sliding doors parted and the sounds of populace battered the two in the face.

Compared to the controlled affair back at the checkpoint, what Kelly and Furan were looking at now was just insanity. Seemingly without warning, they had now been thrust into what was a broad avenue filled to the brim with shops and restaurants, all billowing neon light and music from speakers so old that the sound came out as distorted and crackling. The place was teeming with passerby and revelry, humans in and out of uniforms, casually commiserating amongst themselves or staunchly marching to whatever post they had in mind.

The closest place next to them was a bar. A few soldiers staggered out from the entryway, their uniforms in disarray. They were all singing the same song, quite badly. If their impeded balance did not betray their drunkenness, then their inability to sing in key certainly did.

"—nest," Kelly finished, but the word was lost over the thrum of the crowd.

They had to step out of the way to let an electric people-mover by. The rubber tires threatened to run over their toes and the driver of the enlarged cart tapped the horn irritably, wondering for the umpteenth time how some people could not exercise good spatial awareness. Were Kelly a bit more impulsive, she would have considered providing the driver with an ancient human gesture that meant ill things upon his person, but let the moment pass as the people-mover was doing just that.

The Spartan and the Elite certainly stuck out like a sore thumb, which was only natural considering they were several heads taller than anyone in sight. Interestingly, no one seemed to be startled at all upon realizing that Furan was in their midst. Intoxication might have been a reason. Either that, or they were simply immersed in whatever mundaneness of their life that hardly any deviation served to shake them from their reverie.

A group of armored Marines marched past the two. They did not give Kelly or Furan a glance. Furan's head tracked them as they went by.

"Members of the garrison," she observed.

"Intermingled with civilians," Kelly also noted darkly as she saw a gaggle of teenagers emerge from one of the shops, dressed in loose-fitting clothing and laughing amongst themselves. "They have families here. In this place."

"Does that change things?" Furan asked.

Kelly considered the question before shaking her head.

"No."

They debouched down the boulevard with a purpose, their long strides and powerful forms easily acting as incentive to have the crowd part before them. It was strange with no one taking issue to their presence, but they counted it as one of the few times good fortune smiled upon them. They passed by a variety of stores, which offered everything from liquor to cranial-games and collectibles. Kelly only gave cursory glances towards the windowed displays, mentally using the signage to formulate landmarks as she passed them by.

On a primal level, this place was fascinating to observe. A blind street trumpeter near a terraced garden belted out a jazzy tune while passerby clinked company scrip into the upturned cap at his feet. At some of the rowdier establishments, the sounds of fights breaking out and furniture being disassembled could be discerned. Over in the corner near one of the emergency exits, some kids were playing video games on their handheld devices. Advertisements draped in bloated neon hues beckoned to anyone who came within range, urging them to empty their pockets to spend on whatever fashionable item had been allotted to this backwater planet, despite the inherent luxury all around them.

As they walked, Kelly noticed that there were more civilians in this location than soldiers. That sat odd with her. Being around civvies had always made Kelly uncomfortable. They were just as alien to her as Furan was. They were not in the military life—not yet, for some of the younger ones—but regardless, many of them would have experiences and occupations that Kelly could never dream of obtaining. Kelly inherently knew what would be expected of these men and women in their day-to-day lives—wake up to go to work so that they could be paid in order to survive—but despite all her knowledge, she was always unable to put herself into their shoes, and that never failed to unnerve her.

Yet another bar was in the process of being passed, though Kelly's path had quickly become intercepted by a gaggle of drunks—Marines, judging by the uniforms—exiting from the establishment. They quickly noticed Kelly and their expressions all slacked at the same time, which had a humorous effect.

"A Spartan? Oh shiiiieeet!" The closest loudmouth lurched, spilling a quarter of the beer he had clenched in his hand. He was too inebriated to notice.

"God damn, you are one tall senorita!" another blurted out. "You probably get all the attention outta that suit, eh?"

Great, Kelly thought to herself as she pushed past the men, not even bothering to grunt in their direction. This again.

"Wait!" one of them cried out behind her as he tried to disentangle himself from his mates in a futile attempt to follow. "Are you a -III or a -IV? I'm trying to collect you guys' autogra—"

Kelly rounded a corner, mercifully silencing the incessant bleating from the drunks.

Quizzical as ever, Furan swung her head behind to check if they were being followed.

"Fleeing the adoration?" the Elite asked with a hint of amusement.

"It's all artificial, anyway," Kelly gruffly replied as she soldiered on, concentrating on the signage that seemed to be leading them in a constant circle around this consumer-heavy hellhole.

The Elite got into lock-step alongside the Spartan.

"Searching for anything in particular?"

"Yeah. Whoever's in charge around here."

In the next minute, they both became aware of fast-paced footfalls off in the distance. An out-of-breath officer in his forties jogged over a small rise in the path, his head frantically scanning to and fro. When he locked eyes with the Spartan, he immediately wheeled in her direction like he was a shark that had just honed in on its prey.

"Looks like they've been looking for you," Furan offered rather unhelpfully.

The officer skidded to a stop in front of them and bent for a moment to catch his breath. He was red-faced and sweating. Kelly wondered how long the man had been running around the area like a hamster trapped in its wheel.

"Spartan," the man wheezed as he straightened back up. He had an accent similar to Kelly's, but it was not as clipped and every now and then a drawl raked through his words, elongating his "rs", specifically. "Sorry for… not meeting you… at the pad. We only just… found out about… your arrival."

Kelly held up a hand as the man continued to splutter for a bit. "Relax. Slow down, and take a breath." She frowned as soon as she spotted the insignia of a lieutenant on the man's shoulder, realizing that she had technically just given an officer an order.

The man did not seem to notice the unintended slight. He bobbed his head, agreeing with Kelly's suggestion, and quickly combed his short brown hair with his fingers. He was clean-shaven and fit, though his uniform was wrinkled and unwashed. There was a determinate youth that belied his age, though he wore his years in his very gaze.

"Right. Well, in case no one has said it to you, welcome to Arbor I, Spartan-087. I'm Lieutenant…" He pointed to a spot on his lapel where his nametag would ordinarily be fastened, but seemed to realize at the last moment that he was pointing to a bare spot on his chest. "Son of a…" he blurted out, amazed. "Must have fallen off somewhere. When did that happen…?"

This was getting off-topic quickly, so Kelly felt she had to intervene. "If it's all the same," she said, "I'll just call you 'Lieutenant.'"

One less name, one less connection she would have to make. No doubt she would not see this man again once she was done on this moon.

The lieutenant seemed about to protest, as he looked quite crestfallen, but eventually seemed to relent. "Okay, then."

"I'm looking for the leadership in charge of this facility, lieutenant. I've been sent by ONI as part of an ongoing investigation and I will need to speak to the individual in command as soon as possible."

"Governor Ishir, then," the lieutenant nodded sagely.

"Yes. He'll suffice. Where can we find him? His office?"

The man pulled a face and gave a not-unsubtle look over his shoulder. He seemed rather fearful that he was being monitored or that a sniper had his head in their crosshairs somewhere.

"You're speaking with me, lieutenant," Kelly gently reminded him. "Only me."

"Right," the man bobbed his head. "Right, yeah. Of course." He cleared his throat. "The governor's… not in his office at this time."

"You know that for a fact?"

"He… he never spends any time there."

Kelly took a deliberate step forward. She was now inches away from the lieutenant, close enough that it no longer seemed like he was talking to a human, but a massive mecha instead. Kelly gazed at the man's gulping face through her visor, knowing that all he could see was his own fearful reflection.

"So. Where can I find him?"


Marineris Klinik

The club was on the level below them in a quieter section of the facility with less foot-traffic around them. The three of them stood in front of a pair of lacquered maple doors with brass handles while constantly throbbing bass beats bled from inside. Two bouncers flanked the doors, their faces scrunched and resembling slabs of meat at a butcher's shop.

"Marineris Klinik," the lieutenant pointed. "Governor Ishir spends most of his days here, along with the majority of his staff. It's… um…"

He turned to Kelly.

"I need to warn you, you're going to see some stuff inside that you're not going to like."

"Why? Are they committing murders in there?"

The Spartan's extremely dry humor did not seem to register with the man, who did not even crack a smile.

"Look. You said that ONI sent you, right? I'm not sure how much they know, but I'd expect they would assume that Arbor I is a squeaky-clean outpost that lives up to their stringent standards. But what Ishir tells them and what really happens here… the reality is far from the fabricated image he projects. I just… I want you to be prepared when you step inside. You need to understand that I had no power to stop any of it."

Kelly lifted a hand and placed it on the lieutenant's shoulder, mostly to stop him from babbling. The gesture, though affectionate, must have been strangely synthetic if not a little intimidating. Her armored hand was not exactly the most comfortable thing in the world.

"I wouldn't have expected anything less," she simply said as she headed toward the doors.

The bouncers looked, for one moment, like they were actually considering trying to impede the Spartan's way as she approached. But, at the last second, logic and their sense of self-preservation finally won out and they stepped aside. Kelly mustered past them, Furan and the lieutenant trotting closely behind, and she grasped the enlarged handles of the club doors and swung them open.

An enormous space of what seemed to be pure blackness welcomed them, only to be disintegrated into flashing white panes of light in the next instant as multiple strobe lamps flared, causing the interior to be subject to a spasmodic trance of a low framerate rave. Blacklight bars glowed a deep purple upon the walls and ceilings, illuminating any phosphors in the area and causing them to unnaturally glow. The club was kept dark to both hide the grime that had accumulated and to project a sense of anonymity of the patrons, who danced like featureless shadows as they waved their hands in all directions while jumping up and down in the middle of this hallucinogenic sprawl.

The music pulsated, driving the rhythm deep through Kelly's bones, warping around her joints. Dark synth noises, such as electronic drums and gated reverbs, sludged through the club as though the patrons were swimming in noise. It was a very unappealing sound to Kelly's ears and she fought to keep from wincing as she slowly stalked her way through the club, her movements slow and robotic as she stood amongst the dancers, who seemed unstartled by her presence.

Projected all over the place were a multitude of physically perfect women in various stages of undress (or in some cases, total). Holographic, of course, but their movements were rather lifelike and they effortlessly blended in with the ravers. The Spartan paid them no mind and even walked through some of the strippers when they occasionally floated into her path. The rest moved around her like they were apparitions, drawing unnerved noises from Furan behind her, which no one else could hear.

Kelly's mind was on red alert as she methodically scanned the club. She switched to infrared and the dance floor lit up red-hot with the masses of undulating bodies surging to and fro. Between the music and the undulating throng of dancers, the sheer amount of stimuli here was almost triggering her battlefield instincts. Nearly everyone was holding a drink of some kind, sinking eagerly into a state of intoxication that tempted to liberate them from their troubles. In a U-shaped booth nearby, several couples were making out. Many people were also smoking around the club. Kelly's HUD scanned the carcinogens in the air and determined that cigarettes and marijuana were the result of the burning vapors in the air. Even if one deliberately did not consume anything debilitating in this place, they still had a good chance of walking away with a contact high. Good thing her helmet filtered out airborne toxins.

She peered in the direction of a corner lit by a lone lamp that oozed the color of a volcano that gradually brightened and darkened to its own slow tempo. A mountain of half-naked men and women were all leaning against each other underneath the lamp, sweat shimmering upon their skin. From this distance, Kelly could see the glint of needles being passed between the patrons. One of them was eagerly inhaling the contents of a bong.

There was a tap on her shoulder. She turned. The lieutenant was pointing over to another corner, where a series of leather beanbag chairs had been arranged against a wall of mirrors.

"Ishir's the one in the middle," the lieutenant tried to holler above the music.

Kelly couldn't actually hear him, but the software in her HUD subtitled his words at the bottom from the visual cues his lips made.

She provided a nod, acknowledging that she heard him. She then headed towards the governor.

Ishir was a bearded man of about thirty, with olive skin, and wore old-fashioned wireframe glasses. He was dressed in a fine suit of white silk that seemed to take qualities from a robe, judging by how loosely it hung about him. Kelly wasn't big on fashion, but she estimated that such a suit probably cost about as much as an average miner's yearly salary.

The governor was surrounded by his entourage—five men and three women—who seemed to be clinging onto his every word as he regaled the group with his latest anecdote, which must have been quite the tale considering how animatedly his hands were moving around. One of his hands held a mouthpiece to a nearby clay hookah. The base of the hookah was clear, showing the warmed coals that heated the water base. A few of the men were taking pulls from the device. Smoke like thick gray liquid seeped from their mouths.

When Kelly had gotten within five feet, Ishir stopped talking and just stared at her. No doubt he was curious as to why he was talking to a nearly seven-foot-tall Spartan in such an environment that was not ordinarily the locale of choice for someone in her profession. The governor took note of the array of weapons that had been fastened to Kelly's armor and also to the Elite who hung back just over her shoulder.

Ishir raised his hand, holding a remote control. He pressed a button on it, and the background noise immediately died down to a muted warble. The sensation was akin to suddenly being submerged. Whoever owned the club had the foresight to install conical zones of audio-dampening fields so that some form of conversation could occur.

The governor's eyes flicked over and found the man standing at Kelly's side. "Lieutenant," he said, "who have you brought me? Yet another devotee? As you can see, I have so many already."

Kelly's eyes narrowed. This wasn't the first civilian governor she had ever encountered before. She had yet to meet one she liked. They had all been so arrogant and Ishir seemed to be cut from the same cloth.

The lieutenant pulled a sheepish face as he looked from Ishir to Kelly. "Sir, this is—"

"Governor Ishir," Kelly took a step forward, blocking out some of the strobing lights behind her. "I have orders from ONI to carry out a mission of the utmost importance. I'm going to request that we head to your office now. The matter I wish to discuss cannot wait."

The governor took a pull from one of the hookah's mouthpieces. Smoke bubbled in his mouth like it was a broth in a cauldron. He blew a thin stream of the vapor. "This place is as good as any," he spread his arms wide and put them around two women, whom Kelly now realized looked suspiciously young to be in a club like this. "You can tell me what it is that you wish to say right here."

"This conversation would be better suited to take place in private," Kelly nearly growled.

Ishir's previously genial disposition was slowly turning darker. He removed his arms from around the women that flanked him and set them in his lap, folded together.

"I don't think so," he said. "ONI or no, I don't really feel like leaving this club at such an awkward hour. I don't wish to be rude to my guests here when they specifically came to be with me." He waggled his fingers at Kelly. "You can wait outside like the good little lapdog you are until I'm ready to depart. You see, Spartan, no one interrupts my free time here. Not even you."

What Ishir did not realize is that he had tested the last of Kelly's patience. The Spartan was in no mood to prolong her time here by even the smallest interval. The fact that this man was stonewalling her out of sheer laziness was the last straw.

She walked over and kicked the hookah, shattering the bowl and spraying scalding water across the floor. One of the hoses whipped out of the hands of one of the men that was using it, striking him in the cheek and giving him a nasty welt.

Kelly menacingly turned to Ishir. Light rolled across the surface of her visor. "Wasn't a suggestion."

The governor scowled. "I was afraid of that." He raised the remote again but this time he spoke into it like it was a microphone. "Get security over to my position. Got a belligerent that's giving me too much attention."

The brashness was so sudden that Kelly was momentarily dumbstruck by how appallingly stupid the governor's reaction was. But there was no more time to be consumed by outrage. Four Marines, perhaps the only ones in the city who still wore their uniforms according to regs, were now approaching Kelly from behind. They carried assault rifles and pistols, and they slowly moved through the crowd like they were wildcats about to pounce on unsuspecting prey.

Kelly walked over to Furan. The Elite slowly edged a hand to her plasma rifle, which was shrouded in darkness at her hip. "Non-lethal or lethal?" she asked the Spartan.

"Let's go with non-lethal, for a change," Kelly answered.

"I can work with that. On your cue."

The lieutenant approached the Spartan, his face ashen. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah," Kelly said. "You should give us some space."

The oncoming Marines had now cleared the thickest clump of dancers and were now coming up to the governor's private booth area. Their weapons were pointed downward at an angle. Smart of them, considering that firing a gun in such a congested area was just asking for a bystander to be hit by crossfire.

One of the Marines reached to his belt and produced a pair of electro-cuffs. "Get on your knees and put your hands—"

He never finished his sentence, for Kelly suddenly sprang off her feet and closed the distance between them before the soldier could blink. She had timed the movement perfectly to the drop of the electronic music that was surging throughout the club. The Spartan grabbed the Marine's assault rifle and shunted it upward. The panicked Marine clenched down on the trigger and a concussive volley of automatic fire sprayed the ceiling with chattering thumps. The crosses of flames from the barrel joined in the phantasmagoria that was in revelry within Kelly's golden visor.

The patrons screamed and all dropped to the floor nearly in unison upon realizing that gunfire was blazing in the room. The dance music continued to pound away, but the only audience moving to its steady beat were Kelly, Furan, and the Marines that were trying to take them into custody.

The Marine was still shooting the ceiling as Kelly continued to hold his weapon in place. Kelly twisted and landed an open-handed strike to the man's sternum. She had to pull the punch, otherwise she would have caved in the soldier's ribcage. Regardless, the man flew through the air and landed upon an empty patch of dance floor and skidded on his back for an additional half-dozen feet. He had released his grip on the assault rifle right when he had been shoved away—Kelly was still clinging onto it by the foregrip. Quickly, she took the rifle in both hands and broke it two over her knee. Shattered bits of the barrel and firing mechanism sprinkled the ground at her feet. She dropped the unusable rifle pieces.

At the same time, Furan had been using her plasma rifle as a bludgeoning weapon. She had swung it at the pistol of the closest Marine, the blow hard enough to knock the weapon cleanly out of his hands. The Elite then twisted around in a 360-degree spin and brought her leg up at an upward angle while making her torso almost parallel to the ground. The lashing kick caught the Marine in the jaw perfectly and knocked him unconscious instantaneously. He too spun around and collapsed in a heap. Lights out.

The Marine in between Kelly and Furan turned to fire on the Elite, having to decided between one target or the other. Kelly's agitation shot up a notch. The Elite was being a good sport by trying not to kill the humans. The soldiers stationed here had no such qualms, however.

With a speed that could only have come from practice maintained over a span of decades, Kelly reached up and flipped Oathsworn over her shoulder so that it was nestled into a prime firing position in less than two seconds. She only needed half a second more to aim at the Marine, but she could only aim at his side. That was not going to be good enough, she needed a cleaner shot.

So, she had to improvise.

Kelly flicked the flashlight on her helmet on and off. The Marine's head turned to look at the disturbance and his eyes widened to the size of saucers when he saw the Spartan levelling a shotgun at him.

"Hey," Kelly said.

The Marine turned his body to face her.

Kelly fired.

The beanbag round sailed through the air and smashed the Marine in the chest. His breath left his lungs in an instant. He also lost his grip on his own weapon as well. The resulting force had been so fierce that he had been driven against a nearby support column. With his back against a firm surface, the Marine gasped for breath as he slowly slid down to the ground, the instinct to fight having all but vanished from his mind.

The final Marine in the club had come to the realization that the rest of his team had been incapacitated by the Spartan and the Elite, so he was having second thoughts about his career as a whole up until this point. Furan was not in the mood to embark into a spate of negotiations, as she quickly strode up to him with a foul look emblazoned in her eyes.

"W-Wait…" the soldier said as he dropped his gun and lifted his hands. "I was just following—"

Furan grabbed the Marine by his armor and hurled him so hard towards the nearest blacked-out window that the safety glass shattered around his body as he went right through it and back out into the pedestrian boulevard. He hit the ground on the other side, rolled, and chose to remain there for a while, bloodied, but alive. In the distance, a few shrieks could be heard from passerby who had just seen a man get bodily chucked through a window. Kelly would have figured that such a sight here happened on the regular.

A thick shaft of light from the gray-toned hallway outside streamed into the club. Most of the dancers had left by now, all having mobbed out the front doors in a panic. But there was no one left to stop Kelly having a polite but firm conversation with Ishir.

Or so she thought. One of the governor's entourage—a shirtless man slicked up from body oil—either from an overinflated sense of bravado or a mind zapped by drugs, chose to stand up from where he had been laying and walked right up to the Spartan. With a determined grimace, he cocked his arm back and, giving a grunt for good measure, hurled his fist forward with all the power he could muster towards Kelly.

There was a substantial clang as the man's knuckles bounced right off of Kelly's chestplate, accompanying by a brutal series of crunching noises as every single one of the man's fingers shattered from punching MJOLNIR armor.

The idiot stared at his ruined hand for a moment, which was just beginning to drip blood. He had cut it quite badly from skinning his fingers along the solid armor. The man then began to sink toward the ground as he yelled out in pain, clutching his useless appendage. Kelly simply pushed the man aside with a casual brush of her own hand—the man flopped to the ground.

Ishir was standing by now, his hands half-raised in the universal position of surrender. "Hold on, now. We can come to an understan—hey!"

Kelly had grabbed the governor by the lapels of his coat and now proceeded to force-walk him out of the club. There were tiny ripping noises emitting as the Spartan's firmly clenched hands dug into the fine fabric. Ishir, for his part, was incensed at the carefree treatment of his wardrobe.

"Are you insane?! This suit is Italian! And it's insured! I'll sue you for any damages garnered, you hear me!"

"Good luck with that," Kelly said as she frog-marched Ishir out the club doors and into the halls of Arbor I. The lieutenant hung back to briefly apologize to the club's management for the disruption. Furan joined Kelly shortly afterward. The Elite looked pleased with herself, having gotten the blood pumping from being in a short skirmish like that.

"Come on," Ishir was still bleating while in Kelly's custody. "This is just unreasonable. We can start over. What do you want to know? I'll cooperate, I swear."

A bit more like it. But too little, too late. She was already pissed off by this man's conduct.

"What do I want to know?" Kelly asked sarcastically. "To start, where's your office?"


Governor's Office

Ishir had done rather well for himself. His office was down on the administrative levels, far from the wandering eyes of the casual populace above. The trappings that he had adorned his little sector with were rich wood examples of cabinetry accented with gold and deep, plush carpeting the color of blue Russian leather.

The room was shaped like a trapezoidal prism—a long and curved desk greeted visitors as they walked in, which was made out of a dark hardwood. Over to the side, a massive hologram of Sonatine and its moon Arbogast lazily rotated as if they were the singular subject of an enlarged mobile. Just behind the desk area was a half-level about six feet higher than the ground "level" of the room. A barebones staircase made up of just steps that jutted from the wall at the side of the room marked the way up, which led to a conference area replete with burgundy leather couches and potted palm plants.

Kelly led Ishir over to his chair behind the desk so that he could sit down. She walked over to the opposite end of the table, preferring to stand. Furan was stalking around the place in the background, idly leafing through some of the ancient paper books that populated the governor's bookshelf. Kelly could see, even from this distance that the book the Elite had picked out was a classic Joseph Conrad novel. The lieutenant was waiting outside, acting as a deterrent for any of the other members of the entourage in case they decided to come calling.

Ishir was glaring at Kelly all the while, as if daring her to speak first. Kelly just stood with her hands clasped together, the embodiment of patience.

When Furan had seemingly grown bored with looking at Ishir's books, she went to the staircase to take a look at the half-level above.

Ishir rotated his chair a quarter. "Hey. Hey! Keep right down here where I can see you!"

Furan looked at Kelly. Kelly slowly shook her head and made a quick gesture with her hand. Furan nodded and kept traveling up the staircase until she was out of sight.

Infuriated, Ishir turned his chair back to Kelly. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to regain his composure.

"Do you realize that all I have to do is make one call and that would be enough to ensure you get saddled with so many court-martials that you'll never be able to step foot off of Earth for the rest of your life?"

"You could," Kelly said. "But you won't."

"Is that a provocation?"

"It's whatever you decide it to be. But I suspect that you know that my arrival here was not entirely unwarranted, nor should you assume that my actions lack endorsement."

Ishir's lips twisted into a knowing grin, which was only exacerbated by the warm light of the midcentury-style lamps that flanked either side of the desk. "ONI as the endorsement, you mean? Quite a big stick to be waving around. Subtlety isn't exactly the trait of a Spartan, I take it?"

Kelly ignored the comment. She reached down into one of the pouches at her hip and withdrew the vial containing the drug compound she had taken from Odarferr. She deliberately set it upon Ishir's desk.

The governor eyed the vial studiously. "What's this?"

"A newly-discovered dissociative. Lab-created. It's called SN 92305."

"I see. And? Is this the prelude to you accusing me of being behind the creation of this drug?"

"Is there any reason why I should accuse you?" Kelly asked pointedly. She didn't bother waiting for an answer. "The creation of SN 92305 was traced to Arbogast. To one of the UNSC-run labs embedded in this facility or at one of the nearby bases. I have personally witnessed it as being the origin of an epidemic among Marine forces in contested areas. My intention, at this moment, is to find the individuals responsible for its creation and distribution."

Ishir waved a hand. "So it seems you are pointing the finger at the UNSC for this so-called epidemic, Spartan. Not really something that concerns me, as I don't oversee lab operations."

"Perhaps," Kelly said. "But the governorship of Arbogast is not selected via democratic process. Your installation was in fact initiated by the UNSC. To that end, if it is determined that the creation of SN 92305 was carried out on this moon, and if it can be proven that you were aware of it, then you can certainly be included in the charges pertaining to Article 72b of the Naval Code of Military Justice. Manufacture and distribution will get you ten years at the minimum and the penalties can only go up from there. So if you have any information that might be deemed pertinent to my investigation, I'd suggest you cooperate."

The governor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He straightened in his seat, perhaps in a futile attempt to find his courage. He leaned forward, his elbows on his desk.

"I already told you. I don't know anything about this drug."

"Have any Spartans other than myself visited the facility in the past year?"

"Hard to say," Ishir smirked, like he knew a dastardly secret. "They all look like you? Pushy, no-nonsense, that kind of thing?"

"Yes or no, governor."

"No, damn you. What else do I have to tell you to proclaim my innocence? I'm as much in the dark here as you are."

The Spartan frowned. The governor was clearly protecting something—his snide antics weren't working as well as he hoped they would. But she had the sneaking suspicion that she was just wasting time by trying to pursue any leads from this man. Ishir was just too combative, too protective of his status, to be of much use to her. Not to mention, even if he did have any information that he could use, it would all be made redundant anyway in the next several hours.

"So you say," Kelly said, deliberately making sure that her words were infused with a slight mocking tone. She reached over and picked the vial back up and slid it into the pouch from where she had procured it. Then, she decided to test Ishir before this conversation was concluded. "I suppose if there's any proof, I'll come across it when I visit the wavespace dish array later on."

"Wait, the wavespace array?!" Ishir jumped to his feet, which wasn't very intimidating considering Kelly still had at least a couple of feet on him. "I don't give a shit if you're ONI or not, you're certainly not authorized to go to that sector!"

Kelly tilted her head. The inference to Ishir's drug hadn't distressed him as much as her casual mention of the array. This was intriguing. "And why is that?"

"You mean no one told you? Christ, and you automatically presume me to be an absolute moron."

I don't have to presume, was on the tip of Kelly's tongue, but she bit the words back. "Tell me what?"

Ishir's hands waved dramatically. "The array is sealed off. Restricted. There was an industrial accident some months back and the interior of the array became contaminated. No one gets in or out. That's not my decree, by the way. That's ONI's. Check it if you doubt me."

The Spartan indeed doubted Ishir, but also had to accept that if the governor had been mentioning ONI as a stalling tactic to head her off, then he would know that his ruse would be uncovered almost immediately if Kelly desired any sort of confirmation from official channels. Still, she did not think that any such restrictions that ONI placed on this one wavespace array would overrule the sort of clearance they had provided her with in order to kill the members of the Phoenix Unit. Any and all fears about being stonewalled here quickly vanished into the ether.

Also, she thought, if there was an accident on this planet, I would have seen the report. It would have been flagged. No one could miss it.

"Checking will not be necessary," she said. "But I don't need your permission to visit the facility for myself."

"There are mercenaries posted at the facility entrances, with orders to shoot anyone who approaches!"

"I've dealt with worse."

Ishir was now leaning over the table, his outstretched hands facing upward like he was trying to grab the collar of Kelly's armor. "It is for your own good, Spartan. I can have this whole base come down around your head, if that's what it takes to get you to stay here."

"And the more you protest," Kelly countered, "makes me more inclined to leave."

They locked gazes from across the desk. Each one studied the other. Kelly's own anger was cold and concentrated, burrowed deep within her spine. Ishir's own anger was boiling hot—the man was shaking from being in the presence of someone who clearly disrespected his authority.

"You goddamned bitch," Ishir whispered. "I'm trying to help you."

Kelly began to turn to leave. "This conversation is over."

"Not yet," Furan's voice from the upper half-level resounded.

Both Kelly and Ishir looked up. The Elite was striding down the stairs, gripping a large and heavy black box by its singular handle. Furan's eyes locked upon the governor throughout her entire descent. Kelly had known the alien long enough to know that she was even more furious than anyone else in the room and wondered what had gotten her all riled up.

Ishir seemed to hone in on the box that Furan was carrying. "Oh, come on!" he cried out in exasperation. "What's mine is mine! You can't just waltz in and take stuff that doesn't belong—"

"Yours?" Furan rasped, her voice quiet but shuddering with a note of rage that gave it a deep resonance. "Yours?!"

The man swallowed, unnerved by the Elite, but managed to summon an ounce of courage. "Yes. Mine. I bought it, fair and square. Someone had let their lease on a storage cube lapse and when it was time to repossess its contents, they found that inside. I made a bid and won. By law, it's mine."

There was a startling clumping noise as Furan let the handle of the box slip from her grip, enabling the massive black block to drop to the ground.

Kelly had been quiet this whole time, but now she stepped forward towards Furan, curious at this new development. "Furan, what did you find?"

The Elite did not directly address Kelly's question. Instead, she bent down, undid the clasps to the box, and with a vengeful fury, threw open the top to reveal its contents. To Ishir, Furan snarled, "And what would you have used this for?! Decoration?!"

The Spartan walked up to the box so that she could peer inside it. It was full of discombobulated armor pieces inside. The armor was scuffed to a dull matte, gray with slashes of crimson at the collar of what was unmistakably the upper half of a thoracic chassis. There was also a slender and crowned helmet there, along with a pair of boots. And, as Kelly could spy, a deactivated hilt for an energy sword. Many of the pieces contained darkened amber diodes in them. Lit, the effect would make the wearer appear that the plating had roasting coals embedded into it.

There was no mistaking it, and Furan's reaction was confirmation enough for Kelly: this was the rest of the Elite's missing armor.

"You are a liar," Furan was hissing to Ishir. She bent down to the crate, still looking at the man, apparently trying to grope for the energy sword hilt. "You are a liar, and a thief, and you will tell us where you really obtained this, otherwise—"

Kelly reached out and grabbed Furan's arm. The alien whipped her head up, looking confused and angry. The Spartan just kept still and whispered over her COM.

"We don't need him. I know where to find the answers."

Furan gave a growl. It was clear that she had been anticipating the moment where she could liberate the annoying governor's head from his shoulders with a clean stroke of her arm, but the optics of such brazen bloodshed had yet to register until the Spartan had physically restrained her.

Kelly knew this decision was bound to irritate the Elite—transgressors in Elite culture usually never walked away from their poor choices without injury (or their life). To a point, the Spartan even sympathized. Ishir was clearly lying to the both of them, but trying to wrest the truth out of the man was like trying to coax blood from a stone. And, to make the governor's irrelevancy all the more clear, Kelly had not been intending to use him as her primary source of truth, anyway. That task had only ever been delegated to what was inside the database for the wavespace array and nothing else. Their mission was elsewhere. They were done here.

"Close the box back up," Kelly told Furan, but it was more out of posterity that she instructed the Elite. Furan was already beginning to comply. "Meet me out in the marketplace. We can discuss this then."

Furan's mandibles rippled in annoyance. She stole another look at Ishir. "If I see that man again, it will be the last time he draws breath."

"A fair warning," Kelly agreed.

They rose to depart. Furan grabbed the top of the crate that she had previously thrown aside and latched it back up. Lifting it without so much as a grunt, the Elite strode out from the office with her prize in tow. Kelly slowly followed Furan out, but not without a final aside as she turned back to address Ishir, who had collapsed into his seat from shock. Truly, his day had not gone the way he thought he would.

"I trust you understand where the true authority in this facility resides?" she called out.

Ishir sat in stark silence, absorbing the question. "Evidentially, I do," he said, his voice barely carrying within his own office before the walls swallowed up the sound.

Nodding in approval, Kelly headed over to the doors, tapped the button for them to open, and left the governor to think about his future as a politician.


Civilian Offices

Kelly met Furan in one of the offices that was nestled in an offshoot of the main hallway. All that was in there was a cheap conference table and a couple of lightweight chairs. Furan stood with her back to one of the glass walls of the office, the crate she had liberated from the governor placed at her feet.

"I'm noticing," Furan said as Kelly entered and locked the door behind her, "that you're making a habit of restraining me from carrying out summary judgments. Judgements that have been rightly deserved, by my observation."

"Your point being?" Kelly asked.

"You must really not want me to kill any humans if you can help it."

The Spartan noted a thin trace of humor at the edge of Furan's words. She almost smiled at them. Almost.

Still, she responded with the same amount of snark. "Yes, well, if you're accusing me of frustrating your bloodlust, then we should probably have a talk. It's difficult to be at ease when I'm working with someone who can't seem to reign in their murderous urges."

Furan's head bobbed, acknowledging Kelly's point. Whether she understood the rhetorical nature of the Spartan's inference, it would not be made completely clear. She ran a hand along the box, her prize. A thin sigh escaped her mouth and she dropped down to a knee next to it.

"I was not sure if I was going to be alive to see this moment," the Elite said.

Kelly took a few steps around the conference table. "Is it all there? The rest of your armor, I mean?"

"Yes. I checked beforehand in the closet where the little nishum had stashed it." Her hands still ran across the crate, but did not open it. Kelly noticed that Furan's hands were trembling. The reptilian warrior momentarily stared off into space, a mixture of emotions hurtling through her. Relief. Fury. A brief sense of longing. She looked over at Kelly. "He was lying to us. You know that, right?"

She meant the governor. It was obvious that his strange behavior had only drawn more suspicion onto him, which had only intensified the confusion both soldiers had felt.

"Of course he was," Kelly responded matter-of-factly. "But, even if he was telling the truth, would you have trusted him?"

The answering stare from the Elite gave Kelly her answer.

"He was never in charge of things around here," Kelly continued. "Whether or not he understands the full scope of the situation is immaterial. His erratic behavior is probable cause enough."

Furan stood, her eyes slowly widening. "So, in some fashion, he did provide you with confirmation."

"The source of SN 92305 is here," Kelly nodded. "Either that, or it's the main distribution point. This is our linkage between Odarferr and Rina's movements, and by extension, Phaedra's involvement."

The Spartan absentmindedly grabbed the back of one of the chairs as she thought. She didn't lean on it, lest she break through the seat completely.

"Phaedra sends Rina to distant worlds, hoping to sell or trade the drug for credits or Shaw-Fujikawa drives," she said aloud. "She accumulates capital and material on Phoenix's behalf, building up for some unknown purpose. She picks Arbogast as the location for the lab of the synthetic drug, partly because the facilities here are equipped for the kind of manufacture she has in mind, and because of the wavespace array."

She had not forgotten the aghast expression that Ishir had given her when she had mentioned the wavespace array, in addition to the array of threats he had levelled against her in an effort to prevent her from heading out to its location. A child would have recognized such a tell from a mile away.

"She'll want to have kept in close contact with whoever was running the lab operations over here, which necessitated the usage of the array in the first place. No doubt, there'll be a record of the complete call history that we can use to track down Phaedra's location. All we have to do is get to that array."

Furan ruefully chuckled. "There's that naïve optimism again, Spartan. If your quarry had the foresight to delete the majority of their travel logs on the Pelican we found on the world in which we had killed them, what makes you so sure that they haven't repeated their methodology here?"

"Don't worry," Kelly said rather flippantly, to the point where Furan twitched a mandible in intrigue. "I just have a feeling."

Inwardly, unbeknownst to the alien in the room, a pang resonated in her gut. Funny feelings were inclinations that had not been part of a monopoly among Spartans. She remembered that Kurt had always gotten these feelings, a sort of sixth sense, when they were on missions, and he was usually right about them. Just thinking about the former Blue Team member was enough to turn her thoughts elsewhere, for a brief moment.

"Really," the Elite said flatly, not at all intoning a question, but it snapped Kelly away from her introspection.

"Really."

Furan narrowed her eyes. Perhaps she was trying to determine exactly how apprehensive she should be regarding Kelly's unconcern. Unable to penetrate that rigid veil the Spartan set about herself, the Elite mustered a shrug. "Very well, then."

The alien bent down to pick the crate back up. She was about to head for the door when Kelly spoke.

"You're taking that back to the Nighthawk?"

"I can't exactly take it with me when we go to the wavespace array, now can I?"

Kelly's mouth flattened. "I was thinking, you should probably stay on the ship when you get back."

The suggestion landed almost in the same fashion as an insult would, to Kelly's exact expectation. Furan wheeled about, the crate still in hand, a bewildered expression upon her face.

"Seeking to get rid of me? After all this time?"

"Hardly," Kelly said. "The governor may have been a habitual liar, but I bet he was telling the truth about one thing. The array is going to be heavily patrolled and your presence, by which I mean 'non-human', is likely going to work against our mandate. Considering the amount of scrutiny levelled upon this place, anyone who takes a shot at an Elite here is liable to be promoted instead of punished."

It was evident that Furan was struggling to find a counter to Kelly's argument that didn't border upon complete nonsense. In the weeks that they had been fated to work together, they had been bickering almost the entire way. But the Elite was not blind to logic. Although, it did not mean that she had to like that logic.

After a while, the Elite gave a solitary nod. "If you even get to only fire a single bullet at the enemy out there—"

"—then I will allow you to hang it above my head for the rest of the mission," Kelly finished.

Satisfied, Furan snorted. "A deal's a deal. Better hope things go smoothly for you."

As much as Kelly appreciated the civil manner in which her suggestion had landed, she could not help but feel somewhat wistful as the Elite turned to depart. Strangely, she had the feeling that she was never going to see her again. And yet, despite everything that had ever happened to her, the slightest pang resonated within her chest.

Hefting the enormous crate easily in a hand, Furan headed back towards the door to the office and nearly ran headlong into the lieutenant into the process. The Elite gave a particularly unfriendly grunt towards the man, who scooted out of the way to let her pass through the doorframe. The lieutenant watched the Elite leave before he adjusted his misshapen uniform and stepped into the office, where Kelly was still waiting.

"Everything okay? How'd the meeting with the governor go?"

"About as well as expected," Kelly said, which was technically the truth. She pointed in the cardinal direction of her new destination. "What can you tell me about the wavespace array?"

The lieutenant's brow furrowed. "Why do you want to know about that?"

"The array is where I need to go. I need to find out what is the best route to travel there."

The man reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. He withdrew a folded-up square of clear glass. He unfurled the device, a portable tablet, until it looked like one continuous pane. With a few taps of a finger, a topographic map of the area booted up onto the device. A red marker blipped up upon an area several hundred miles north of Arbor I, which was pointing to the dormant volcano that Kelly had first indicated on board the Nighthawk.

He stepped over and tilted the tablet so that Kelly could see. A blue and white striped track on the map connected the array facility to the GPS point indicating their current location. "There's a tram line that runs underneath the surface. It was utilized quite a bit by the scientists stationed to the facility. Now, it's sparsely used by maintenance workers. The line ends about twelve miles from the array. It was shuttered at that distance after there was an accident at the array. That's about as far as anyone goes these days."

"Yes," Kelly said, "the governor had mentioned an accident before. Can you fill in the blanks?"

The lieutenant pulled a face. "Not sure how much you already know, but here goes. When the wavespace array was built, it had fusion reactors installed to provide the facility with power. GWE design—tri-reactor complex."

He double-tapped the screen and the array's innards were now displayed in blueprint form. The skeleton of the metallic beast awaiting in the heart of the volcano.

"Some months back, reactor two suffered a meltdown that contaminated the area. Radioactive material had leaked from one of the containment units and dosed nearly the entire facility. Several scientists were immediately stricken with radiation poisoning. Some of them… didn't even make it out."

"Sounds gruesome," Kelly murmured, her mind ablaze as she took hold of all of these different strings with the hopes of weaving them into a continuous thread. "And suspect."

"That was our assessment as well. We submitted a report of the disaster to ONI and they told us to seal off the site. It was off the official channels and never logged as an issue. The investigation was brief and hypothesized industrial sabotage as the possible solution, but we never had any proof."

"And the facility's current status? Were the fusion reactors ever deactivated?"

"Reactor two was, but reactors one and three are still running. They're powering the facility and the UNSC doesn't want to spend the capital contracting another array to be built."

"Access points?"

The lieutenant pointed to a section on the map, which looked like it was hidden in the recess of an exposed lava tube that had dried up eons ago.

"That's the only exposed entrance at the moment, though it's sealed. Concrete was poured at most of the access points to halt the spread of contamination—this one included. The main entrance was located underground and the tunnel had been collapsed to ensure that no one entered the array. No one's getting through the rubble without heavy equipment."

Kelly tilted her head. She studied the map.

"Where does this door lead, then?"

The lieutenant traced a series of interweaving tunnels on the tablet. "Cooling tunnel access. The reactors that are still active use that water to control the reaction rate. The water's usually clean, but with the recent meltdown, we can't assume that it's safe to traverse."

"That would be the least of our worries," Kelly said tonelessly. She flexed a hand, looking upon the gauntlet. "MJOLNIR armor is rated to 200 roentgens. If the water is contaminated, I might have enough time to find an area to surface."

There was a full-fledged pause of at least ten seconds. The lieutenant had performed a double-take in that time. "Pardon my ignorance, Spartan, but what do you think you're going to find in the array facility? The area's been sealed. No one's been inside since the accident."

Kelly's visor slowly rotated to face the man. She noticed that he gave a distinct shiver. A common reaction—most people were discomforted whenever they had no eyes to fixate upon.

"I intend to find that out for myself," she just said. The less said about Phaedra to this man, the better. Bad enough that she had to open herself up to Furan. Another person being exposed to such history would be something that she just would not stand for.

She gently took the tablet from the lieutenant's grip and zoomed in on the access point that had originally been indicated.

"How thick is the concrete at the entrance you just showed me?"

"Pretty thick. Several feet at least. But here it's just a heavy slab brought in from a nearby quarry. They had a Pelican drop it in since the entrance itself was exposed to the elements." He nervously chuckled. "Someone from CENTCOM actually gave the suggestion to bring down the side of the volcano down, like they did for the tunnels. Apparently, talking that one person down from that took the better part of a week—"

The Spartan was only half-listening by this point. She pressed a finger to the tablet and quickly swiped back over to the end of the tram line, where a singular structure stood, represented by a rectangular icon. She tapped on that structure and several statistics about the building popped up in a side menu.

"There's a garage at the last station," Kelly observed. "Looks like they keep a couple of Warthogs there for surface transit. Perhaps the horsepower will be enough to dislodge the slab. Failing that, we can improvise."

The lieutenant nodded, not at all willing to criticize. "Could work. Though I'm a bit curious as to what a Spartan means when they say 'improvise.'"

Kelly handed the tablet back. "It just means we're authorized to get a little more creative with our solutions in a more… uncontrolled manner. For example, we can remote-pilot the prowler over there and blow a hole in the volcano if the Warthog idea doesn't pan out. I need to get inside, no matter what."

"Roger that," the lieutenant said. He folded the tablet up and put it back into his pocket. "We'll want to leave right away, while it's still light out."

Kelly rocked backwards a millimeter in intrigue. "'We?'"

The man shot her a small grin, and in that moment, there was a trace of boyish youth that passed across his features. "I'm hoping that you'll let me tag along, if only to satisfy my own selfish reasons."

"Selfish, then?"

"I admit it freely. You've been the only break from the routine in the three years I've been stationed on Arbor I. And this posting has only followed many more dull locales. At least let me come with, that way I can finally look myself in the mirror and know that I actually did something."

The honesty was amusing and Kelly's first instinct was to entertain it. The lieutenant's career in the Marines had clearly not followed the path the propaganda commercials had promised. He had become disillusioned in his own manner, trapped in an endless cycle of backwater postings, far from the vibrant and colorful lifestyle that his peers embarked upon. There was something to be said to be placed in a location so far out of harm's way, the probability of prolonging one's life by being away from combat acting as a noticeable perk, but after a certain period of time that mundaneness could only become a stagnant pool where apathy bred in droves.

She searched for a way to deny his request and found none. Furan had been turned away with a logical argument. That same argument was not compatible in this moment.

With a turn of her heel, Kelly strode back over to the office door. It slid open with just a touch. But, before the Spartan could depart from the room entirely, she stopped in the middle of the threshold, preventing the door from closing.

"Well? You coming?"


Governor's Office

Ishir's hands were shaking as he poured himself a glass, his second that had been borne from the heavy crystal decanter. Dark liquid the color of amber splashed into a finely chipped glencairn. He set the decanter down. He swirled the glass only once—a reflexive motion that he only now cut short—and drained half of its contents in one gulp. The scotch, which had the faint traces of brine and dark fruit on the palate, burned his throat on the way down. The whiskey was meant for sipping, not chugging, but Ishir had no other alcohol in his office, and right now, he was desperate to get rather drunk as soon as possible.

He felt a reasonable blast of hatred simmer at his core. Damn that Spartan! It was clear that she had seen things all too well. How could things have gotten to this point? He had been assured that his station here was secure. Someone owed him an explanation for this.

The governor finished off his glass, coughed, and reached for his decanter to fill it up for the third time when there was a noticeable thump over by the staircase. He whipped his head around. There was no one there adorning the steps. But then, as though his eyes couldn't be trusted, there was another thump. Then another. And another. It was as if each step produced a firm and singular resonance even though there was nothing observable to create such a sound.

Ishir sighed, a knot of tension relaxing inside him. Panic subsided and understanding flowed. He returned to pouring his drink. The stomping sounds continued down the stairs—they were descending. Still, Ishir could see a grand total of nothing. But he was a fair bit calmer, or perhaps that was the liquor finally taking effect.

"That was foolish," he said aloud, to the seemingly empty room. "You could've been detected."

Something churned in the room and there was a distinct sensation of an electric current being passed over Ishir's skin. At the foot of the steps, the empty air seemed to condense and warp, a liquid outline that seemed to form from what little moisture was there, before it finally broke to reveal a huge being of chiseled armor and world-crushing power.

"If I had been detected," the Spartan, Logan, said, the active camouflage disintegrating around his form, "it would've been because I had wanted it so."

Logan was even taller than Kelly, Ishir noted. His MJOLNIR armor had been fitted with additional armor plating and slots for extra equipment. His shoulder pauldrons were extremely large plates of curved armor, thick enough to deflect a round from a sniper rifle. He had on a War Master helmet, of which its shape was relatively up to usual-spec, with the exception of the visor. The visor was contoured in the formation of a snarling boneplate, replete with an angular brow, inserts for enraged eye sockets, and a triangular slot for a nose. But the visor did not appear to be see-through from the outside, for it was a thick, matte gray and hexagonally pattered with orange outlines, which made it appear that the visor was holding back a savage fire from within the suit.

Phoenix Unit's second-in-command walked over to the unoccupied couch and sat upon it. Logan was carrying a custom-made shotgun with a foldable stock. A long and cylindrical silencer had been affixed to the threaded barrel. He rested the weapon across his knee.

Ishir continued to stand in front of his desk. He took a sip of his scotch. "You heard everything, didn't you?"

"I did." Logan's voice sounded like the engine of a Behemoth-class transport crawler while it was lurching over a sun-parched expanse of gravel.

"Should I even ask why you didn't intervene? They were in my office, you saw them. And they seemed to have an undue fascination with the wavespace array which, bear in mind, you saw fit to turn into a quarantine zone. It appears that the good times are over and that the UNSC has finally caught on."

The governor lifted his glass in mock salute. Were he a bit more sober, he might have paid the Spartan a bit more deference, but he was unable to put himself in such a position in his current state of mind.

Logan, to his part, did not so much as twitch. "Then it seems like everything is proceeding on our intended schedule."

"Really?" Ishir set his glass down. "According to whose standards? Did your plan account for ONI sending another Spartan to stop whatever the hell you've been doing in my facilities? Did it ever come to mind that the UNSC will be informed of your activity and could order a liquidation of the entire planet? I stuck out my neck to harbor you and your material here. The least I can be afforded is a little security assurance!"

The shotgun across Logan's knee slid ever so slightly in the direction of Ishir. The Spartan gave a thoughtful pause.

"It accounted for many possibilities," he said. "Including the inevitability of your poor performance as an interviewee."

Ishir swallowed. That gripping fist closed around his gut again. Cold sweat broke out at the back of his neck, having pierced the veil of his warm and muted intoxication.

Logan continued, "And the most you were ever promised, were the funds that we had provided you at the outset of our transactional relationship. A not insignificant sum, do recall."

The Spartan rose from the couch and strode over to where Ishir was slouching against his desk. His synthesized voice crackled from a well-used vocabulator. He was now close enough to see his own reflection tremble in the governor's eyes. That was good. Logan liked it when the fear was obvious.

"I never asked what your intentions here were," Ishir almost whimpered.

"Let's keep it that way, shall we? You've had your suspicions, but never the full picture." Logan's hand reached out and closed around the governor's glass in the diminutive man's hand, which was still half-full. He took it from Ishir and set it down on the desk. "You can have this back when we're done," he said, almost as if he were speaking to a child.

Ishir did not miss the meaning of Logan's statement. When we're done. So, he was still going to live, at least for the next few minutes. He dared to exhale in relief.

"Then…" the governor's voice faltered, "…you do understand the gravity of the situation. If that Spartan links you to me—"

The reflection of the pillared lamps slid smoothly across Logan's visor in jagged bolts as he took one more step towards the governor until the armored chest was nearly touching Ishir's face. There was nothing Logan's body language that divulged his annoyance with this pathetic little man, with all his scheming and cowering. Politics was a place for small-minded people with inflated ambitions. They thought that they could dictate people by a few well-rehearsed speeches and several drafts of policy. The pen is mightier than the sword, was the proverb that politicians tended proudly espouse over pints of bitter in the darkened halls of their alma maters. Ironically, they never did seem to realize that it was the sword that gave the pen its very might.

"Patience," the Spartan whispered, but his helmet made it come out like a growl. "Time is more of an ally than you might think, governor. Leave the hunt to the hunters. The optimum moment will reveal itself… soon enough."


A/N: With the release of this chapter, Rabbit Zero-Eight-Seven is now officially halfway done (in terms of the number of chapters, that is). A big thank you to all of you who have made your thoughts known and supported the story, whether it was from a review, PM, or simply favoriting it. There are still many more chapters to go, so I hope you'll continue to enjoy the ride all the way to the end!

Playlist:

Welcome to Arbor I
"The World on Her Shoulders"
Joris de Man (feat. Julie Elven)
Horizon: Forbidden West (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

Klinik I (Kelly Enters) [SOURCE MUSIC]
"Enter the Void"
Division
Magnatron 2.0

Klinik II (Club Fight) [SOURCE MUSIC]
"DOOMSDAY"
ALEX x Tokyo Rose
AKUMA 3

Logan Unveiled
"Stahl Arms"
Lorn
Killzone: Shadowfall (Original Video Game Soundtrack)