Dialogue Chart
"Person speaking"
|Ghost Speaking|
"Alien speaking"
{AI Speaking}
Adding [ ] before any of these means the being in question is thinking
'Something being referred to with air quotations'
Anything else
Date Unknown
Location Nessus Unstable Centaur
Persons of interest
Serina: 2nd Gen Smart AI
Captain James Cutter: Cpt of the SoF
Jerome-092
Alice-130
Douglas-042
Dr. Ellen Anders
Custos (The Guardian, same loadout as before)
Cogito (Custos' Ghost)
Cutter's POV
I blinked, in shock, not that someone thought to agree, but that a Spartan was the one doing so. "We are stranded dealing with too many unknowns to turn down a potential source of information, what we've found either points to us having lost the war or being in a as of yet unknown situation. As such as this person has yet to display hostile intent we should attempt to coax more info out of him and if he does have hostile intent, I suggest that Red Team be the group to greet him when he docks." Explained Jerome before I asked myself. I pondered this for a moment. His suggestion had merit. A Spartan Fireteam could bring down just about any opponent. Not to mention this person said that he was a part of the Vanguard, Vanguard. It was possible that this was some form of scout regiment, like ONI's prowler core. Such individuals, while talented, would not excel in ground combat. That left one problem. "Serina, have you detected any potential cyber-attacks from the 'jump-ship?'" I ask seriously. {None so far, but there is definitely an AI in there, any attempts I myself have made have been repelled handily.} The AI reports, obviously miffed she couldn't break their firewalls.
"Very well, Jerome, I approve. Red Team, along with two ODST teams will be reporting to hanger 2 to receive our guest I will be greeting them myself." I announce. Red Team sends green lights as acknowledgment. "Serina inform our guest that we will be opening hanger 2 for them to enter and provide a flight plan. If they deviate they are to be shot down, make that clear to them" {Aye aye.} Captain, she says.
Custos' POV
I was starting to sweat a bit. It had been a good 10 minutes since I'd made the offer and I'd gotten nothing but radio silence. Thankfully, I suppose cooler heads prevailed on their end when they sent me a flight plan and some stipulations. Do not deviate or be shot down, no weapons for our meeting, yet pretty standard. Considering their lack of reaction to the whole Guardian deal I don't think they realized I was a living weapon though. As such I prepared to meet them by ditching my weapons. "And you were worried we'd be shot at." I mockingly accuse my ghost. |Still am, but death by burning light is far more painful than the bullets anyways.| Cogito says. "See you were worried about them not me!" I say triumphantly. |Just be careful, we are heading into a complete unknown.| The Ghost says. "I will, now, let's go meet our unknowns!" I say excitedly as our ship pulls into their hangar.
Location: SoF Hanger Bay #2
Douglas-042 POV
Weird, the unknown looked very weird. As it teleported, TELEPORTED off it its ship, that was ,y first though on its appearance. It was wearing a dull brown metal and leather looking robe, largely armored shin guards, its helmet was a slightly darker color and had no visible visor, yet its gauntlets were the strangest part. There were on fire, or had some form of contained plasma in a field wrapped around them. Either way it was an unknown, I would be cautious. Finally, what appeared to be a small optic drone hovered appeared next to the unknown. It had a brilliant blue plasma field around it. The appearance was similar to an elites energy shield yet… overcharged. That would be a priority target if things went south. If it was an optic drone, then the unknown would be blinded. While I was further deliberating, the unknown raised his hands to his head and tapped what appeared to be a few buttons and his helmet disappeared. What was left was a rather unassuming middle aged male, dark blonde hair and brown eyes on a bone pale face. He was in that armor a lot. I would know, all Spartans were pale like that too…
It was a rather neat trick, teleport your armor on and off. Not that surprising though, if you could teleport a person armor should be relatively simple… as would weapons. I further heightened my guard. From the way Jerome and Alice shifted uncomfortably I knew they had come to the same conclusion. Regardless of the risk, the Captain strode forward confidently and held out his hand. The unknown smiled and returned the gesture.
"Well, allow me to reintroduce myself, I am Custos." The unknown… the human said smiling. The captain smiled back "And I am Captain James Cutter, welcome aboard the Spirit of Fire. Now I hate to get to business straight off but I believe you said something about a potential 'Vex' incursion aboard my ship." The Captain said straightforwardly. "Ah yes, now allow my to introduce Cogito, my partner." Custos said as he offhandedly pointed towards the optic drone. |A pleasure to meet you Captain Cutter.| The not drone said, surprising many of the ODSTs members. My eyes narrowed, raising the priority level of the now identified AI platform in my mind. The small drone, barely the size of an apple, appeared to have excellent anti-gravity engines in it, an energy shield, if the readings were correct and above all else was an AI. ONI would kill for an infiltrator like that. |Now you travelled through an unknown Vex gateway to arrive here, unfortunately as it isn't mapped we aren't entirely sure where you came from or anything the Vex had for security protocols in it. Considering you're still flying the ship on your own they likely didn't use any cyberwarfare against you… not sure why. That leaves physical intrusion. Did you happen to recover any artefacts from the Vex Gate on the end you entered?|
I immediately thought back to the drone Anders insisted we recovered. It had activated and tried to kill her on arrival… I hope that it didn't do anything. "Yes, we did. It was a roughly six feet tall, drone. Bronze colored alloy and a fan shaped head." The Captain explained. With that Custos tensed. "Did it have a disproportionately sized head compared to the body?" He quickly asked. "Yes, it did. Why?" Cutter responded. With that the Guardian briefly relaxed before tensing again, as if remembering something. If he was going to say something, the AI beat him to it. |The Vex take information security very seriously. If it is broken then I suggest you dispose of it. Vex all carry beacons that activate upon their unit's deactivation. The signal is used to triangulate of its location and recover any salvageable tech. In other words it allows other Vex to teleport to the location of their fallen comrade.| The silence was deafening. |Thankfully the description of the unit you gave matches that of a Goblin, a bottom tier unit. As such the most powerful unit they would send to recover it is a Minotaur… which you don't know what is.| The Ghost says in response to the blank stares. Still a threat is a threat and the Captain responded in kind. "Serina, what did we do with the remains of the… 'Goblin'?" He asks sternly. {It was sent down to the trash compactor after Professor Anders discovered it fried its circuits on destruction.} Serina informed, while feeling smug over the Custos' shocked reaction to her presence. "Not good enough, send a marine squad down there to grab the remains, then shoot them out of an airlock." Ordered the Cpt. {There is already a squad almost there, they were going to destroy some munitions that had gone sour. We should get a response any second.} She said in return.
Almost as soon as she said this, all of the ODSTs radios began to crackle. "UNKNOWN CONTACTS! DAMN, THEY'VE TAKEN THE ENTIRE LEVEL!" screams came in over the radio, belaying the unfortunate squad's fate. With that Cutter sprang into action. "Red Team get down there on the double!" he barked quickly. However, as Red Team was about to go off, they were interrupted by their guest. "Captain Cutter, I understand you have faith in your men but the Vex are an unknown to you. I would like to accompany your people to drive them back. In addition, I will provide all of my knowledge on Vex combat to you AI for distribution among your crew." Custos offered. It was a good offer, any knowledge on what they would face would be useful. "I accept, I'll for now, you're a VIP. That means you're with Red Team, they'll lead you to the disposal level. Now then, get me back my ship."