"Our original purpose had been the elimination of the growing Insurrectionist threat. We were fit for purpose.
Initial deployments had been against isolated targets operating in remote areas. Training camps, hidden networks, warehouses; packed with all manner of illegal firearms and homemade explosives. We kicked the hornet's nest, hard. Fighting escalated. Atrocities were conducted on both sides. A café bombing would be responded to with a drone strike, which in turn would lead to another mass shooting. The Memorial Day Massacre on Arcadia, the Sansar Riots; an endless cycle of violence, a struggle. I lost count of the deployments they sent us on, of the number of men and women they asked me to kill. As a fighting force, we were every bit as relentless as the taskmasters that drove us.
Still, casualties mounted. Of the initial ORION intake, fewer and fewer remained. More and more I found myself standing alone amidst a corps of strangers. When the restructuring order came through, I was glad.
They asked me where I wanted to go. At that time I spoke four languages, had racked up hundreds of hours of combat experience. I had stared into the eyes of the Insurrectionist; tasted their sweat, their fear first-hand. I wanted them to know the pain I had suffered.
Naval Intelligence seemed a logical choice."
- excerpt from a private record, author unknown
"Anything?" Eric asked for the third time in as many minutes.
Park shook his head. They had spent hours idling in orbital traffic, awaiting due process from Argjend Station. It wasn't forthcoming any time soon. He tapped the refresh button on his com-station, and heaved a sigh of frustration.
"Nothing. Whatever's blocking our signal isn't letting it up. Whoever it is; they know ONI's frequencies. You're looking at cryptology that far exceeds anything I'm rated for. Hell, who only knows what kind of tech Becker has working for him."
Eric peered out at the long list of idling freight haulers ahead. One or two appeared to be taxiing here and there, but the process was painfully slow.
"How long before they let us get groundside?" Eric asked Perry eventually.
Perry sat back in his flight seat; arms folded, his flight visor pushed back up on top of his helmet. The pilot wore a mask of boredom on his face as he shrugged.
"They're saying all groundside traffic has been suspended until further notice. We've been asked to adopt a holding pattern and await instructions. Same official line for the past six hours. Something's going on, but they're not saying shit. One thing that's been reported across the board is widespread communications outages. Nobody's been able to reach the surface to confirm anything, but I suspect things may just be kicking off groundside."
The red-armoured Spartan nodded slowly.
"Becker knows ONI's playbook. Probably wrote half the damn thing himself. He's expecting a Prowler somewhere in orbit. He wants to draw us in, to fight on his terms. Very well."
Eric clanked up behind Perry's flight seat. A large gauntleted hand landed on his shoulder.
"How quickly can you get us down to the planet?"
"Uh, well - we'd need permission protocols; a landing docket… at this rate?" Perry glanced at the taxiing freighters lining up ahead of them. "Four hours?"
"I'm not talking protocols and dockets, Warmonger. Becker's thrown down a gauntlet, and I'm inclined to pick it up."
Perry turned about and studied the Spartan's golden visor. Even with Eric's face hidden, the pilot could read the Spartan's intentions. They had warned him that Spartans were crazy. Good. Perry was never a fan of waiting anyway. Warmonger grinned and pulled his flight visor down into place.
"Strap yourself in, Spartan." Perry smiled, adjusting his own flight harness as he flicked ready switches above him. He took a firm grip of the flight stick. "This may get bumpy."
Murphy swerved into another alley, metal screeching as they scraped the narrow confines of the walls around them. Three police cruisers, Genet coupes, dressed in the blue and white livery of the APD, swung around the corner after them, sirens whooping. The APD were all over them. This was their city, their terrain. They knew the routes, the short cuts, the alleys and the likely points of interception. The outcome of police chases usually possessed a certain amount of inevitability.
But then, most perps don't have an armoured super soldier in the back seat. Damien slid out onto the rear of the 'Hog, which by this point carried more than a passing resemblance to Swiss cheese. He unshipped his MA5, taking careful aim. His armour clicked as it locked, auto-compensating for the mad vibration of the rattling 'Hog.
Damien's VISR engaged the SmartScope functionality of the rifle; the camera mounted just above the barrel auto-synching with his HUD.
Hard rounds shredded rubber and gouged metal. Damien slowly and deliberately drew his bead across the bonnet of the oncoming car. More rounds stitched across the bonnet, tracing a line across the paintwork; punctuating the APD logo with a few more added periods of his own. He snapped his finger off the trigger. The reticule flashed green as it drifted over the two officers. When it flashed blue again he resumed firing; taking the rear-mounted siren apart. A deep electronic warble announced its demise, as the lights shattered and sprayed fits of sparks. The driver panicked, ducking down behind the dashboard. His hand jerked the steering wheel. The Genet clipped a dumpster. The cruiser jolted as it spun on its wheels, scraping the wall and slowly very suddenly. The two other cars racing up behind did the rest; protesting brakes squealing before being drowned out by a crunch of metal.
The 'Hog shot out of the alley, across the street, into another alley. Nobody followed them.
Damien lowered the MA5 down, satisfied. He grabbed onto the remains of the roof as they took another hard corner, emerging onto a wider boulevard. Damien's heart sank. A wall of police cruisers bleated its way toward them. Damien counted at least eight cars in pursuit. He went to re-sight the MA5, but then lowered it; grimacing. This was never going to work.
"I have an idea." The Spartan said. Murphy didn't respond. He was too busy picking his way through gaps in the blaring traffic. They were screaming up the oncoming lane, sliding left and right. It was taking every ounce of his concentration not to ram anything. A single mistake would doom them. Rebecca was white-knuckling it in the passenger seat, flushed with adrenaline, unable to speak. Damien nodded to himself. Time for a change in tactics.
"Rash, you got a fix on that tracker's location yet?"
"Sending a sensor pulse from your armour system now, One. Standby."
Damien's tracker flashed a bright yellow. It was right on top of their position. That was expected. The only question was precisely where.
"Got it." Rashid reported, "Isolating position now."
Damien watched patiently as the police cars swarmed up behind them. They hadn't started shooting, not yet. But that would change soon enough.
"Signal's coming from above you, One. Check the roof."
"Copy."
Damien clambered out the window, patting around for the tracking device. There, blending with the hull. Moulded plastic alloy, some kind of synth-metal compound. Sneaky. He took hold of it, prising it free. He considered crushing it. Instead, he slapped it onto his shoulder pauldron. It sat there, an ugly black lump that steadily adapted to blend with the deep blue of his armour as it mag-locked. He ducked back into the car momentarily.
"We need to lose these guys." Damien announced.
"That's your idea? Great!" Murphy replied, darting the car out of the path of yet another panicked civilian. "Wish I'd thought of it myself!"
"I'll give them something to chase. Keep moving. I'll catch up."
Those were his parting words. The Spartan crawled out the ruins of the rear window, the glass teeth of the broken frame scraping against his armour as he pulled his bulk through. He coiled on the rear of the car, eyes narrowing as he gauged the distance between the 'Hog and the closest police car.
The Spartan leapt, thrusters flaring.
He landed on the first car, the bonnet buckling inward as his knee impacted. Damien punched a hand through the reinforced windshield, gripping the steering wheel. He tugged it to the left. Hard.
Then he was moving again. His suit barked a jet of exhaust as he slammed down onto the roof, its glazed canopy spider webbing, the siren bursting from the impact. Damien repeating the process; punch, tug and jump. And again, this time yanking the wheel so hard it tore free in his hand. The three cruisers spiralled wildly on the road, into the path of their oncoming fellows.
The result was total chaos.
The Genets smashed into one another, a downtown destruction derby courtesy of the Argjend Police Department. Headlights folded like swollen eyes in a boxing match; fenders crunched and warped. Front bumpers met rear bumpers and side plating. Glass exploded. Metal screamed as it collided at high speed. One or two cars flipped and rolled, tumbling end over end. Damien had to throw himself out of the way of a spinning cruiser that had pin-balled off the back of one of its colleagues. One car ploughed clean through a public access terminal, sending a geyser of sparks high into the air. Soon the entire street was littered with discarded cars, loose bumpers and dented hubcaps.
Then there was silence, but for the plaintive mewling of dying klaxons. A severed tyre rolled past him gently, entirely divorced from its housing.
Police officers groaned as they pulled themselves free from the wreckage, broken glass tinkling as they helped each other to their feet. They were too stunned to pay Damien any notice. Curious onlookers emerged from the buildings all along the street, filming the scene with all manner of data-pads and info-slates.
Damien looked about. Murphy and Rebecca had disappeared further up the block. For the moment, they were on their own.
"Stay with them, Rash. Block any incoming surveillance you can. This tracker's going to bring all manner of hell down on my head; I'm going to need transportation."
"You didn't think this through, did you One?"
"Not even for a second, Four."
"Right. What's your current location?"
Damien looked about. But for the immediate carnage surrounding him, one street looked as sophisticated as the next. He started calling up his TACPAD, humming to himself; entirely oblivious to the twisted metal and groaning wounded all around him. He was struck by how deep into the city the chase had taken them. Even glancing up at Orbital One above, it loomed far closer than before. He could even make out the hexagonal Impact Walls that compartmentalised the city core. This close to the city's heartland, the police response was going to escalate drastically.
"Never mind, I have it." Rashid sighed. "You're close to the Argjend War Museum. Waypoint marker set."
Damien set off at a jog, leaving the devastation he'd wrought behind. He could hear more sirens in the distance, along with the whooping beat of rotor blades. He quickened his speed.
"A museum? Really? Can't you just… hack me an auto-taxi or fetch me a Grav-Train?"
"It's not that simple, One. Right now you're carrying a remote tracking chip from an unknown source in hostile territory. It's going to take me some time before I can track where that chip is transmitting to. Until then, I think you need something more robust than a bloody auto-taxi."
"What are you thinking, Rash?"
"Trust me on this. There's something I want you to check out. It could prove useful."
"Alright, but for the record, if you make me go on a tour in the middle of a police chase I'm going to be very upset with you."
"Trust me, One. Get to the museum. You never know, you might just learn a thing or two along the way."
There were four other Spartans awaiting Jennings when she emerged from the Parliament. They stood in a defensive pattern; a half circle facing out toward the open street. Supporting them were a platoon of Granican Secret Service; dressed in dark suits and concealed body armour. This was unusual. It was only at her most public appearances that the entire security detail appeared at once.
None of her usual aides were here. Nor was her standard escort of two police cruisers.
The Spartans had instead assembled a convoy of vehicles outside the steps of the parliament. They were hulking minivans; large enough to fit two Spartans in the rear hold. Jennings could tell that the vehicles had been up-armoured, based on how low they sat on the ground. Aata was handed an assault cannon by one of the other Spartans, Kazuo.
"What's going on?" Amanda Jennings asked, watching this exchange nervously.
Trident One, Loic Moulin, wore his armour in a standard olive drab colour pattern; a look which the entire fireteam had adopted since taking on the role of providing security for the Administrator. While the subtle differences in their armour was entirely lost on Jennings, the effect was the same: from a distance, they would be interchangeable from one another; incapable of being independently scrutinised. Only a practiced expert, well-versed in Mjolnir, could pick them apart. For a public-facing role, the colour of their armour had the added effect of resembling the famous Spartan 117. This only endeared them to the public further.
"Administrator," Loic nodded in greeting as she approached. "I'm afraid there's been security alert not far from here. Possible Insurrectionist activity. Local police are handling the matter, but we felt it prudent to escort you to a secure location until the matter is resolved."
"But I have meetings, a schedule…"
"Your aides explained as much. I'm afraid your security is our top priority, and protocol in this situation is clear. Arrangements have been made."
"I… of course." Jennings sighed. "Lead on, Loic."
Daylight blinded Chidinma as the access door burst open. The roof was a vast expanse of helipads and launch-bays. All around her, loading crews for the various police fliers hurried to and fro, prepping traffic control copters, Pelicans, Falcons; all manner of surveillance craft and drone monitors. It the top of the ant-hive, and right now its workers had been stirred into action. The city was on maximum alert. The crews were so busy enacting this alert that nobody noticed her at first. Chidinma looked about, shielding her eyes from the sun as she searched frantically for Rashid's blimp.
There it was. Drifting at least a half mile from her.
Chidi tapped her ear-piece.
"Rashid, I see it."
"Good, get over here, quick as you can."
"Where are the others?"
"Mobile. Very mobile. You're going to have to play catch up, and I'm afraid Damien's antics have me a bit preoccupied. Do you think you can manage on your own?"
"Of course."
The door behind her slammed open. A small army of MPs barrelled through, tripping over each other in their haste. Chidinma broke into a dead sprint; leaping over packing crates, ducking beneath copter wings and dodging past bemused loading crews who hadn't quite got the memo that the Spartan was to be apprehended at all costs. One or two read the situation correctly and tried to tackle her as she darted by. She either side-stepped them or vaulted clean over them. She ran flat into one burly loader, who was smashed bodily aside for his trouble. She didn't break pace, not even for a second.
"Rashid!" Chidinma shouted into her mic, "On second thought, I'm going to need an exit! How do I get off this damn roof?!"
"Western side, to your left." Chidinma shifted direction, "No, your other left!"
Chidinma turned, ducked beneath the landing fin of a parked Falcon. There was no time to steal a ship. There was no guarantee that any of the craft here would be fuelled or prepped for take-off. No time to check either. The net around her closed tighter and tighter. So she ran for the edge of the landing pad, some thirty guards bounding after her. Their heavy boots slapped against sun-baked concrete as they struggled to close an ever-widening gap.
Fast as she was, Chidinma was quickly running out of room. The edge of the landing pad loomed ever closer.
"You're going to have to jump!" Rashid warned.
"To where?!" Chidinma
"There's a building across from you, Chidi. A slight drop; I would advise speed."
Blind faith too. Chidinma breathed deep as her toes reached the edge of the platform. The wide city street loomed before her; a vast concrete chasm separating the Priory from the next building over; an office block; smooth-polished stone, engraved with corporate logos. Chidinma didn't hesitate, not for a second. At the last second, the ball of her foot pressed against the edge of the landing pad, her toes curling as they found purchase. She jumped.
A slight drop, Rashid had said. It was a thirty foot drop onto hard concrete. Even with a rolling tumble, the force of the impact drove the breath from her, her body suit not quite ablating the full sting against her skin. Had her bones been any weaker she'd have been pulped. Augmented and insulated in a bodysuit as she was, it merely stung like a bastard. As quickly as she rolled she was up again, transitioning into a dead sprint. The men chasing her skidded to a halt, high above; arms held out to stop each other from careening over the edge. She hurdled an air-exchanger, not slowing for a second.
Chidinma leapt to the next building, silently thanking the city's planners that the next jump was comparatively level. Another thirty foot jump from roof to roof. Surely a world record for a non-augmented. Standard practice for a Spartan. Chidinma hit it at speed, cleared the gap comfortably.
A police pursuit Falcon rose up before her, rotors bristling. Its crew barked something unintelligible at her over the PA system. Chidinma turned and fled in the opposite direction, weaving between steam pipes and air handling units. The copter buzzed overhead, swinging about. The chop-wash of its blades send a cloud of dust and loose discarded paper up into the air. Chidinma squinted as grit blew into her eyes.
The police crew finally got a handle on the PA system's volume control.
"This is the APD! Surrender yourself immediately and you will not be—"
Chidinma was already taking off. A chorus of broadcasted swearwords chased her as the Falcon tilted forward in pursuit.
She ran out of roof awfully fast. The concrete ledge fed into a long downward slope; all clear and polished solar-reactive glass. The slope ran the entire face of the building, terminating in a raised roof some three storeys above ground level. Some kind of conference centre or atrium was below. It was filled with people, tiny at this incredible height. Chidinma folded her arms across her chest and jumped.
The fabric of her bodysuit flexed as it adjusted to the friction burn of the sliding descent. Support joists whipped past her as she dug her heels in, trying to arrest her speed. People in the atrium below heard the squeal of nano-fibre fraying against plate glass, marvelled at the human-shaped rocket shooting downward at speed. They gasped as they saw the Falcon swoop into view, rotors whipping the air. Hands clamped to mouths and smartphones lit up, recording it all. The footage would make the nightly news. It would go viral with underground free-running groups long before then.
Chidinma's slide bottomed out on the lower plateau. She rolled to her feet, scrambling over to the edge of the building; leaping across to the next apartment block and clinging onto an external fire escape. She pulled herself over the railing with a barely suppressed grunt; footfalls ringing as she clanged her way upward once more. Below her in the plaza, police cars slowed to a halt, horns blaring to clear the bemused crowds gawking up at her. The Falcon stayed with her, turning to present its side profile. A police shooter stood ready with a high-powered rifle, awaiting a signal. In the distance, Chidinma could hear more rotor blades reverberating, echoing against the high buildings all around her. More were coming.
A tendril of panic crept through the Spartan's belly. She had no armour, no weapons, and the entire city was closing in.
Unless something changed, and fast, this particular police chase was only going to end one way.
The two men stood on a platform in the deepest basement of Argjend Police Headquarters; an august building that adjoined the Granican Parliament. Crisis Control was an emergency command centre for Priority One alerts. It resembled a launch control station for a space station. Row upon row of monitors lined the room, set into wells in the floor separated by a central walkway.
Dozens of police controllers manned the stations, murmuring instructions to police units all across the city. A chattering hive mind, coordinating a single, cohesive response to the unfolding crisis.
Above them was the platform holding Commissioner Weldon and his guest, General Stape.
"Anytime you want, I can have boots on the ground." Stape was offering, "Marines, Army; you name it, it's there."
"This is a police matter, General. We have it covered."
They both watched the footage coming in from the police surveillance choppers; observing as Chidinma scurried from rooftop to rooftop. Some three Falcons now shadowed her.
"With the utmost respect, Commissioner, I don't believe you do. That right there is a Spartan. Born from decades of genetic research, military training and cutting-edge physical augmentation. They are the very best at what they do. I urge you to reconsider."
Weldon tilted his chins up defiantly, visibly swelling.
"We have a fix on their locations, based on solid, reliable intel. This woman will be apprehended soon enough. The primary suspect is bound for what appears to be the Argjend War Museum. It's a large structure, but one we can contain. The situation can and will be handled in short order: I have SWAT units inbound from every major district. I don't care how tough these Spartan bastards are: they're not going to walk away from this. We'll take care of your strays, General. You just sit back and watch."
At that, Weldon stepped away, pacing up and down the walkway, barking instructions at the various controllers that lined the crisis centre. Stape could sense the pressure the commissioner was under. His entire power base rested on the APD demonstrating they had the ability to secure domestic threats without direct UNSC interference. There could not be a repeat of six months ago.
Left alone on the observation platform, General Stape activated his private com-link. Local politics be damned, Spartans were military hardware. That made them his jurisdiction.
"Get me Fireteam Platinum."
Murphy swung into a cobblestone tunnel beneath the Central Grav-Line.
This new voice on the com-line, Rashid, as he called himself, knew the city as well as any mapping AI. Every turn he advised Murphy took. Left, right, straight ahead, right again; an un-ending sequence of shifts and feints. Eventually Rashid told him to pull into an alley and kill the engine, and so he did. A dozen cop cars blew past, sirens blaring indignantly.
"I tricked their GPS units." Rashid explained, his voice tight from the strain of tracking so many situations, "They're now chasing a freight truck bound for the Starport. Ditch that car and stay on the line. An old friend of mine needs my help."
"Copy. Thanks for the assist."
"Anytime. My best regards to Doctor Pearson."
The line went dead. They were alone for now.
Murphy helped Rebecca out of the Warthog. The 'Hog sagged on its damaged suspension. The poor truck was on its last legs; now held together by little more than duct tape and wish fulfilment. Murphy felt a pang of sympathy for it, gave it a pat on the side. The old beast had done its job, and done it well.
"Now what?" Rebecca asked, pale but determined. She was coping remarkably well for somebody who had just survived a high speed chase and an attempted assassination attempt hours earlier.
Murphy opened the glove compartment. Inside was a thermite ignition pack; used for materiel denial ops. He primed it and set it down in the foot well. Soon crackling flames engulfed the entire Warthog. They didn't stay to watch it burn. They were already moving quickly, leaving the roaring inferno behind; the flames licking high and casting dancing shadows against the dark alley wall.
"Now we find somewhere to lay low. Damien's bought us time. It's up to us to find out what's on that disc you're carrying, and why they're willing to tear the entire city apart just to get it."
Khulov received the bad news calmly. He was running four criminal empires on four separate planets. One did not reach that level in the game without developing a cool head.
His first question was pointed.
"Where is Becker?"
Zolov simply shook his head. Beside him stood Mikhail. The man's face was in ribbons, and patched poorly with swabs of dubiously applied biofoam, but he'd managed to limp away from the crash. He was the only one that had. The rest were either dead or in police custody.
"Nobody's seen him, Boss. None of our guys in the inside know anything about him. It's like he doesn't exist."
Khulov considered this. He took a sip of whiskey from the tumbler in his hand, mulling it over.
The men would be traced back to him. They were universally males of Eastern European descent, with extensive conviction rates linked to organised crime. Khulov knew a setup when he saw one. This was unacceptable. And yet there had been no formal response from the APD, at least not yet. That meant whatever was going on had yet to be resolved. There was still a reckoning to be had.
"And the police?" Khulov asked.
"Moving en-masse toward the Central District. Our spies are reporting a mass of armoured cars descending on the last known location of our original target. The Priory is on full alert. It's a mess, and it's only getting worse."
Khulov finished his whiskey. He set the tumbler down on the onyx table in front of him. His decision was made.
Becker was ex-UNSC. The lab equipment they'd brought into the city for him confirmed as much. Nobody fooled around with equipment that sophisticated unless they were involved in high-grade genetics research. And nobody used Khulov unless that particular research was less than legal.
Khulov had been around a long time. He intended to be around for longer still. Something in his gut told him to get away from here, to run and run far.
But Argjend was his city. If there was to be a reckoning, it would be on his terms.
"Send word to the men. I want everybody armed and prepped. Everybody. Mirabeau's men, the Grocer, the East Side Serbs. If they can hold a gun and take orders, I want them out there, looking. The vehicle we were chasing, I want it found. I want the people driving it brought here, to me."
Khulov looked at Zolov and Mikhail. The old Khulov was back. It had been months since he'd been this fired up about anything.
"Elias Becker paid us ten million credits to take this work on, another twenty to finish it. I expect that there are those in this city who would pay double for his head. We need leverage. So find these escapees, and bring them to me."
Khulov stood up. He cut a far more impressive figure standing up. He smouldered in a cold rage.
"And spread the word; the man who brings me the location of Elias Becker can consider themselves a personal friend to Semion Khulov."