"It seemed the universe had cultivated a sense of humour while I toured the stars.
My first assignment with ONI was to Section III, serving in a direct capacity as a field agent. Our role was to document potential candidates per Dr. Halsey's screening criteria and, when the time came, to secure and facilitate the replacement of a chosen candidate. Guarding the flash clones... that was the most unsettling thing. So new to this world, so accelerated and confused and fragile; thrust into a world that would not have them beyond the briefest, darkest spell.
It was only later when I saw what the subjects themselves would become.
Did it bother me? Abducting those children, watching first-hand as they were injected, cut-apart, and pieced back together as something more? The UEG was weakening, its threads fraying at the very edges. We were losing a war; the tide of which I, for all my enhancements and training and sacrifice, had failed to turn. I had my doubts. Of course I did. I am, after all, human. But I am nothing if not a pragmatist.
For all my misgivings, this would be a positive step forward, a red letter day. The Spartan II's would succeed where we had failed. Order would be restored, and the UEG would be as it once was: unified, secure, safe. That's what I told myself at the time.
I think I almost believed it too."
- excerpt from a private record, author unknown
The Condor shot down through the cloud cover, streaming great fluffy contrails in its wake. In the cockpit, Perry, Eric and Park held on for dear life. The two humans were strapped in. Eric had mag-locked his boots to the floor, and was bracing himself against the hull with both hands.
Orbital Control was not impressed by their antics. Even less amused was Starport Access Control:
"Unidentified vessel, please return to your original course. Repeat: please return to your original course or you will be fired upon."
"Do you think they're serious?" Park managed through gritted teeth. G-Forces moulded his cheeks against his teeth.
"I really don't see them -" Perry started to reply.
A rail-cannon shot whickered past the Condor, skimming it. The entire hull shuddered as proximity warnings bleated. Perry winced, his tune abruptly changing.
"-missing with a second shot!" Perry panicked, "Engaging stealth systems now!"
The Condor faded from view, vanishing from all known systems. In the air there was but the faintest distortion, as though somebody had painted varnish on the air itself.
The stealth drive was a smaller model of the cloaking system ONI Prowler vessels employed. The D81's version was only functional for a limited time window; to give Spartan operators and other commando teams a quiet insertion in hostile environments. The stress on the engine core was too much for sustained use. That meant Perry had to make the most of it. He twisted the flight stick, sending the D81 into a spiralling cork-screw dive. Another two warning shots lashed out, cleaving sky but little else.
Eric left the flying to Perry. The Spartan was too busy monitoring groundside comms traffic. By all accounts the city was on the verge of outright civil war. He appraised the situation as quickly as he could. News reports, all manner of data that had been blocked from the ships in orbit, fired into his com-feed. It was information overload. Still no sign of Damien.
"Get us down to street level." Eric ordered.
Park's stomach lurched as Perry levelled the Condor out, swooping into the canyons between the buildings. They were passing over the Refuge Zone; Damien's last known location.
A full scale riot had kicked off in the hours since Damien made landfall. Water cannons slammed men and women off their feet. Baying crowds surged into walls of plastic shields, crashing against them like waves upon a sea wall. Bricks and bottles and cans flew in the air; outraged confetti. Columns of thick black smoke rose up into the sky from unattended fires across the district. Mustard coloured tear gas lingered in the air. The Condor blew through them all, silhouette wobbling as it shot overhead. The seething masses were too preoccupied to notice.
"Sierra 451, do you copy?" Eric was transmitting. He was getting nothing over the standard ONI channels. He switched to wide-band, scowling at the urgent yelling filling the emergency broadcast channels.
Damnit, 451; where are you?
Perry's wingtips brushed the buildings either side, as he kept one eye on the stealth drive's energy core. They weaved between skyscrapers; looping in and out as some streets came to an end, ducking back into the urban canyons as soon as they could.
They had just under fifteen minutes before the stealth drive failed. Then the entire city would be on them.
That was when Park noticed it. The sight itself was not unusual. What it displayed stood out like a sore thumb. He knew each of the Laconia sigils intimately, had designed many of them himself.
"Uh, Eric." He pointed at the blimp in the far distance. "Does that look familiar to you?"
The crowd's murmurs of concern became shouts of outright panic as Damien thumped up the stairs of the Argjend War Museum. Ordinarily, the sight of a Spartan in a public setting would prompt whispered excitement and awed pointing, even some cheering; but by now Damien was dented, scorched and stained with dried blood. Combined with the city-wide alarms blaring from the rooftops, he didn't make for a particularly inviting sight.
The crowds fled in droves, streaming down past him like rats from a sinking ship as he steadily ascended the stairs in the opposite direction. Damien's sensor suite automatically ceased registering the civilian tags in the area; instead prioritising targets with an identified UNSC/APD signature. Those were closing in on his position. By the time he reached the atrium, the Spartan was alone; a mighty figure rendered tiny by the vast chamber. He knew the silence wouldn't last.
Damien peered up at the cavernous ceiling, taking in the amazing scale of the space. Suspended by heavy cables across the ceiling was a large lander of some kind, an antiquated colonial exploration ship. Damien's eyes narrowed and his VISR zoomed in reactively. Argjend I was stencilled across the ship's dusty side.
The floors were polished stone, the walls mutely lit. Around him, down-lit glass cabinets held all manner of replica Covenant weapons and de-activated UNSC equipment. There were dummies of UNSC marines; each showing the steady evolution of the dress uniform over the war's thirty year history.
Then there was the map of the UNSC Colonies, set into the floor. Red X's marked planets glassed by the Covenant, complete with time stamps. There were far more X's than Damien cared to count. He spied one by the toe of his boot, and stopped.
Hibernia. The planet Quint Adams, his adoptive father, had tried to build a life for them on. Quint had tried to hide him away from ONI, to shield him from the harsh life of a Spartan. Damien grimaced and moved on, armoured boots treading heavily over the inset-display.
This wasn't the time for bad memories. Not now.
Not with that many contacts incoming.
APD SWAT teams click-twisted gas masks into place, prepping magazines and checking helmet filters. Beetle-like in their carapace armour, they were the APD's go-to taskforce for domestic issues demanding an armed response. Armoured cars trundled down the road, impassive assault teams clinging to the sides. The antennas on their backpacks jutted up; metal stalks that swayed in the wind like strands of corn in a stiff breeze. They were veterans of the war for the most part; retired service personnel who had since passed the rigorous training demands of the APD's Hostage Rescue Academy. That five full teams had been called in from five separate districts was overkill by anyone's measure.
Behind them, police cruisers rolled down the street in massive convoys; a sea of blue and white cars with flashing red and blue lights. If you weren't containing the riots in the Western District, then you were inbound to the Argjend War Museum. They were to form a perimeter while the tactical teams conducted their operation.
At the far back of the convoy, Detective Greggs swore as he fumbled furiously with his own tac-vest. His partner Edgerton was driving, as serene and smooth as ever. Edgerton, ever prepared, had the foresight to put on his ballistic vest before getting in the car. He chuckled at Greggs' frustration.
"You see you know what your problem is, Greggs?" Edgerton began. "You're too damn angry, all the damn time. If you tried relaxing, you might just find this detail beats the hell out of catching murders in the Western District."
"We're Homicide, Edgerton; since when have you ever discharged your firearm in the line of duty?"
"Twice actually." Edgerton replied mildly.
"Yeah? Well I never did. Leave that shit to the moto SWAT meatheads, is what I say. I'm perfectly happy running murders."
"Relax man, we're gonna pull hazard pay out of this one. Nice little bonus come the end of the month. Easiest thirty minutes you'll spend all week."
They pulled up outside. The strike teams had already bustled forward, equipment jangling as they snaked toward the Museum in slithering lines of deep, black armour; knees bent, weapons raised.
Damien was halfway through the museum when he opened his com.
"This is all very fascinating, Four, but you mind telling me what I'm supposed to be looking for?"
"Head down the back, Damien. End of the hall."
Damien padded deeper into the museum. Flanking him on either side of the chamber at regular intervals were stone plinths, inscribed with key dates from The Great War.
The next installation triggered an automatic response in Damien; muscle-memory flinching from years of hypnotherapy on Laconia. He released his breath and lowered his MA5.
More dummies, this time of Covenant species; from the diminutive Grunts to the clanking, thunderous Hunters. The Elite model nearly had its head blown off when it moved; leering and snarling, mandibles flaring. Damien chuckled to himself and shook his head, moving past. The Elite wortled in response.
There it was. The target marker Rashid had placed sat atop an exquisitely kept Brute Chopper, which sat at an aggressive tilt on a raised dais. The vehicle had been lovingly restored by the museum's curators; polished to a mirror sheen. Perhaps too lovingly: there was a significant energy signature dormant on Damien's outer scans. With the right boost, the vehicle would be back online; snarling and ready for action.
Behind it stood a large window, overlooking one of the larger freeways encircling the heart of the city's heartland. It was quite the drop.
"Disabling security systems…" Rashid announced. "Now."
A niggling humming sound in the background petered out. Damien stepped up onto the dais, circling the bike, running his hand along its cool chrome skin. He stared at its controls, the embers of old rotational training trying to discern which switch did what.
"Place your hand on the main control core."
"The round depression in the middle?" Damien asked, the fog of his memory slowly lifting.
"That's the one."
Damien did as he was told.
There was a jolting hum as his shield system sparked against the bike's control panel. Amber runes lit up on the dashboard. The Chopper gave a low growl as ancient systems came to life once more. Damien's own shield system surged back to full strength after a few seconds of beeping impatience.
The runes on the bike's display remained a dark orange. Damien could make out some kind of gauge, slowly filling. Rashid was studying it via Damien's helmet cam.
"The cell's charging based on the jump-start you gave it, but you're going to have to buy some time before it's fully booted up."
Just then the power went out. Recessed spot lights and lighting displays snapped off, one by one, in a series of progressing pools of shadow. Like a stage shutting down, bulb by bulb.
Damien looked around. He could hear thick-soled boots clattering across the rooftop. Breaching teams, prepping a strike action. Red emergency lights lit the floor, casting everything in a sinister half-glow. He could hear rotors thumping in the air above the museum.
"How much time?" Damien asked, visor panning across the muted hallway. Sensors showed multiple hostiles stacking on various emergency exits. The building was steadily being surrounded.
"Five… ten minutes, tops. Hard to gauge." Rashid's voice said in his ear, "That bike's been out of commission for a long, long time. As for tracing the tracker, it's a little more complicated. I'm going to need some time before I can crack its encryption. Think you can manage?"
Damien unshipped his MA5, checking the ammo reader. One mag left; sixty rounds. From there he'd have to improvise. He racked the charge handle.
"Not a problem."
The two cops sat on the hood of their car, hands bunched in their pockets. Homicide police carried a certain amount of prestige in the hierarchy of the APD. The uniformed patrol officers had already cordoned off the area, and were manning checkpoints. Everything was covered. There was tremendously little for the two detectives to actually do but sit back and watch.
"So, what are we supposed to be doing again?" Greggs asked.
"Securing the perimeter." Edgerton repeated, and not for the first time.
"I mean specifically. Because half the goddamn department is here."
Edgerton just shrugged.
Greggs glanced about. The entire area had been sealed with police barriers and heavy duty paddy wagons. He shrugged, and remained where he was. Greggs watched in fascination as dozens of cops moved into position. He had to hand it to Edgerton, this was more entertaining than trying to solve another dead stray in the Western.
"Here they go." Edgerton breathed.
There was a SWAT team lined up on either side of the expansive staircase leading up into the entrance hall. The men in front toted armoured shields; the men behind them ready with grenade launchers and pump action shotguns.
On the roof, more assaulters zip-lined down, huffing as their boots impacted. They fanned out, surrounding the skylights. Edgerton let out a low whistle. There had to be ten men on that roof, at least double that number hitting the main entrance. God only knew how many were clambering up fire-escapes and tertiary access points.
They followed SWAT's progress on the tinny speaker of the wide-band police scanner.
"All units, breach and clear."
"Confirm breach and clear. Standby."
This far back, there was a series of dull crump noises and the sound of shattering glass. One of the SWAT troopers on the stairs raised a grenade launcher and pumped out grenade after grenade. Coiling fronds of smoke began curling up in the lobby, obscuring the world in a churning mist. Then went the concussion grenades; a deep reverberating series of bangs that Greggs could feel in his ribs.
"Go, go, go!" a brusque voice barked.
The SWAT teams vanished into the mist.
Rebecca and Murphy shied away from the main streets. They listened, ears pricking as sirens whooped by. It seemed half the city was intent on being somewhere else. Rebecca knew that somewhere, wherever it was, Damien was buried neck deep in the middle of it.
They crept over suspension bridges and down side streets, eventually stepping down a flight of steps into a pedestrianised shopping mall; an underground lot converted from one of the old air-raid shelters below Central District. The place was deserted save for an ambling private security guard, who bopped away unconsciously to the beat on his headphones. The crowds inside the cafés were all glued to the news nets, captivated by the drama unfolding across the city.
The Underpass was but one of a half dozen subterranean malls scattered across the city. Because of its central location and quirky pitch, the majority of the boutiques here were for high-end brands only. Small, expensive products hosted in small, expensive stores. The staff paid them no attention as they passed, too busy gazing at their data-pads and tablets, ensconced. Most of the doors were sealed with automated roller shutters. Business was quiet, and staff didn't want to risk the commute home with a lock-down in place.
The Underpass had weathered the recent recession well. There were wedding stores and high-end fashion units, and an expansive gym; all thumping, energetic dance beats and empty treadmills.
"Here." Rebecca remembered the place from one of her earlier excursions in happier times. It was tucked away at the end of the mall, the furthest removed from any of the staircases leading back to the surface: a technology store, where she often bought Rashid gifts before.
Surprisingly, it was open.
"Here?" Murphy echoed. "What a dump."
Not every store on the Underpass was high-brow. This was a struggling electronics store, Carls' New and Used: We Repair, Don't Despair; an operation that subsisted on its ability to provide cheap repairs for ChatterPads and info-slates more than anything else. It was the kind of low-grade pawn shop you'd only ever encounter because the landlord couldn't find anyone else to take it. Murphy and Rebecca exchanged a shrug and stepped inside.
Behind the counter was a pot-bellied and entirely chinless man, with a head balder than a Jackal's snout. He barely spared them a second glance when the entry sensor chimed. He was leafing through an old comic book, jaw working loudly as he chewed noisily.
"How's it going?" Murphy greeted, resting his hands on the counter. His finger nails were black with soot. He quickly hid them by balling his fists. The operative's nostrils curled. Murphy appreciated that he probably stank of cordite, sweat and dried smoke, but the man across the counter was competing with a balmy combination of stale sweat and a deodorant shortage.
The man behind the counter grunted at him, his eyes only flicking upward for the briefest second.
"Store's closed." The clerk chewed at them distractedly, eyes never leaving the page. "Police lock-down. You should probably go home."
"The sign outside said you were open." Rebecca frowned.
The clerk hit a button beneath the counter. The green sign switched to an inhospitable red.
"Not anymore."
Rebecca smiled tightly, tried again.
"We have something we'd like you to take a look at."
"Come back tomorrow." More chewing. "Sorry."
"Carl, is it?" Murphy read the man's name tag. "I see you're reading 'Commandos of Cygnus III'. That's set in New Jerusalem, right? I had friends stationed there."
Murphy didn't know the first thing about comics. That was Fenton's hobby. But he knew enough to get the man's attention. Carl finally looked up.
"Yeah…"
Excellent, Murphy grinned internally. Now to recycle one of his favourite ways of winding up Fenton. Spend long enough in a foxhole with somebody, you cultivated a series of preferred arguments. This was one of his favourites.
"You know that comic's all bullshit, right?"
"How would you know?" Carl's eyes narrowed snootily "Mr. Toshiba is known for both his technical accuracy and his strong feminine characters."
"He is?" Murphy stabbed a filthy finger on the spotless page. It left a mark, "Because for one, neither of the MA5's shown in that panel can fire for that long without reloading. For two, you can't fire two of them at once and hope to maintain any degree of accuracy, not unless you're some kind of Spartan. And for three, perhaps most glaringly, no ODST I've ever served with wears a bodysuit with visible cleavage on display."
Carl sniffed at that.
"And how would you know? You some sort of expert or something?"
Murphy leaned across the counter, unblinking. He gave Carl every inch of a thousand yard stare; looking right through him. Every veteran learned the Crazy Eyes, whether real or imagined; if only to break it out on unsuspecting civilians during shore-leave. It was invaluable whenever drunk civilians sauntered up and asked you if you'd ever killed someone, or seen action, or any other similarly moronic question. It also got you great discounts if you knew how to use it.
"Four combat tours, fourteen years of service and a small mountain of dead Covies might indicate that, yeah. But mostly this."
Murphy rolled up his sleeve. Tattooed on his inner wrist was the Hell-jumper logo. He'd been loath to part with it, ONI agent or not.
Carl blinked, for the first time realising the sheer malice dripping off Murphy, who was by this point entirely out of patience. That the veteran's bunched fore-arm had more definition and muscle mass than Carl's entire body may have also focused his attention. The chewing stopped.
"I have your attention." Murphy smiled, amiably, "Good. Now, my friend here would like a word."
Rebecca took out the data-pack, set it on the counter.
"I need a disc reader than can read something like this." Rebecca said, ejecting the disc and holding it up.
To Carl's eternal credit, his personality improved considerably when presented with the ancient tech.
"Holy shit," he breathed, perhaps a bit too hard, "Now that's old school."
"What is it?" Rebecca asked.
"It's a CSMD: Closed Systems Monitoring Disc. Like one of those old school CCTV systems you see in the period flicks, only these hold an almost endless amount of data. You can run it for years and it'll never run out. The CSMD's competed with standard wireless packs because they were physical hard-copies, incapable of being destroyed in a virus-strike or data raid. That's a big plus here on the Outer Colonies. Records are fragile, stuff gets lost. Nowadays big data is kept on standard info-chips, the type they store A.I's on, but for a time, some fifty years back, these were the next best thing."
"Any way for us to take a look at what's on it?" Rebecca asked. She resisted the urge to give him a sweet smile. Men like Carl often tended to over-think these things.
"Oh yeah, sure! In the back!"
The clerk waved them after him, enthusiastically. Rebecca and Murphy stared at each other, stunned. Against all odds, Carl was going to prove invaluable.
They followed him behind the counter. The back room was every bit as dingy as the front. The gutted entrails of long forgotten computers sat on shelf after shelf, covered in a thick film of dust. Murphy sneezed violently. Rebecca shot him a look.
"What?" Murphy sniffed in protest. "It's dusty."
The monitor they used was a widescreen display set into the wall. Plugged into it (physically plugged! Rebecca marvelled) was a disc reading machine of some kind. Carl bent down and swept dust from the keyboard. Finally, he blew into the disc tray before sliding the disc home.
"For luck." Carl explained, when he saw the look on their faces, "This stuff really is old."
The tech set himself down on the stool before the monitor, Murphy and Rebecca peering over his shoulder.
Carl hit play.
Rebecca recognised the scene immediately. She seen the New Cadiz Tape. They all had. It was the famous footage that had been released around human space in the wake of Orbital Two's collapse. A thirty second loop of the tether coming down, great descending rings of metal crashing down across the city, burying the New Cadiz rebellion in its infancy.
"We've seen this." Murphy sighed, his face falling, "Hell, the whole planet's seen this."
"But check the time stamp." Carl was chewing again, eyes never leaving the screen. "The New Cadiz Tape ends after thirty-one seconds. This has an additional 1.7 days' worth of footage."
Rebecca looked at Murphy.
"Get some chairs. We could be here for a while."
Greggs and Edgerton were no longer sitting on the bonnet of their car. They had hunkered down behind their Genet, side-arms drawn. The rest of the police outside were similarly taking cover.
The tear gas had not faded. Instead, it hung in the air, a mist filling the entirety of the atrium. Somebody had taken a grenade launcher and gone to town, launching far more grenades than was strictly necessary. Some flew out onto the street. Uniformed police shied back from the building, uncertain of what was going on inside.
It soon became clear.
The SWAT teams had entered, and for a few tense moments, nothing happened. Clearance reports sounded out; whispered echoes accompanied by the hiss-rasp of their respirators. Then the shooting started. Fitful and ill-disciplined. It was as though the men inside were trying to hit something that wasn't there. They jumped at shadows, each position report contradicting the last. Visibility was limited. Nothing on thermals. Nothing on low-light. Nothing at all.
Then panic set out over the airwaves. The police scanner became an audio-drama no cop wanted to hear. More gunfire split the air, more determined than before. Single shots, tightly disciplined.
It wasn't long before SWAT troopers began emerging; stumbling out of the smoke, choking on their own tear gas. Their respirators had been ripped from their faces. Others carried comrades over their shoulders; most of them nursing gunshot wounds to the legs, shoulders and knees. Others emerged clutching broken wrists, disarmed; the bones set at an angle that was not natural. Groans and plaintive cries filled the airwaves, drowning out any hope of cohesive communication. On the roof, Greggs could make out troopers hastily pulling their fellows up to safety. One or two zip lines emerged bereft of the operators they once carried.
Then the Spartan emerged down the front steps, against a backdrop of coiling gas. The giant stood there a moment, clutching an MA5 in one hand, a multi-barrelled grenade launcher in the other. He surveyed the scene serenely. Officers rushed forward, helping the limping SWAT troopers clear. Nobody fired, at first.
Then he spoke. How he broadcast his voice to the external PA system Greggs never found out. But there it was, his voice booming out across the plaza.
"Members of the Argjend Police Department, this is Spartan 451. Allow me to make my position clear; to provide you with one final warning. Your training for this situation is insufficient; your weapon systems and resources, wholly inadequate. I have minimised loss of life, but make no mistake: further attempts to kill me will be answered in kind. If you continue this fight, rest assured I will finish it."
A hanging silence hung on the square.
"Take him down!" one officer yelled. Small arms fire, mainly police issue side-arms, popped and cracked up in an erratic wave. They pinged and echoed as they chipped at the stone around the Spartan. One or two sparked off the Spartan's shields, singeing the armour skin but doing little else.
The Spartan shrugged, matter of fact.
"Have it your way."
The Spartan unloaded with the grenade launcher one handed; the MA5 erupting in the other, braced tightly against his hip. Arcing tear gas canisters tumbled through the air, hissing as they spilled more gas into the air. They rolled under police cruisers and cracked windshields as they clattered down all across the square. Greggs and Edgerton were already piling into their cruiser, eyes stinging and sinuses burning. The grenade launcher cycled dry. It clacked hard against the steps as he tossed it aside. So too did the assault rifle, its ammo-counter flashing zero.
The incoming fire had died out almost entirely. Police were too busy choking and blindly stumbling through the searing fog to form a coordinated response.
Then Damien unshipped the assault cannon strapped to his lower back. There was a whirring sound as he pulled the first trigger, cycling the barrel up. When the keening rose to full height, he engaged the secondary trigger. A tongue of flame licked from the barrel, sending a seemingly unbroken beam of tracer fire lancing out into the street beyond.
Damien was slow and deliberate as he panned left to right. There wasn't much ammo for it; he hadn't the space to carry the full munition load Becker's kill team favoured. It only lasted for a single arc, but that was enough. Police cruisers were shredded to molten scraps; sawn in half as that beam of fire dragged across them. Armoured trucks wheezed and slumped lower to the ground on hissing wheels as reinforced tyres gave way; the black paint of their armour plating lined with smouldering craters of hot molten orange. The last of the ammo belt rattled empty. Damien snapped off the trigger, the keening of the whirling barrel slowly fading across the smoke-wreathed street.
That was it. That broke them. The police fled, coughing and spluttering; limping, walking or crawling. What few cars could still drive did; weaving erratic, swerving patterns in their haste to get away. Damien glanced up at the hovering police Falcons. They too withdrew to a safe distance, unwilling to be torn out of the sky by a beam of streaming fire. The Spartan tossed the spent assault cannon aside, nodding once in satisfaction. No fatalities. He'd been quite careful.
As calmly as he'd emerged, the Spartan disappeared inside once more, his back turned to the carnage.
The assault cannon lay discarded on the top step, its barrel glowing red hot.
Blinded by the smoke, eyes streaming burning tears, Greggs grabbed at his radio. He couldn't see which frequency he was on. The message went out city-wide, broadcasting on all channels.
"Shots fired, shots fired! Officers down, I repeat; officers down! We need support, now!"
In the APD's Crisis Control Centre, a hushed silence had descended. Even the controllers were quiet. They twisted about in their chairs, looking up at the command platform, unsure of what to do.
"Commissioner, I've seen enough." General Stape said. Weldon did not speak; could not speak, arguably.
He just clung to the safety rail, visibly sweating. The medics removed him, eventually; prising his fingers free from the hand rail before they strechered him out. Genera Stape stepped forward, planting both hands behind his back and standing tall. August and aquiline, in command, his eyes swept the room before him as he spoke.
"Everyone, listen up. I want all police units to fall back to checkpoints designated on the nav-com display. I want the wounded med-evaced, and all other units capable of continuing pursuit identified and checked in. All APD attempts to apprehend the Spartan directly are to cease immediately."
Stape was already keying instructions into his personal TACPAD, awakening the full might of the UNSC garrison on Granica V. Across the city, Mantis Assault Striders stomped from their hangars, Scorpion tanks trundled out. Warthogs revved out onto the street, the Marines and Army units exchanging cat-calls with each other as they passed one another. In orbit high above, the UNSC Carpathia went on high alert, prepping Pelican landers and drop pods; weapon systems powering up and remaining on standby.
Stape watched it all unfold, a slight smile on his face.
"Someone please inform Administrator Jennings that, from now on, this is a military affair."
The police were backing off. Chidinma peeked out from beneath one of the thick support columns of a boxy water-tower, pulse racing. She couldn't understand it.
They had her boxed in. Four APD Falcons surrounded her, offering no escape. Then they withdrew, adopting a holding pattern. Each stood off a corner of the building Chidinma was hiding on, hovering a good distance out.
Chidinma shrugged and took off again. Whatever they were up to, she didn't intend to wait around long enough to find out. She glanced up at where Rashid's blimp hung in the air, at this point a little more than a klick out.
Not far now.
"Where are we going?" Jennings asked.
"A secure safe house, Madame." Loic replied, "Not far from here."
"And Sarah? Where is she?"
"Two of my Spartans are already en-route to her location. Your daughter's safety is our top priority."
Jennings nodded and went to check her schedule.
/SECURITY ALERT - ALL APPOINTMENTS CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE./
Amanda sighed, setting the slate down. She drummed her fingers against the screen, unsure of what to do with herself. She felt tiny, squashed in as she was between Loic and Aata in the rear of the truck.
Something rumbled over the freeway, passing overhead.
Loic leaned forward and peered out the window. A military patrol had just buzzed overhead: a Pelican, outfitted for urban deployment. Its fuselage was painted a deep green; UNSC livery, though without any unit markings or official insignia. Trident One exchanged an uneasy glance with Aata.
Jennings, unaccustomed to the subtleties of Spartan mannerisms, missed it entirely. Had she seen it, the subtext would have been clear.
Trident hadn't been informed of any military deployment in the sector.
Below them, the stark shadow of the Pelican danced and jigged as it flowed over rooftops of all shapes and sizes. Keening engines split the air, deafening in the rear of the hold. The pilot's voice clipped in the speakers of their helmet.
"Thirty seconds out."
Fireteam Platinum sat in restraint chairs in the rear of the Pelican, running equipment checks; analysing the data piping into their helmet displays.
Where Chimera were vibrantly coloured, stark contrasts from one Spartan to the next; Fireteam Platinum were dressed in a uniform pearlescent white, complete with golden visors. There was a clean, sterile conformity to them. Their equipment dated from the initial deployment of Gen 2 armour systems; while every bit as armoured as Damien's or Eric's, they possessed none of the advanced movement capability. Not that it mattered: Platinum were all ODSTs prior to enlisting in the Spartan 4 program; practiced killers, the best of the best. They were armed to the teeth. Their combat rating was undisputed.
Platinum One, Spartan Chase Keller, briefed them.
"Gentlemen, we have a liquid situation." Chase began.
"As of 0600 yesterday morning, Sierra-451, designation Chimera One, was reported as absent without obtaining leave from his posting on the northern equator, just outside the city of Tana. Intelligence sources believe he resurfaced in the capital, and was involved with the terrorist activity in the Refugee Zone last night. Since then, an emergency has developed in downtown Argjend. Local forces are moving to engage, but we believe the scale of the conflict is consistent with the deployment of a Tier One asset. Make no mistake: this is our fight."
Fireteam Platinum didn't say a word as they listened. Intel was everything. Their dedication to the mission was absolute.
"We have two targets." Damien's face showed up on a screen in the corner of their HUD, "Primary target is Chimera One. We all remember him from training. We've run the scenarios for this exact situation. Local reports indicate he's using some kind of advanced armour system. It may lend him a slight speed advantage."
"He'll need it." One of the Spartans chuckled darkly. The men around him grunted their approval, slapping hands and bumping knuckles.
Chase was unimpressed. Discipline and efficiency defined him. He would chastise them later.
"Secondary target is Sierra 483, designation Chimera Three. We believe she may be acting in tandem with Chimera One, but that remains unclear: their motives are as yet undetermined. She's unarmoured, on foot and being pursued by APD not far from 451's location."
Chase looked at the Spartan closest to him.
"Myers, she's yours. Take a re-entry pack, close the distance and neutralise her with all speed. Alive, if you can."
"Copy." Platinum Three nodded fiercely. He handed his marksman rifle to one of his fellows, taking an M9 sub-machine gun instead. Myers stood up, unpacking a jetpack from the storage cages overhead. As Platinum's designated scout and fastest sprinter, Myers' beaked armour system was comparatively lighter than his peers.
Reeve, Platinum Two, helped him rig the jump pack. The two often paired together: scout and sniper, acting as one. Reeve wore the LOCUS pattern; a skull-like helmet bereft of a visor of any kind. His rifle was the angel on their collective shoulders.
"What about the rest of Chimera?" Reeve asked, taking notes in his HUD. He was nothing if not detail driven.
"As you're aware, Chimera Five was formally listed MIA following the destruction of New Cadiz. Chimera Four remains hospitalised, and is understood to remain under military supervision in Havenwood Medical. Additional agents are enroute to his location even as we speak."
"And Chimera Two?" Platinum Four, Deng, asked.
"Russian bitch." Platinum Five, Hendric, spat.
The next two Spartans were polar opposites. Deng was a gifted com-tech, having originally served with combat engineers prior to enrolling with ODST. His armour style was – fittingly – the Engineer Pattern. Four yellow lights like spiders eyes decorated his faceplate, lending him a perpetual look of curiosity.
Where Deng was patient and calculating, Hendric was short-tempered and bullish. Viktorya had cold-clocked him once or twice in training. Hendric knew how to nurse a grudge. Encased as he was in bulky EOD battle-plate, he didn't look like the kind of man you wanted to have bad blood with. He was the largest of them; Platinum's token heavy weapons and demolitions specialist.
"Chimera Two is still on ice, pending final review for mem-wipe." Chase shook his head, "She won't be an issue, Four."
"So two rogue Spartans, and an entire city to chase them in." Myers mused, "Sounds fun."
Chase looked at each of them. Their armoured faces reflected back at them in the twin visors of his Pathfinder helmet. They were right on top of the AO.
"Two way split," he told them, "Two and Three take the girl; Four and Five engage Chimera One. If either of them try to slip the net, I'll be here on standby, coordinating from above."
They nodded. Reeve checked the scope on his rifle.
"And if the locals get in our way?" Hendric growled.
"General Stape's orders were unambiguous: Condition Zero is now in effect, Spartans. Somebody steps in your way? Step on 'em."
Platinum hammered their gauntleted palms against their thighs, a chorus of approval. Five green acknowledgement lights signified one thing.
The hunt was on.