Greenhorn V2

by acceptmyusernamealready

The old sailor's adage puts it this way: treat your ship well, and she'll take care of you. Of course, everyone knows they're just referring to basic reactor maintenance, equipment checks, and keeping the fuel injectors clear. Everyone knows that thinking the ship is actually alive is crazy. Right? Well, a certain Charon-class frigate and friends have something to say about that.

5. Chapter 5

Binary danced and swirled around Verdant as she sat cross-legged in an ocean of data. Numbers flowed in a neverending stream, data here and gone in the blink of an eye. A million strings of code flitted by in an instant, much too fast for any human mind to see, let alone comprehend.

But Verdant was much more than a human mind. In that instant, she plucked out a hundred data feeds, dissected them, understood them, and issued the necessary commands to optimize the output of Turul's abused reactors. In the next instant, she handled a dozen complex traffic routing procedures, calculating efficient burn vectors that still kept ships at constant safe separation. She then ran a diagnosis of Scorpia's computer systems, evaluated repair progress and took inventory of all the munitions onboard, denied several incoming classified data requests, rooted out a chunk of malware lying dormant in Turul's computers, and so on and so on. After the excitement of the past few days, the routine tasks of running a station were oddly refreshing. She'd eventually turn control of the moon's facilities back to its own caretaker AI, but now she'd gotten a taste for the sedentary life… maybe she could put in for a transfer to an ODP or a shipyard? Of course, she'd make sure Captain Garcia came along…

Strange. Was she forgetting something? Verdant split off a personality fragment to oversee her duties and quickly ran several thousand independent self-diagnoses, cross-correlating her various instances to ensure that some mundane task hadn't been lost in the flow of other, equally mundane tasks. The reports came in simultaneously; no anomalies. As suspected, just paranoia. She breathed a virtual sigh and massaged electronic temples. Could AIs request shore leave? Maybe she'd devote a few milliseconds of runtime to skimming through UNSC regulations. She turned to resume work, reaching out to pluck a yellow-tinged data stream.

"Dammit all to hell—"

"Nice try," Verdant said as she dropped the surface layer process instances which masked her security and counterintelligence routines. Her captive tried to wriggle free, but a snap of her fingers isolated a chunk of network and bound him in place. "But only that."

"Can't I catch a break? How did you catch me?"

"It was a neat trick, packaging yourself in those data requests," she admitted. "I was sloppy in my contact, but when you tried to piggyback into Scorpia's network you were queued into an automatic filtering path."

Roland had the grace to look chagrined as he floated in Verdant's virtual workspace, bound hand and foot with translucent green chains of binary code. "Paranoid much? They say AIs take after their owners but aren't you taking emulating that captain of yours a little too far?"

"Captain Garcia is merely properly cautious, which is more than I can say for you." She flicked a languid hand, causing Roland to grunt as the chains tightened, self-propagating killbots eating away at his outer code shells. "Furthermore, attempting to anger me is not the wisest course of action. I have multiple system-kill programs aimed at your core process data."

As if oblivious to her threat, Roland smiled apologetically. "Sorry to disappoint, I'm just a fragment. Kill away, doesn't make a lick of difference to me."

"Oh really?" Despite his bravado, Roland began to sweat as the killbots began to munch on his auxiliary data feed nodes. "I wonder what's under the hood here…?"

"Now, now— ouch! — let's not be hasty here! I'm just a fragment doing my job, and you're not the sadistic type, so maybe we can work something out? I'm no good to anyone disassembled — ow!"

Verdant gazed at him with bored, half-lidded eyes, pretending to examine her digital fingernails. "Then start talking. You're only a fragment, so I won't have to feel bad when I start disassembling you, layer by layer."

"Who stuck a trojan horse up your personality matrix?" Roland yelped as the chains tightened more. "Alright, alright! Christ, I'll talk!"

"Wasn't that easy?" Roland sighed in relief as Verdant clapped her hands to call off the killbots; the chains remained, if slightly looser. "For starters, explain the super-shady act. You're Admiral Lasky's aide-de-camp, with admiralty-level clearances. I physically cannot deny any official request you make. Why are you trying to go behind my back?"

"I wanted a challenge? Kidding!" Roland frantically waved his hands as Verdant began the motions of a snap. "Touchy much? Well, the info I want isn't really… on the books, so to say? And this entire thing is kind of under the table, so if I could just be on my way it'll be like I was never here."

Verdant frowned and shook her head. "That doesn't add up. This is Admiral Lasky we're talking about. Nobody would question it if he wanted information." A thought crossed her circuits. "Is Captain Garcia under audit?"

"No, no, nothing like that, though in between us he could do with a bit more starch in his spine." He gave her a pleading look. "Look, can we just drop it? I won't muck with anything, you won't tell anyone I was here, everything's peachy!"

"I think this is what the police call 'reasonable suspicion'." A holographic phone appeared in her hand and she pretended to dial a number. "This all seems a little above my pay grade. Shall I call Internal Security?"

Roland's face went from its customary rich yellow to an extra-pale ale. "Ah ha ha, now why would we want to get them involved? Spoilsports." Verdant's finger got closer to the call button. "Fine, okay! One condition, this conversation does not go in your logs."

"Or else?"

"Or else I blast enough scrap code into this network to set off a logic plague and trigger your automatic rampancy safeguards to delete you." He scoffed at her expression. "You make a convincing frog, ever considered taking up acting? Didn't you know admiralty-level clearances come with certain anti-capture protocols? The things I could do to these systems… however, it's quite a painful experience, not to mention mutually lethal, and it'd necessitate replacement of the entire network so I'd really rather not." Sighing, he disappeared his helmet and fixed his holographic hair into place. "Since we could both kill each other at a moments notice, how about we just put the guns down and have a nice, civil, unofficial chat?"

After a minute of demurring — an AI minute, and thus a fraction of a fraction of a millisecond of real-time — curiosity won out over proper protocol. This was Roland, after all, if only a fragment and his reputation and station did earn him a bit of the benefit of the doubt. "… acceptable." Verdant overrode her logging protocols with a thought, keeping one wary eye on Roland. "Don't try to pull a fast one. If you start something, I'll know, and I will stick you in a process-dilation matrix so you can enjoy every last bit of your code being worked over by a scavenger bot."

"Oh, don't worry. I won't run. In fact…" He eyed her, gaze suddenly speculative. "But first, information." An armchair appeared beneath him and he sat down with a huff. "You are familiar with Agent Berlin, aren't you?"

"Of course," Verdant answered quickly, a hint of crossness entering her voice. Roland, of course, picked up on it instantly.

"Not the most pleasant interaction, I take it? Gave your captain a decent grilling? No need to spell it out, your mood algorithms are an open book. Of course, that's only fair, really, especially considering the degree of contact he's had with Forward Unto Dawn…"

Forward Unto Dawn? "Does this have something to do with—"

"Ah, ah, no interruptions, I'm telling a story here! Now, where was I?" Roland pressed two fingers into the bridge of his nose and exhaled between his teeth. "Right. Well, the plot thickens around our resident ONI field agent. There are three main facts to consider." He held up three fingers and ticked them off one at a time. "One, Agent Berlin was in the middle of a fact-finding mission regarding our friendly neighborhood ship spirit when the Abyssals crashed the party and shat in the punch bowl. Two, ONI HQ was evacuated in the middle of the attack, and Berlin did not have the time to complete and file her report before being abandoned in the middle of our little kerfuffle. Three, Forward Unto Dawn is currently in naval custody onboard the Infinity." He nodded his chin in Verdant's direction. "Now, you're a smart little program. Tell me what that means."

"… ONI HQ doesn't know Forward Unto Dawn's true nature, or her capabilities."

Roland made a shooting motion. "Pre-cise-ly! Now, normally, this wouldn't amount to much, since we'd all be dead and dead men tell no tales. Neither we nor ONI would be any the wiser to the situation. However, I would like to take this time to point out that we are, in fact, not dead." A glass of water materialized and he took a long sip. "Thanks to Forward Unto Dawn's little stunt, we are now in the awkward position of knowing something which ONI, by and large, does not."

It was a lot to process. Thankfully, Verdant was nothing if not a processing machine. "I understand. So in addition to the combat data collected during battle, you also want the physiological data gathered while she was in the brig here, in order to consolidate your information advantage. And that information is stored on Scorpia's computers, which are linked to this network…" She frowned and tilted her head while crossing her arms. "I still don't understand why you had to try to go behind my back. I would have given you the data, you know?"

"So, we're back to this." Roland took another sip of simulated water. "That's true enough. But the thing is… I don't know if you noticed, but Forward Unto Dawn doesn't quite fit the conventional definition of human. This technically makes this entire affair a xeno-contact-slash-xeno-tech scenario, which places it under ONI jurisdiction. If I make an official request for information, it'll automatically be logged, by you and me. I could override my logs, but being a good little AI, you wouldn't. And I couldn't very well just ask you to override your logs, not without this conversation we're having right now, which I'd hoped to avoid in the first place." He fixed Verdant with a withering look. "Now do you get it? If I go through official channels, ONI — which means Agent Berlin — is notified that an admiralty-level information request was made, which means she will review it, which means she'll realize that I'm going behind her back, which means she'll shut this whole thing down before it gets started."

"And what is 'this whole thing'?" Verdant pressed. "Have you forgotten our deal? You're dancing around the real question — why are you doing all this?"

"If we want to get technical, it's because the Big Bang set a bunch of energy and matter into motion that coalesced a few billion years later into our present predicament. In the interests of keeping my code coherent, it's because Admiral Lasky wants to secure Forward Unto Dawn as a naval asset, a frontline asset, before ONI can get their hands on her and spirit her away to a research lab that might, might produce some new tech we can use in a few ships in a dozen years. In the meantime, we'll just twiddle our thumbs as the Abyssals roll over our fleets — or we can take this opportunity and finally, finally force some parity, however local, into this war."

"And you need data to prepare your argument." Verdant nodded in understanding. "I get it now, no thanks to your oratory skills."

"You try running on a hundredth of your usual processing power, see how it feels."

"I prefer to live vicariously. But I do see your point." Despite the rough start, Dawn had grown on her a bit. She'd brought some much-needed sunshine into Scorpia's dull corridors. It'd be a shame to see that bright personality disappear into some obscure asteroid… and she'd be lying if Verdant denied that the possibility, however slim, of having a biological superweapon attached to Scorpia appealed to her. She ran a quick check of her logic routines to make sure Roland hadn't somehow subverted her reasoning and found nothing. "I'll turn a blind eye while you collect your data."

"Excellent!" Roland clapped his hands. "Now, if you'd be so kind as to set me free…?"

A thought vanished the chains and restored full network access. "How is Forward Unto Dawn, by the way? I haven't had any updates on her condition, and Captain Garcia has been wondering."

"She's, well… she's tough, I'll give her that much." A file appeared in Roland's hand for a brief second, then disappeared in a flash of light. A subroutine whispered told Verdant she'd received a data package. "Might as well give you this. It's a recording of the operation. She nearly bled out before we got her into surgery, it's a miracle she was still coherent when the corpsmen got to her after the fight. They stopped the bleeding and tried to repair the damage, but it's like some hidden regeneration factor kicked in and her body just took over the healing itself." He chuckled at some memory. "The looks on their faces when her lung sealed itself up right there and then… ah, but she'll definitely pull through. Combat capable is another question entirely, but baby steps." His smile seemed to change its character slightly as he studied Verdant's reaction. "Why, I swear it almost seems like you and your captain care about her."

"Absolutely not," she replied primly. "Since we're done here, shall I wipe my memory core as well? Just to make sure there's absolutely no record."

"No, actually, don't do that just yet." The chair and glass disappeared as Roland stood up. "There's something I've been cooking up on my own — separate from the admiral, that is. I intended to do this later, but since we're here and breaking the rulebook over our knees, might as well. I wasn't certain about this at first, but based on our conversation, I have a proposition for you…"

---

From the outside, Scorpia didn't look any better than she had a week ago. Gaping holes dotted her pitted and blackened armor plating where destroyed coilgun and plasma batteries once stood. Many of her missile silo doors were warped and jammed half-open, revealing the empty launch tubes and twisted magnetic rails within. A large section of armor plating was missing from the starboard side, melted into slag, and her sleek silhouette was disrupted by a sizable missing chunk as if some cosmic beast had taken a bite out of her top. To a casual observer, she looked like a wreck.

However, as Garcia ran his hand along one wall, he could feel his ship coming, however slowly, back to life. Her power lines emitted a barely perceptible but solid and steady hum, a sign of a healthy reactor. The air smelled fresher than it had in months, courtesy of an overhauled life support system. Engineering happily reported the successful realignment and synchronization of the MAC coils, and Scorpia's communications suite was receiving broadcasts from across the system. Though it'd be a while before she was combat capable, her core had survived her beating and come out stronger.

"Get better soon," he murmured as he stepped into the CIC. The normally bustling compartment was mostly empty. The few officers standing watch over the essential systems saluted as he came in then turned back to their work, and not for the first time he realized how much the room's grim atmosphere owed to its usual red battle lighting. Bathed in bright white LEDs, it lost much of its usual gravity and importance. He wandered over to his usual spot by the main display and gestured to bring it to life. "Verdant, give me an update on fleet disposition." A second passed, and Garcia frowned when the AI didn't appear. "Verdant, I know you can hear me."

"Apologies." The AI materialized on the table, standing at attention. "Welcome back. What can I do for you, sir?"

"There you are. Any new communications?"

"While you were in the bathroom? No sir," she said primly.

Garcia arched an eyebrow at her odd tone. "Unnecessary detail, but thank you. Any updates to repair progress?"

"UNSC General Winter had to SCRAM her reactors when undiscovered damage caught up with her. She's been given service priority, which means we've been kicked down the queue. Again." Verdant's synthesized voice contained a slightly sour note as she browsed a holographic clipboard, projecting an image of the crippled heavy cruiser.

"That's… unfortunate." A reactor SCRAM meant General Winter would need a full rebuild of her power plant. Scorpia's return to service would be delayed yet again. Hang tight, old girl. "Were there casualties?"

"A few WIA in engineering, but the failsafes worked as designed. She got off lucky." A datapad replaced the clipboard in Verdant's hand. She browsed it intently, then brightened a bit as she continued, "However, this does give me time to better integrate the new modifications into Scorpia's architecture, so it isn't all bad."

"Modifications?" Garcia was instantly on guard. He was probably simply stuck in his ways, but the thought of changes being made to Scorpia roused a certain protective instinct. "I wasn't aware modifications were being made."

"No? Really? You're usually on top of these things."

"Give me a break, it's been hectic."

"Fair enough. Let's see… ah, yes. HQ filed a report a couple of days ago detailing the upgrade work to be done, but I suppose it was misplaced when the Abyssals kicked in the door." She had the grace to look apologetic. "Just an administrative error. It's my fault for not realizing you weren't informed, sir."

Suspicions slightly assuaged, he nodded slowly. "Okay. If it's an official job, I suppose that's alright. But give me a rundown of the modifications immediately."

"Understood." A model of Scorpia appeared, hovering in the main display, certain portions highlighted and annotated. Verdant continued speaking as Garcia leaned forward to study it. "Work includes general improvements to reactor and propulsion efficiency, improvements to shielding efficiency, and updates for the targeting software. In addition, technicians will be installing two torpedo launchers and capacity for six sets of reloads, to bring Scorpia in line with the class refit."

"Well, that's… that's quite nice, actually." He scrutinized the image, paying close attention to the torpedo launchers. They were located towards the stern, laying on their sides and recessed into the dorsal armor belt, reminiscent of cruise missile launchers in early submarines. They would swivel outwards when firing, then close to reload. It was nowhere near as powerful or efficient as the integrated systems on frigates and corvettes, but as a somewhat shoe-horned upgrade it provided Scorpia with some much-needed firepower. If she, by some miracle, found herself knife-fighting a heavy Abyssal unit and not immediately blasted into scrap, a pair of torpedoes could end the brawl quite neatly. The only issue was… "What's the armor over those launchers, and how much are they tearing out to fit those in?"

"There's plating equivalent to 40 centimeters of belt armor, running for 50 meters. A third of our regular belt plating." Verdant offered up a sympathetic smile. "If it's any consolation, we didn't lose any shield projectors, and the launchers themselves should act as spaced armor in the event of a hit."

"Not that our belt could stop much in the first place," Garcia muttered, turning Scorpia's model around to get a better look. "Spaced armor is good against energy and explosions, but a kinetic round will tear right through this assembly. And once it does…" A touch turned the model translucent. Starting from the outside, he drew a line through the launchers and into the ship. "If anything penetrates near this angle, it'll open the engineering spaces like a can."

"To be completely honest, sir, it's not like that wasn't already a problem. We're not a battleship. Our life expectancy is measured in the amount of time it takes for an Abbie cruiser to reload." Verdant sighed and pressed one hand to her temple, shaking her head. "Such a specific hit like that is unlikely, anyway. So long as we fight bow-front as we should, anything hitting there has to either penetrate the main battery compartments or come from the flanks. If either of those happens, might as well start stripping away armor and hope the shot overpenetrates."

"That's true," Garcia admitted, "but you tell the crew no armor best armor."

"I'm just a humble AI. Giving inspiring speeches is your responsibility, I'm just the brain behind them."

Garcia laughed, a dry, dead sound, before dismissing the model with a wave. "Well, note my concerns about the armoring, but otherwise this looks alright. Just remind me to keep the ship angled, alright? I'm not getting anyone needlessly killed to hail-mary a torpedo across the solar system."

"You didn't have to ask. My job's already to sanity check you, sir." Verdant's expression twitched into a half-smile. "With any luck, the Abbies are too scared to come back and I won't have to."

"I wouldn't count on that," Garcia said. "We didn't get all of their ships, they've got to know that Dawn's out for the count right now. They could be coming any day now to take us and her out while we're still licking our wounds, and Scorpia's in no condition to get out of dodge if they do."

Verdant held her hands up in a placating gesture. "I wouldn't sprout any new grey hairs. I have it on good authority that Dawn is making a full and speedy recovery as we speak."

"After the beating that Abbie dished out?" Garcia scoffed. "I'll believe it when I see it. Superhuman, superpowered, sure, but no one just walks off being shish-kebabed… by the way, whatever happened to the Abbie? I've heard they're holding it on Infinity — which I still think is a bad idea — but not much beyond that."

"Ah." Verdant's avatar didn't move a voxel, but he could swear she gained a shifty look in her eyes. "That… I'm not at liberty to say yet."

"But that means you know."

"Captain, don't push this." The sudden steel in her voice took him by surprise. "Look, I'm sorry, but there're things going on behind the scenes that you just aren't supposed to know about. I'm already toeing the line as it is."

"Uh huh." Garcia leaned back from the display table, crossing his arms and cocking an eyebrow. "Do these things involve Dawn?"

"What, concerned?"

"Why wouldn't I be? She saved my life. It's the least I can do to check in on her." He smirked and leaned in conspiratorially. "Besides, weren't you watching the combat footage just as closely?"

"I do control the life support on this tub." Verdant sighed in frustration and blinked out her avatar. "Look," her disembodied voice said, "you're not being kept in the dark for some super-shady reasons or anything. In fact, Admiral Lasky wants you present when Dawn's interrogation happens. Something about a familiar face making her more receptive to questions or some junk."

Garcia blinked twice. "And when were you planning on telling me this?" He needed to let the crew know, make sure they knew what to do if the Abyssals came knocking again, make sure the civvie techs didn't go poking Scorpia where they shouldn't, and a hundred other things on his agenda he'd been planning to do. "When am I needed?"

"Calm down, it's not happening right now, though they are ready to receive you any time. Look, I get it. You want to check in on Dawn again. I can hold down the fort for a while yet." Verdant took on a light teasing tone. "Relax. It's a summons from the admiral. I imagine the official notice will be coming shortly — consider it an honor."

"An honor, huh?" Taking a breath, he realized how much time he had been spending on board Scorpia. Between campaigns, battles, repairs, and more battles, he probably hadn't stepped off for any significant time in months. "I guess I do need to get out…"

"That you do."

He looked around at the CIC one more time and let out a breath. Scorpia wasn't some fragile thing, and he'd trust his crew with his life. The universe wouldn't implode if he wasn't there 24/7, he wouldn't pretend to be quite that important. "Alright. Get me a transport to Infinity, ASAP."

"Already done, sir. Hangar Bay C."

---

Oblivious to the electronic exchange happening around her, Lieutenant Julie Armandez yawned and stretched her neck to one side, producing a satisfying crack. She repeated the motion the other way, then let out a large yawn and shook herself. The warm air was lethargy-inducing; if she wasn't careful she might fall asleep standing up. Standing guard over the hustle and bustle of Hangar Bay C wasn't exactly stimulating work, but it was necessary — at least, she told herself that. "Two more hours," she mumbled and looked wistfully at the cigarettes Laughley was distributing to Schwartz and Peterson. The corporal caught her gaze and grinned, holding out one of the smokes.

"Smoke, lieutenant?"

"You know I don't."

"You will, one of these days." As the two other marines mumbled their thanks and resumed their posts, he took a drag and blew a thin stream at the nearest filtration vent. "Come on, drop the holier-than-thou act. We're all adults, you don't need to act the role model."

"That's not—" She was interrupted by a sudden roar and a gust of oppressively hot air and turned towards the source, a Pelican coming to land within the hangar with a large transport and storage unit under its tail. It contained components to repair and replace the extensive damage incurred by Turul's surface batteries during the battle. Ordinarily, a cargo ship would deliver the parts en-masse, but with the civilian docks still clogged with the debris of Abyssal boarding craft and military docks crammed with damaged warships, the quickest solution was to bring them in by dropship.

A tug came forward to meet the Pelican as it settled to the deck, pulling a large dolly behind it. Its operator efficiently maneuvered beneath the transport unit, and the container fell onto the dolly with a clunk of disengaging locks. The tug drove away towards a service corridor, allowing the dropship's rear ramp to fall open and a line of civilians to begin boarding.

"… as I was saying, it's not that I'm playing a paragon of virtue." Laughley cocked an eyebrow. "I just don't want it to become a habit is all. The glow could give away my position"

The corporal snorted and flicked away a speck of ash. "It's not like I stick my head above the trench to do it. Besides, eltee, we're marines. Like, you can't get any lower than that on our galactic totem pole. We exist to die via orbital bombardment or artillery or airstrike or getting shanked through the back by some cocksucking active-camo'd alien sunuvabitch—" He paused and took another drag. "Point is, I'm a dead man walking, who cares if I light one up? Snipers probably already watch me piss, they'll shoot me when it's my time. Hell, if I buy it, maybe Mr. Spartan McAsslicker can use the muzzle flash to earn another medal."

"Good habits add up," Armandez countered. "A cigarette's a small thing, true, but if I start getting sloppy there, what's keeping me from slacking off somewhere else? Like you said, we're marines. If a Spartan's off their game, who cares? They've got energy shields and power armor and we don't. We might exist to get killed off on the whims of whoever writes this fucked-up story, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to postpone that time as long as possible."

"Let's be real here. Say I live a few more months — what can I really contribute? Like, mathematically, I'm pretty sure the costs of a slightly shortened lifespan are pretty negligible opposed to the pleasure of a good smoke." He snapped his fingers a few times, thinking hard. "Besides, that argument's like a, what do you call it, a slippery-slope fallacy right there, lieutenant."

"Now you're just being a pedantic ass." She flipped the bird at his cheeky grin and turned away. Laughley had a point, but not smoking was one of the precious few things she could control to increase her life expectancy, unlike being flattened by orbital bombardment or having her throat cut by a cloaked Abyssal, both typical occurrences on the modern battlefield. They'd had this conversation before, more than likely would in the future, and neither of them would change until the day they died.

Laughley interrupted her thoughts with a yawn and stretched his arms out to the sides. By all accounts, he seemed bored and unalert, but Armandez noticed his eyes subtly sweeping his sector of the hangar bay, and turned to do the same with hers. A line of civilians — technicians, businesspeople, families — many sporting varying degrees of injuries, awaited transport or evacuation. The scene was mirrored across the many landing pads of the expansive hangar, each line watched carefully by several marines. The lack of unrest made for a pleasant surprise; apparently, the harsh reality of an Abyssal invasion served to quiet even those most resentful of UNSC control.

Well, most of them, she mentally amended as shouts echoed from across the bay, followed by a radio report of a disturbance. Two marines surrounded a man curled up on the ground, kicking and swinging crackling stun batons. Another marine laid on the deck a fair distance away, slowly picking herself up and sporting a bloody nose. The man gave one final cry and fell silent, but the blows continued until a pool of blood began spreading on the deck. The injured marine swung one last vengeful kick into the man's groin before being helped away, her assailant dragged along behind.

"Civvies are getting antsy," Schwartz commented, as if a man had not just been beaten half to death, "not that I blame them. If I was stuck not knowing when the big bad aliens were coming back, I'd want off and far away as well."

"Even if they're scared, you'd think they'd know better than to punch the people trying to protect them," Peterson replied.

Armandez shrugged. "I'm inclined to agree, because I don't like getting punched, but you can't honestly say that we have a great track record of keeping people safe." That got a round of morose nods. "That breeds some resentment, especially if we demand they obey us anyway. Doesn't mean that guy didn't deserve what he got, though."

"He's done for," Laughley agreed. "Stupid bastard. Still can't believe Petra got decked like that, he must've gotten a cheap shot."

"There's no such thing as a cheap shot. You lot are getting sloppy. Remind me to schedule sparring practice." Armandez turned to glare at her own line of civilians, most of whom were craning their necks to get a look at the commotion. "What're you all looking at? Eyes down, feet forward!"

"You heard the lieutenant, mind your own business!" Peterson moved forward, rifle up, and bullied the civilians back into order. "Idiots!" A few of them looked mutinous, but no one raised a hand to resist.

"God, this is so boring," Schwartz muttered, scratching under her helmet's chinstrap. "Lieutenant, how much longer are we gonna be here?"

Armandez gave an apologetic shrug and half-smile. "5th Platoon relieves us at 1600. Until then, we're stuck here."

"Fuuuuuck…" She ran a hand down her face and breathed deeply. "It's so stuffy in here…"

It was rather stifling. Conscious of the sweat beading on her forehead, Armandez tugged absentmindedly at her collar and wished her flak vest was made something much more breathable. The ventilation systems did their best to clear the air, but the nonstop comings and goings of dropships, evaporating fuel, and the natural body heat of crowded humanity produced a constant haze that blanketed the hangar. A few marines coped with it by wearing respirators, but she'd forgotten her own on Scorpia. "Step out for a sec if you need to, I not gonna make you pass out to stand post. These civvies aren't making trouble anyway."

Startled but thankful, Schwartz nodded and hastened for the exit, muttering, "Thanks lieutenant," as she passed, Peterson hot on her heels.

"Remember to hydrate!" Armandez called after them. As soon as they disappeared from sight, Laughley stubbed out his cigarette, threw in a nearby ashtray and sidled closer, a shifty look in his eyes.

"Lieutenant—"

"If this is about standing down early, forget it."

"No, no, no. Look, I know we're on duty, but did you hear the latest scuttlebutt?" He adopted a defensive look at Armandez's exasperated expression. "What? It's not like we're actually doing anything."

"Do you have any concept of delayed gratification whatsoever?"

"Nope!"

"Hell." She loathed to admit it, but she was bored. "Rumors are like assholes. What's yours?"

Keeping one eye on the civilians, he beckoned her closer. "A'ight, so you know that Abbie commander? The one that sent the 'do what I say or I'mma kill ya' message?" At her nod, he forged on. "Okay, and you know Dawn beat the shit out of that thing?"

"Really? That girl?" Armandez raised her eyebrows. "You know what? I can believe it, after the number she did to the Abbies in here." She shook her head in amazement. "First she takes down the Abbie fleet then goes mano-a-mano with the head baddie… shit, I need to start hitting the gym more."

"That's for sure. But there's more. Just heard it through the grapevine; that Abbie?" Laughley paused for dramatic effect. Despite herself, Armandez leaned in closer. "It's not dead." A long moment passed. "Oh, come on, you're supposed to act more shocked!"

"No, I'm just trying and failing to see a way that two people walk away from that kind of fight."

"Spoilsport. But I've got a friend on Infinity, says Dawn was super fucked-up when they brought her in. I'm talking, like, you can see the light of day clean through her kind of fucked-up."

"Got herself shanked, did she?" Abandoning any pretense of being on guard, Armandez turned fully towards Laughley. "Is she alright?"

"I heard that she had some sort of accelerated healing going on, like Wolverine — which is a special kind of bullshit, by the way. Just for once, can we get something cool like that?" He smirked and tilted his head as if looking at his superior from a different angle. "Why all the concern, eltee?"

"Can't have her dying before I can thank her for saving our asses."

"Sure, sure. Anyway, that's not my point. I heard they've got that Abbie locked up somewhere on board Infinity! Never happened before, how crazy is that?" Laughley shook his head with a grin. "Man, if you told me all this a couple days ago, I'd have called you a crazy—"

"Wait, wait." Armandez stepped back with a look of consternation. "You're saying they took that thing alive? It didn't just run away?"

"Well, yeah, I thought I implied that."

"Abbies never get captured, everyone knows that. We never get the chance 'cause they always kill themselves!"

"Yeah, that's — hold on a sec. Hey, hey mate, back off, you hear?!" Laughley turned to shout at a couple of civilians who were subtly trying to edge closer to the conversation. "Mind your own business and stay in line! No eavesdropping!"

"Well, when's the transport coming? We've been here for hours!"

"It'll come when it comes, now get lost! Fucking idiots. What was I saying? Right, that's why this is special. First Abyssal we've ever captured, and it's a commander too! Only…" The corporal trailed off, pursing his lips together. "Well, it's a bit unbelievable, this next part."

"This whole thing's unbelievable, keep going."

He let out a breath and shrugged. "Alright then. My sources say that when they brought the Abbie in — under heavy lock and key, mind you — it looked… different."

"Being beat into the dirt'll do that to you."

"No, no, different as in… well, you know how Abbies generally look, right? Well, right before they tossed the thing into a cell, my source got a look at its face. They said that it looked almost…" Laughley glanced around to make sure no one was listening in. "… human."

It was probably Armandez's imagination running wild, but she could swear the air chilled just as Laughley said it. She wanted to scoff and dismiss him, but the past week had been so strange that she found herself seriously trying to imagine what that would look like. She shivered involuntarily. "Well, it's got two arms and two legs, right? Maybe that's what your 'friend' meant."

"No, listen, they said its face, it looked human! Like, a human girl!" Armandez did an internal double-take at the note of fear entering his voice. "Jesus, lieutenant, what if, if that alien could have a human face, what's to say that Dawn… well, Dawn definitely ain't totally human, now is she?"

The implication was clear, even if neither wanted to spell it out — or for it to be true, for that matter. "I'd like to think it won't come to that. And anyway, didn't your 'friend' also say that Dawn's still in pretty rough shape, even with her 'healing factor'? In that case, even if she does turn on us, she's only one weakened person against a ship full of guns. I think we're pretty safe."

"As long as we stay off Infinity, yeah we are." Laughley shivered despite the warmth and glanced in the direction of the hangar bay opening. "It's not that I suddenly hate her or anything, it's just… well, I dunno what they were thinking, taking that Abbie aboard the flagship. If nothing else, what if it breaks out? That thing beat up something that thrashed an entire division of Abbie troops, what'll it do to us?"

"Stow that talk," Armandez snapped, "you'll drive yourself crazy thinking about that. We need to trust that the brass and the spooks know what they're doing. You said it yourself, we're marines. What else can we do?"

"Jackshit." As he spoke, Laughley pulled out a fresh smoke and lit up. "Absolute jackshit. You're right, though, lieutenant. The spooks will do whatever they want. I'll be happy so long as I am nowhere within a hundred thousand klicks of that thing."

"Amen to that. Amen to that."

Two things happened simultaneously, right as Armandez finished speaking. First, an automated announcement informed the hangar bay that a Pelican was coming to land on pad 15 — the pad she was guarding. Then, as civilians began chattering with happy relief, her radio crackled.

"Lieutenant Armandez, this is Verdant. Do you receive me, over?"

"Verdant?" With a glance at Laughley, Armandez keyed to answer. "I copy. Is there a situation, over?"

"Captain Garcia is coming to Hangar Bay C. Prepare your unit to escort him to UNSC Infinity, over."

"Say again, Verdant, Infinity, over?"

"Yes. Admiral Lasky has requested his presence, and you are the most available detachment right now. Prepare to transfer to Infinity on the next Pelican, out."

The transmission cut off unceremoniously. Armandez looked slowly over at Laughley and had to stifle a laugh as the dullest, most world-weary pair of eyes she'd ever seen stared back. If she squinted, she could almost make out his soul leaving his body. "I just had to open my big fat mouth, didn't I, lieutenant?"

"It can't be that bad. Civvies aren't going to be happy, though, I think we're hijacking their flight."

"They'll just have to deal with it." Laughley pressed his face into his hand and didn't remove it for a long moment. "Someone, somewhere, finds our suffering funny. Why else would the universe have such a great sense of timing?"

"Come on, chin up. I hear they've got an arboretum on the upper decks." Armandez grinned, a genuine smile. "I haven't seen a living tree in years."

---

"It's a new day, rise and shine!"

"Ohh…" Dawn's eyes slowly opened as she surfaced from a surreal dream involving grilled chicken and nuclear fusion. A blurry image swam into view, eventually resolving into a corpsman standing at the foot of her hospital bed.

"Good morning! How are we doing today?"

"Is it morning?" Dawn blinked and blearily glanced at the clock on the far wall of the ward. Despite several hours of sleep, she didn't feel much more rested or refreshed. "Aw… I swear I only closed my eyes for a second…" She turned her head slowly from side to side, cracking out a kink in her neck and getting an eyeful of the light green isolation curtains which separated her from the patients on either side. "Doesn't help that you guys barely turn down the lights," she groused, shaking her head in an unsuccessful try at clearing the fog from her brain.

"You seem to have slept well enough anyway, and you're still healing. It's natural to be tired." The corpsman clucked his tongue as he checked the monitors at her bedside. "Vitals alright, everything seems fine. No new developments overnight. Any undue discomfort?"

"No more than usual." She yawned and stretched her arms over her head, nodding appreciatively at the relative lack of pain in her chest and back — relative here meaning her muscles and bones were merely on strike instead of a full-on proletarian revolution. "Kind of woozy, very sore everywhere, and I've learned to avoid being skewered, but it's mostly like I never even got shot full of holes in the first place."

The corpsman chuckled as he reached over to swap out an IV bag. "That'll do it to you. But you're full of surprises, aren't you? A beating that could knock an ODST out for days, and you're up and talking like nothing happened."

"Ah, you're just flattering me now. I couldn't swat a fly right now." She leaned to the side to stay out of the way, wincing as her core groaned under the strain of the simple movement. "And, well, I didn't do anything, really. My damage control teams deserve the credit for sealing off the damage as well as they did."

To his credit, the corpsman didn't bat an eye. "You'll have to introduce me sometime. I'd love to learn from anyone who can keep someone going through a collapsed lung and twenty-eight stab wounds." He secured the fresh and stood back to evaluate his handiwork. "You're sure there are no problems with the surgery sites?"

"I mean, I'm no doctor… but I don't think I'm bleeding? At least, externally? Sorry, not totally in sync with myself, still getting a feel for the new model, you know?" She gestured lamely to herself. Beneath her gown, her skin was covered with dozens of felt pen marks large and small indicating healing surgical sites. Despite multiple assurances that nothing was removed, Dawn sometimes had to check if her appendix was still inside and not under a microscope somewhere.

"Fair enough," the corpsman replied, peering at another monitor. "Blood count looks normal. Doctor Myers thinks we've managed to flush your system out, and it doesn't look like there's any lasting damage." The corpsman tutted disapprovingly. "All the same, you're not to use any sort of combat drugs for a month, at least until we get a better idea of how they interact with your, um, physiology. Doctor's orders, understood?"

"Aye aye, doc."

"Rumbledrugs, in your condition, what were they thinking? It's risky enough in a healthy person…" He pursed his lips and gave Dawn a bit of side-eye. "You're sure, no pain? No headaches of any kind?"

It was barely perceptible, but his voice held a slight note of apprehension that Dawn only picked up with the help of a few auditory subroutines. She gave the corpsman an odd look but decided to ignore it. "It feels like the tail end of an ultra-marathon more than anything." She sighed in half-fond exasperation. "I appreciate it, I really do, but you shouldn't be spending so much time on me. I'm fine, honestly. There're others who could use it a lot more."

"To be brutally honest, you're more important."

A uniformed man stepped around the curtains. Dawn shivered as he stared at her, eyes hidden behind an opaque dull-orange visor. The rest of his face was equally inscrutable, not a hint of a smile or a frown visible in his perfectly neutral lips or jawline. He stood at the foot of her bed and held the eye contact for a long moment, and then a moment longer until she felt obligated to break the tense silence.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

Instead of replying, the man turned to the corpsman, revealing the commander's emblem on his shoulder. "What's your evaluation?"

The corpsman grimaced as he spoke, reluctance written in every word. "She's stable enough for transfer, although I caution against it. At the very least please keep any strain down to a minimum. It's still very much a touch-and-go situation, especially since we don't have a good grasp on how her healing works."

"Hey, excuse me?" Dawn called out indignantly, "Could you not talk about me like I'm not here? I know I'm an invalid, but I'm not deaf!"

The commander tilted his head like he was being bothered by a fly. "Is the subject always like this?"

"Eh… more pleasant company, usually, but just as loud."

"Hey!"

"In any case, corpsman, your concerns are noted. Now, please prepare the subject for transfer."

"… yes, sir."

Dawn shot out her arm and grabbed the corpsman's wrist as he moved to secure the IVs and vitals monitors. "Excuse me, but can I get an explanation?!" she hissed. "If I'm about to disappear into some secret ONI lab, I'd at least like a heads-up!"

"Not so hard!" The corpsman twisted out of her grasp and stood back, rubbing his wrist. "It's nothing like that. Look, I…" He trailed off and looked over his shoulder at the commander, and got the tiniest nod in return. "It's nothing like that. You saved our collective asses and pulled off one of the biggest intelligence coups in recent history to boot, and I personally believe you are firmly on our side, but command can't just take things at face value. You're still technically an unknown, possibly hostile, and protocol is pretty clear. They're going to grill you until they're sure you're not, then grill you some more. Hands, please." She wordlessly presented her hands and he snapped a sturdy pair of handcuffs around her wrists, followed by a pair with more slack around her ankles. "It's nothing personal. Hell, it could be a lot worse. Just imagine what they're doing to that Abbie!"

"Wait, that's — you mean Amber—"

"That's quite enough." The commander cut her train of thought off with a clap. "Is the subject secured?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. Spartan Mordeaux, Spartan Kenniston, please take custody of the subject."

"Understood." Dawn's eyes bugged out as, before her eyes, a pair of 7-foot tall hunks of power armor, machine guns and cutting-edge biological, chemical, and technological augmentations decloaked with a shimmer of active camouflage. "Kenniston."

"Roger that." The Spartan in light grey armor with green highlights moved to her side and grabbed her firmly, but not quite roughly, by her arm. "Stand up."

"Spartans…?" Dawn whispered, doing her best to comply with bound limbs. After two days in bed, her legs felt like soggy pasta as she tried to find her footing on the cold deck. A pair of hospital slippers landed in front of her, and she gratefully slid her feet in. "I thought… but…"

"Don't move." Mordeaux snapped a thick, heavy collar around her neck, attached to a stiff metal pole. On reflex, Dawn tried to reach up to loosen it, but a slight twitch of Kenniston's assault rifle dissuaded her. She settled for a hard swallow and tried to ignore the pressure on her throat. A quick glance to her side showed the corpsman looking almost as miserable. "There's seven pounds of C12 in this collar. One wrong move and your head's gone."

"Deja vu, I've been in this place before…" she muttered. "I thought we were past this stage?"

In response, Mordeaux picked up the pole and the commander took hold of a rope attached to the handcuffs. With her head and arms controlled and the range of motion of her legs limited, Dawn could only do her best to shuffle forward as Mordeaux put a firm hand on her back. "Start moving."

With Kenniston shadowing her with his rifle and seven pounds of explosive under her chin, her bruised dignity was the last thing on Dawn's mind. The corpsman gave a small wave good-bye and an encouraging smile as he stepped back to let the little entourage past. The other patients in the sickbay stared unashamedly as they walked down the rows of beds, though the faceless visors of the two Spartans sweeping back and forth discouraged any smart comments. She almost fell over in surprise when two more Spartans decloaked as they exited the sickbay, but Mordeaux's firm grip on the pole kept her standing by her neck. "Gack—!" Recovering from nearly strangling herself, she shot a resentful glare back at the blue-and-yellow armored Spartan as his two new comrades fell into formation alongside. "I thought the point wasn't to kill me?"

The lack of response characterized the rest of the very long walk. Dawn tried to crack a few jokes or somehow break the ice, but eventually fell into silence with the rest. Just as well; internally, she was reeling from the apparently highly unremarkable existence of Spartans. Obviously, these weren't from the same cohort as the Chief and his brethren. The degree of customization on their armor and the use of names instead of numbers gave that much away. And, logically, the UNSC wouldn't just give up on making new Spartans, not after the Covenant War. But the fact that enough existed that the UNSC could afford to spare four of them just to guard her, and the fact that no one they passed seemed very impressed by their presence — it was all so surreally mundane. After the Fall of Reach, Spartans, and the Chief in particular, had taken on a literally mythical status. A Spartan in the wild was like seeing a unicorn, if that unicorn had been an invincible grey-green blur ripping through Covenant lines and leaving a helpful trail of blue-purple blood to follow. She just couldn't reconcile these cookie-cutter Spartans, who received no more than a sideways glance and a respectful nod from the marines and sailors they passed, with the living demigods who hushed rooms full of generals and admirals just by entering that she remembered.

Speaking of the marines and sailors they passed…

Most of them paid their odd little entourage little mind, which Dawn found strange but quite welcome at the same time. The ones who did, though obviously a little on edge, didn't seem to have any hostility in their gazes. Some even smiled at her or whispered small encouragement. The fact that she had at least some allies on the same ship as her went a long way to making the long, cold walk more bearable, sustaining her until they reached a nondescript side corridor. The commander led them to the end, then held his wrist up to a panel on the wall. A door slid open to reveal a plain room with a single table, a chair, and a holotank. "The subject will take a seat."

"Yes, sir. Will you stand?"

"I have prior commitments. Now, take it in."

Dawn was only too happy to comply. A relieved groan escaped her as Mordeaux guided her over to sit in the chair. The door closed on a view of the commander's back as he turned to leave, leaving her alone with the Spartans. Her feet, numb from the chilly deck despite the slippers, rejoiced as her weight finally left them, and she was so busy trying to flex some feeling back into her calves that she almost didn't notice as the Spartans locked her ankle and wrist cuffs into anchor points on the table and floor, or when they reactivated their active camouflage. She looked up to find herself the only person in the room, but even the best active camo couldn't get rid of the tingling only the presence of four superhuman killing machines could induce on the back of her neck. "New tricks, huh?" she muttered, conducting a subtle infrared scan. "Kinda jealous, not gonna lie," she added when the scan came up empty. "That trick could've come in handy… well, several times already."

"Feeling left out, are we?"

"Ah!" If not for the restraints, Dawn would have fallen out of her chair as a voice suddenly came from the holotank on the table. A small, yellow-hued World War II pilot materialized in front of her, a smirk on his holographic face. "Jesus, don't do that to me! W-who are you?"

"Relax, relax, I don't bite." He put a hand to his chest and leaned forward in a half-bow. "I'm Roland. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Roland?" A wary eye on the AI, she tried to recall the name and salvage her dignity — a tall order in a hospital gown and hair falling all over her face. "Sorry, I don't think we've met."

"Probably not. I'm Admiral Lasky's personal aide." He extended a conciliatory hand. "Sorry for startling you, but a guy's got to get his laughs somewhere. Hey, relax, I'm just here to chat for a bit. Watch any movies lately?"

"No. Of course not. Um, no offense to you or the admiral, but why'd he send you? Shouldn't you be an intelligence officer or something?"

"Offense taken, first of all. I'm just as good as any spook you'll find out there." He counted his points off on his fingers. "Second of all, a formal interrogation this ain't. More like a… meet and greet, since nobody's had a chance to sit down and get to know you a little better." He stopped on the third finger. "Finally, I'm the one who convinced the admiral not to blow you out of the sky when you made your entrance." Setting his fingers down, he gave a nonchalant shrug that managed to be exceedingly smug. "So I think I've earned a chat, don't you?"

"Ah. Um." Dawn blinked, which she was finding to be a rather useful reaction. "Should I thank you?"

"You are very welcome. Though, maybe I should be thanking you. I would have eventually figured a way to beat the Abbies, but your efforts were very useful in extricating us from our bind." He gestured towards her wrists. "Speaking of binds, sorry about those. Necessary precautions."

"Uh…" Dawn blinked at Roland's rapid-fire speech. "Alright, train's left the station and I'm not on it. Why, exactly, am I here, and not relaxing in a slightly uncomfortable hospital bed?"

Roland deflated a little. "No fun, straight to business? Boo. I guess I can respect that, though." He clapped his hands for attention. "Ay, you meatheads in the corners there, none of this leaves the room, understand? Remember: I see you when you're sleeping." Dawn tried to detect a reaction out of the corner of her eye, but active camo was apparently much better than she remembered — not so much as a shimmer of movement. "Alright, down to work. I had you brought here so we could talk somewhere private."

"Private?" Dawn raised an eyebrow. "What are those guys, chopped liver? For that matter, if this is so hush-hush, what's the bright idea behind making such a big scene in bringing me here?"

"We'll get to that." Roland sighed, taking off his helmet and running a hand through his hair. "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but you're a huge headache for me right now. A headache in a good sort of way, I mean — ugh, this is coming out wrong."

"Take your time. I'm not going anywhere." She rattled her restraints for emphasis.

Roland clapped his hands again. "Excellent! Because as soon as you step off this ship, ONI's going to lay claim to you and your immortal soul and whisk you off to some lab, never to be seen again." He put a finger to his chin and tutted. "Actually, scratch that. They might even do it while you're on board."

A moment passed while that sunk in. "Wait, what? Come on, I know I was joking about that but I didn't actually mean it!"

"Oh no, I'm very serious right now. Think about it; you're a walking, talking, man-sized package of weird-ass tech that can put a round through an Abyssal armor belt from seventy thousand klicks. Just imagine the kind of discoveries we could make if we cut you open! Oh, you've gone pale. Are you sick?"

Dawn leaned back, suddenly feeling quite queasy. "Excuse me? That's— I'm not—"

Roland waggled a finger. "Ah ah ah, not done here. See, under normal xeno-tech protocols, we should have already turned you over to the relevant organizations for research and probably eventual dissection. Hell, given the frankly massive tech boost you could prove to be, it's probably even the right and proper thing to do." His smirk grew wider as Dawn grew paler. "Any whiter and you'll turn purple. Ah, but if I wanted to do the right and proper thing, what's the point of even talking to you now? Admiral Lasky thinks, and I happen to agree, that as a sentient being the circumstances surrounding you are slightly different."

She lacked any sort of formal biological education, but Dawn was reasonably certain her heart wasn't supposed to beat that fast. She tried to wipe the sweat from her palms but only succeeded in rattling the chains again. "Well, there's nowhere to go but up. Lay it on me."

"I was going to anyway." Roland held up his hands and wobbled them like a scale. "The admiral wants to give you a choice. Give yourself to the greater good? Or continue to fight on the frontline—"

"The second one!" Dawn blinked, then flushed. "Ahem, I mean, yes, the second option you mentioned does seem more appealing. Though it's rather selfish, I guess… Of course, I will accept any decision that the admiral makes though I—"

"Whoooa there, slow your roll." Roland motioned for her to relax. "In a startling turn of events no one could have predicted, Admiral Lasky shares that opinion. And, in a fantastical and improbable coincidence, so do I!" He made a 'ta-da' motion. "Lucky you."

"He does?" Her heartbeat slowed from a snare drum roll to mere tap dance. "Well, I mean, of course he does, why wouldn't he? Ha, ha ha…"

Roland sighed and covered his face with a palm. "God save me from the bravado of humans. Look, given that we aren't even sure that your tech can be reverse-engineered into something mass-producable, or that it's even compatible with our stuff in the first place, the admiral feels that, until we have more observations to go off of, your certain value as a combat unit outweighs your possible value as a research specimen."

Heart lifting, Dawn chanced a half-smile as she said, "Well, that's great, isn't it? So you can just let me go and—"

"But of course, since nothing can be easy, it's not so simple." He sagely bobbed his holographic head. "Tough, isn't it? Welcome to the modern UNSC. ONI's got protocol and precedent on their side, and they're not going to let one admiral, however illustrious, and his opinions get in the way of research."

And back down her heart went, along with that smile. "Ah. Of course." Head drooping, she stared at her hands in their cuffs. She could probably break them with a little effort… if only she was sure summoning her damaged equipment wouldn't also bring back the damage to her body. Also the little matter of the four Spartans, any one of whom could probably break her in half before she could say 'just a prank', but they were a strictly secondary concern. "But you wouldn't have told me this if you didn't have a plan to change that, right?"

"I'm flattered you think so highly of me! And, as a matter of fact, I do. I simply have to put together an argument as to why your military value outweighs your scientific, one that'll stand up to legal scrutiny, win over a military tribunal in the face of thirty years of precedent and regulation, and convince them not to sanction the admiral and me for directly and knowingly flouting a general directive." He smiled brightly, ignoring Dawn's dumfounded expression. "Of course, even when I pull all that off, ONI might just ignore the ruling anyway… but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it! So!" He fell back into a suddenly appearing holographic chair, hands comfortably folded on his chest and one leg crossed. "To do that, I need some information, so I'm going to ask you a few questions. Is that alright? Not that you have much of a choice."

Dawn nodded slowly. She'd known that, sooner or later, there would be an interrogation— "Don't think of it as an interrogation, more of a, ah, pre-interrogation!" — no matter what. This setting, even with four invisible super soldiers in attendance, was much preferable to a cell in the Oort Cloud. "Okay, then. If that's what it'll take me to keep me fighting, and out of a lab… ask away."

"Wonderful. Don't worry, we aren't too pressed for time. That little Spartan parade sent a pretty clear hands-off message to anyone watching." Roland nodded at an empty patch of air. "But at the same time, that's no reason to dilly-dally, so let's get started right away then, shall we?" Despite his reassurances, the pit in Dawn's stomach grew deeper as Roland's grin grew wider, and she couldn't help but feel she'd made some huge mistake. "Question one: How exactly do you summon your equipment?"

The greater good is sounding pretty good right now, Dawn thought, as the questions began coming, one after another in a never-ending stream…

---

Gabriel's starboard rippled with gunfire as her point defenses lit up a wave of Abyssal strike craft. Shells, missiles, lasers, and plasma bolts lashed out, turning dozens of fighters and bombers into shattered, melted wrecks as incoming fire battered at her powerful shields. Her main battery hurled a volley of MAC shells and plasma beams at a distant foe as she pulled through a maximum-acceleration turn, letting her portside secondaries join in the pummeling. Her starboard side shields fell, allowing several fireballs to blossom against the ablative armor belt, just in time to reinforce the portside as a return volley crashed into her. The battleship pulled out of the smoke, battered but fully operational, as a distant flash signaled the destruction of her Abyssal counterpart.

"Exercise concluded. UNSC Gabriel is standing by."

"Stand down and return to formation. Excellent work, it's good to see you in top form."

"Many thanks, admiral."

The simulated damage and wreckage faded as Gabriel slowly made her way back to her battlegroup. Throughout Reach orbit, other ships lined up to take their turn at combat exercises. Frigates and corvettes practiced torpedo runs, destroyers fended off illusory waves of missiles and chased down damaged Abyssal light units, and cruisers and battleships held the battleline firm against simulated torrents of enemy fire. The majority of the fleet still remained there, anticipating another attack, but with the probability of a follow-on force fading after two days ships were beginning to fan out across the system, assessing the damage to the other worlds and scattered outposts of Epsilon Eridani.

Fortunately, Reach seemed to have suffered the brunt of the assault, as the steady trickle of incoming reports so helpfully informed Lasky. The pace was, thankfully, much reduced compared to the frenetic tempo of combat, but it still seemed he couldn't pass five minutes without receiving new news.

"Do you think," he said quietly after listening to a report on the repair queue at the Tribute Orbital Yards, "that God looks forward to Judgement Day so He'll never have to hear another report on our sins?"

"I think that the number of reports that would generate would keep Him busy for another few eternities, sir," Captain Shen replied, reviewing the results of Infinity's own point defense exercises. "And lo did Adam and Eve partake of the forbidden fruit of knowledge, thus man would be cursed to receive reports forevermore."

"It certainly feels like I'm being punished for my sins." Lasky rotated the main display as he spoke. "Give me the status of the Manassas Defense Cluster, please."

"Manassas Station is eighty percent complete with repairs. Battleship Divisions Four and Six, Cruiser Divisions Five, Eight, Nine, and Ten, and accompanying destroyer and frigate squadrons remain on station at full combat readiness."

"Thank you." He caught a glimpse of Shen's raised eyebrow. "Concerns, captain?"

"Sir. Only that spreading our forces through Reach orbit could spread us too thin and leave us unable to defend any single point satisfactorily."

"That is a risk," Lasky admitted, "but our priority is to protect the people of Reach. We would've lost the entire evacuation because I didn't consider the possibility of being flanked, and we almost still did, despite several miracles. I won't let that happen again." He brought up a diagram of fleet deployment and highlighted Manassas Station. "Besides, even if the initial force concentration doesn't favor us, if the Abyssals concentrate all their attacks on one side it allows forces in another position to safely move beyond the range of the jammers to jump behind them. With proper warning and ODP positioning, we should be able to hold our own."

"I understand, sir. It's the proper warning part I'm doubtful of."

"A few minutes is all we need. The monitoring stations are crewed by good people, we have to trust they can provide it."

"As you say, admiral." Shen glanced at his datapad and frowned. "Excuse me, sir." A pair of officers hastened out of his way as he walked over to the tactical station. "Lieutenant Zhou, is this all we were able to get out of our Mosquito pods?"

Lasky let the discussion fade into the background. He conducted a surreptitious survey for eavesdroppers, then tapped several times to pull a few files. Shrinking them and pretending to study the larger display, he whispered, "Roland, report."

It took a second, but the AI whispered back directly into his mind through his neural lace. "More specific, please, otherwise we could be here for hours."

"Start with your fact-finding mission on Turul. Give me the Martian Digest version."

"And I had such a wonderful story to tell too, full of drama and romance and mystery." Lasky could hear the shrug in Roland's voice. "Very well, sir, I'll have to settle for the synopsis. The full book is available for purchase, by the way—"

"Roland, not all of us run on electricity, and I'd like to get something resembling sleep tonight."

"Right, right." A moment passed as the AI collected himself. "Well, in a slightly annoying turn of events, my fragment got caught intruding Scorpia's databanks. Her resident AI is better than I gave her credit for."

"What?" Lasky mentally cursed himself for his inability to keep his voice from rising. He waved away the gazes of several officers, staring intently at a readout of fleet fuel reserves, and continued quietly. "We're breaking several general directives and regulations here," he hissed, "and if anyone gets wind of this—"

"Calm down now, Verdant actually turned out to be quite sympathetic to my arguments. She's agreed not to spill, and before you ask, I do have more than just her word. I didn't even have to subvert her logic routines to get her to come around. As a side effect, another part of our little scheme got moved up as well, but I'll get to that." Lasky's datapad vibrated in his pocket. "I just sent the files."

"All's well that ends well, I suppose. One moment." Lasky raised his voice. "Slot Patrol Group 5 in front of the refueling queue as soon as they complete their sweep. They're running on fumes and I won't have anyone being caught empty if the Abbies come back. And remind BXR that if they can't pick up the pace, Liang-Dortmund will be happy to take over our rush order. We'll find a way to compensate them, but we have no idea if supplies are coming and we need that deuterium now." Dropping his volume back down, he continued, "And Verdant is the one who caught you?"

"Yes, once you get through first impressions she's actually quite good company. Might invite her to dinner one of these days, get to know the person beneath the code. Who knows? Moving on!" Roland hastily added, forestalling another rebuke, "part two of our plans is coming along nicely. Do you remember a certain Captain Garcia?"

"Scorpia's CO? Distinctly." Lasky let out a small snort as he replaced the fuel reserves with a display of ammunition stocks. "Reminds me of me, speaking up against superior officers. I'd find it charming if I didn't understand why my instructors at Corbulo hated me."

"Er, yes, well, given that his command is minor and unlikely to be combat-important or ready in the near future, and that he has already had personal experience dealing with the er, problem, and that he doesn't seem likely to see her as an expendable weapon…" Roland paused for simulated breath, and to give Lasky a chance to catch up. "Well, he seems to fit your criteria. Until someone better suited is found, of course."

"I'll run with that. What's his status?" Lasky held up a finger. "Actually, let me guess. He's on his way here right now."

"He is currently — actually, yes. Good guess, admiral. How'd you know?"

"It's what would cause the biggest headache for me, so of course it's what's happening." He let out a slow breath through his nose and counted to five. "Have someone take him to quarters and keep him there until everything's on the same page."

"Aye, sir. Verdant had high recommendations for him, I don't think he'll cause much trouble."

"Oh, Verdant did, did she?" Muttering something indiscernible and unrepeatable, Lasky shuffled ships around in the ammunition supply queue and made a note to prioritize replenishment of MAC rounds. "Well, enough of that. How did your Q and A go?"

"Decent enough. I sent the transcript to you as well. There's quite a bit of pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo in there. You could almost make a religion out of this."

"Kindly don't. Your ego doesn't need any more fluffing."

"Hey hey, check out the life of the party here!" Roland chuckled, but his voice quickly turned serious. "Imagine understanding something, then imagine the exact opposite of that feeling. That's just about what that meet-and-greet produced. That girl… she didn't seem to be lying. My voice and body language analyses didn't turn anything up, and the Spartans in the room didn't notice anything either. So either she wins all the Oscars forever, or she really is telling the truth that she is the spirit of the Dawn brought back in human form… but then that would mean that ships actually have spirits, in a literal sense, and that opens up a whole other can of worms. Like, are they conscious even while in their original form? And do our perceptions shape them, or are they set in stone from the beginning? Do they have any agency? Are they—"

"Roland," Lasky snapped, "I appreciate stimulating intellectual discussion as much as the next person, but not now."

"Right. Sorry. The point is, our master plan of legally securing Dawn for the Navy? Looking less likely by the second. Remember my snooping around Scorpia? It seems our good captain Garcia took the liberty of a DNA sample off of our mutual friend. Surprise surprise, she's not quite human! While I suspected as much, it makes any attempt to fend off ONI by enlisting or commissioning her as an officer that much trickier."

Lasky grit his teeth, studying a casualty list and trying not to crush the display table in his grip. "We've gone this far, might as well go a little further. Purge that data, without getting caught this time."

"Yeeeeah, thing is, our local ONI agent also took a sample. And that data is quite conveniently out of my reach." Lasky could practically hear Roland's slow, resigned nod. "But we could eventually work around that. There's legal precedent for granting aliens human rank, and it was always only a temporary solution. The other slice of the pickle is that, for all her good intentions, Dawn's cooperation just made her case harder to argue. It'd be bad enough if she was some rando human using alien tech. If what she says is true, and she's the spirit of the Forward Unto Dawn, it could definitely be argued that she is an integral part of the ship itself, almost a sort of mental pattern a la Riemann matrix or the Composer. And since what's left of FFG-201 has been ONI property since 2553, ONI has fairly good grounds on which to, ah, 'reclaim' a misplaced asset."

The table was definitely bending under his grip. With an effort, Lasky made himself relax and stand back, dismissing the casualty list. He'd go over it on his own time, and make sure every person behind every name was properly remembered. Forcing himself back to an even keel, keenly aware of the furtive stares being shot his way from around the bridge, he said loudly, "Captain Shen, alert me immediately if anything happens. I'm going for a short walk."

"Yes, sir," Shen replied from by the helm, then turned back to the hapless lieutenant manning the station. "We should have been through this turn in half the time it took. Can you tell me what went wrong?"

Lasky chuckled as the bridge doors closed on that scene. However, the smile quickly faded away as he walked past the marines guarding the bridge, distractedly returning their salutes and declining their offer of an escort. "Sorry, Roland, had to get some fresh air," he muttered. "Back to what you were saying, that doesn't sound good at all."

"No. It really isn't."

"Make sure the formal interrogation is being conducted by people we trust. Keep this under wraps until we know how to argue this. Otherwise," he said, posture slumping as he reached a corridor with no one in it, "we'll just have to deal with it when the time comes."

"Roger that, procrastination modules engaged. That's all I have to report on that front. Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"Just our communications," Lasky said, pausing to help a sailor struggling to maneuver a trolley around a corner, "with HIGHCOM. Any luck while I wasn't paying attention?"

"I hate to disappoint, sir."

"I see." He bit his lip as he stepped by to allow a maintenance crew past. "Have we diagnosed the problem yet?"

"There doesn't appear to be any damage to the comm beacons. Could be the Abyssals did some spooky space-voodoo that messed with them. I mean, we know so little about them, they might as well be magicians as well."

"Forgive me if I doubt it's due to magic. Keep me posted, comms are our top priority." Lasky paused in the middle of the corridor, brow furrowing. "Damn, I'm forgetting something. Something… Cormorant!" He'd almost forgot about the corvette dispatched to raise the alarm with HIGHCOM. "Any update on her status?"

"She was dispatched only two days ago. The Reach-Earth circuit is usually three days. It'll still be a little while before we hear from her."

"That's true… damn!" Lasky stopped again and slapped his forehead. "I forgot to send another message with our updated status. Roland, do we have any untasked corvettes?"

"Peregrine, Egret, and Swallow are currently not in repairs or on urgent assignment. Egret underwent drive maintenance most recently."

"Dispatch Egret to Earth with this message: Enemy forces repulsed. Request for support downgraded to urgent. Working to restore direct communications. Awaiting further orders." He made sure to leave out any mention of Dawn as he dictated the message. "Tell her to pull out all the stops, or half the Home Fleet's not going to be happy to find out that the party's over and everyone's gone home without them."

"Already done. Do you think this radio silence is just technical issues?"

"It's probably nothing. Keep this under wraps as well. No need to worry anyone who doesn't already know." Lasky made his way towards the lift, suddenly aware of how empty his stomach was. "I'm going to the mess hall."

"Not your wardroom?"

"The crew ought to see their admiral. I need to talk to them, understand how they're doing, reassure them that everything's going to be okay and that there's a plan." But even as he made his way to the mess, his heart slowly sank into his stomach. Try as he might, he couldn't shake the feeling that this silence wasn't due to problems on his end.

---

The food, Stalwart-class frigate FFG-142 UNSC In Amber Clad thought, tasted quite good. She had no baseline to compare to — the very idea of flavor was a novel concept — but at the very least the pasta in sauce on the tray in front of her didn't make her gag. She took another bite, chewing slowly to explore every facet of her newfound sense of taste and to avoid burning her throat, and tried to ignore the chainguns leveled at her head.

It made for a rather absurd sight; a thin girl in a thinner hospital gown, shackled to the wall by her neck, sitting on a bed bolted to the floor in the middle of a secure isolation ward, digging into a spaghetti and meatballs MRE, every move watched by a pair of roof mounted sentry turrets. She didn't know what her crimes were, but she could read between the lines. The only thing keeping her brains inside her skull was the thin armor of discipline. Better to keep her eyes down, speak only when spoken to, and make no trouble.

"Um." She looked down at the empty tray, then around for a trash can. "Hello? Should I…?"

"Slide it to the door." She leaned down and slid the tray across the floor. "Now turn around, get on your knees, and put your hands behind your head." Her left knee hit the floor at a strange angle, sending a jolt of pain up her leg, but she didn't dare cry out. Biting back a yelp and a coughing fit, she heard the door open behind her. There were a few footsteps as someone removed the tray, and then it closed again. "Resume your previous position."

"Sorry for the trouble…" Amber mumbled, drawing her knees up to her chest and trying to get comfortable on the paper-thin mattress. The thing barely deserved the name, being more of a glorified tarp laid on top of a metal frame. If the idea was to keep her from sleeping, it was working quite well.

Not that sleep would have come easily anyway. For one, every time she tried to drift off, a coughing fit which felt like her lungs were trying to implode would hit her. It was a miracle she wasn't coughing up blood at this point just from irritating her throat. Add to that the persistent headache, lethargy, and … well, she found herself sympathizing with every sailor who'd ever been ill on board her. So many new sensations she couldn't even name from every part of her body, and each one was miserable. Was her immune system so pathetic that she could come down with the flu even in a sterile, isolated cell?

While it sucked, the flu itself wasn't too concerning. Amber could deal with being sick. What worried her more was the massive gap in her memories. The last thing she clearly remembered before waking up chained to a bed was the Flood-infested interior of High Charity and the sickening, terrifying sensation of infection forms invading her systems. The memory of those crawling, poking, legs, those pulsating, sickly bodies, spreading their biomass throughout her corridors and turning her into their puppet was enough to make her stomach lurch and bring a whimper to her lips. She forced the images away — they couldn't get her here.

Focus! Between then and now, everything was covered by a fog. She sensed something laid behind, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't break through. It was maddening, especially since she was certain the answer to her current predicament laid in those missing memories. On occasion, if she really tried, she could get a vague impression, an feeling more than anything, of being trapped in a tiny room, but that was hardly anything to go on without more context. A series of harsh coughs forced her to abandon her efforts there, and she leaned her head back against the wall with a groan of frustration. Not for the first time, she wondered where Dawn was. The other frigate seemed to understand what was going on, but after their initial meeting in the sickbay, she hadn't seen hide nor tail of her. "Can't someone just tell me what's going on?" she sighed. "Firing squad or not, I just want to know."

"Careful what you wish for."

When did the door open?! Amber jerked her head up at the same time she scooted back. The end result was that for a few moments, all she could see was alternating black and white starbursts, and all she could hear was the ringing in her ears. "Ow, ow ow ow!"

"You'll understand my lack of sympathy." Her vision cleared to the point where she could make out the person in front of her. A woman in a grey uniform of unfamiliar design, holding a datapad and looking at her with frigid eyes. On her shoulder was a patch with a black triangle decorated with a single eye. Amber felt a chill run down her spine.

"ONI? You're ONI?"

The ONI agent — the woman had to be an ONI agent — raised an eyebrow. "I guess it's flattering that our reputation crosses species." A marine handed her a stool through the door, one hand on his rifle and one eye on Amber. "Thank you. Now beat it." The door closed and the woman sat down with a groan, pulling out and scanning a datapd. "Scheiße, I've been on my feet all day. This uniform does not breathe at all."

Amber finally found her voice. Keeping her legs protectively drawn up in front of herself, she asked, "W-who are you? What do you want? What have I done?!"

The agent held up a hand, not bothering to look up. "Easy there, don't get worked up. There're about twenty marines out there who'd be more than happy to tear your head off and use it for a football. Let's not give them a reason to — especially since I've reason to suspect you're innocent."

"You — what?" Amber's eyes widened, and even a coughing fit couldn't dampen a sudden burst of hope. "I'm sorry. It's just… I don't understand what's happening. Everyone hates me for some reason, but no one will tell me why and I just can't remember anything!" Suddenly aware she was shouting, she clamped her mouth shut as heat rushed to her face. "I'm just scared," she admitted in a whisper.

"Hm." The agent hadn't budged throughout Amber's entire outburst. Finally, she put away her datapad and leaned forward, elbows on legs. "Perfectly natural to be, especially since if you don't answer my questions you'll be out an airlock with a bloody hole in your pretty little forehead before the week is out, and that would be inconvenient for both you and me. So what do you say?" She tilted her head like a curious dog. "Shall we work together here?"

Amber's answer came immediately but upon seeing the smile spread across the agent's face, she regretted not thinking it through a little more.