[OFFICIAL MISSION LOG]
PROPERTY OF THE OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE SECTION ONE, THE UNSC, AND HIGHCOM
THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION THAT IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE TO PERSONNEL WITH A CLEARANCE LEVEL OF 2 OR HIGHER
MUST NOT BE RELEASED TO PUBLIC VIEW IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROTOCOL #51665116-12A OF SECTION TWO
[BEGIN LOG]
OPERATION DESIGNATION: SLIPKNOT
TARGET: COVENANT CAR-CLASS FRIGATE DESIGNATED "PENANCE OF BETRAYAL"
LOCATION: FORMER UNSC COLONY "ALERIA"
MISSION OBJECTIVE(S):
COVENANT SHIP
INTEL
PERSONNEL INVOLVED:
-CAPTAIN DAVID RECKER
-ODST PILOT LIAN DEVEREAUX
-GUNNERY SERGEANT JACKSON DOUGLAS
-CORPORAL TASHA BORDEAUX
-PRIVATE FIRST CLASS MONTANA SANFORD
-UNSC AI 8625-3 (DESIGNATED AS "CLYDE")
OPERATION STATUS: FAILURE
CAUSE OF FAILURE: COVENANT TARGET ESCAPED BEFORE RESPONSE TEAM COULD PURGE DATA
UNIQUE NOTES:
-LOST CONTACT WITH RESPONSE TEAM AFTER TARGET ESCAPED VIA SLIPSPACE JUMP IN ATMOSPHERE. CAUSE OF DISAPPEARANCE IS UNKNOWN. THE TEAM IS PRESUMED KIA.
[END LOG]
− Mission Report delivered after Operation: SLIPKNOT.
OFFICE ON NAVAL INTELLIGENCE FACILITY [DATA REDACTED]
[DATA REDACTED] LOCAL TIME
"This is ridiculous!" Captain David Recker complained as he kicked the table with his foot; pain rushed up his leg, but he ignored it. "You expect me to just stand by, while our ground team is just in some sort of trouble!"
Admiral Parangosky silently nodded from the other end of the table, "You know your place, Captain. You of all people should understand that you are in no position to help the situation."
She stiffly stood up. "The ground team is dead, David. Their bodies might not be present, but what are the odds that they survived the aftershock."
The captain sat still while the information sank into his mind. Dead, that's not something he liked to hear.
"Even if you cared about the squad, people die in war. That's just how war is! You should understand that."
This made the Captain stop. He gave the admiral the harshest, coldest stare he had given anyone in his life. The captain then silently crossed the room, straight for the ONI leader, only to stop two inches from her face. Although she was the head of one of the shadiest organizations in the UNSC, or all of humanity for that matter, at least the Captain's height advantage gave a more menacing look.
"What you don't understand, Margaret, is that while yes we are at war, we have lost too many lives to that war." he began coldly. "That squad that you ordered me to send to Aleria, that squad that was part of what's left of humanity's defense against the Covenant, is now gone. Now the Covenant know the location of Earth and might even call for an invasion tomorrow, tonight if we're unlucky enough. We won't survive. Check the reports, Admiral. We're fighting a loosing battle. Sure, we win a space battle here and there. But we end up loosing more ground than we can defend. The Home Fleet would be decimated before we can sound an alarm. We just lost three lives that might have helped in the defense of a planet. Hell, they might have been able to assassinate a prophet! Now, because of this half-assed mission, they won't be able to serve humanity. You of all people should understand that."
He stepped away silently and stormed out of the room. The admiral stood in place, shaking after what she just heard. Sure she was called the most dangerous person in the UNSC by many, but what scared her was the fact that a Captain, one that just watched his own soldiers be killed, had a much sharper tongue than any ONI operative.
"I don't believe I can, Captain..." the admiral quietly muttered when she was alone.
The Castle
Piper stood in the courtyard of the Minuteman stronghold. People of all types were scurrying everywhere; doctors rushing to the helipad to prep for the new patient that was about to be air-lifted in, Brotherhood soldiers stood guard at all entrances, Minutemen scurried between the radio and various guard posts. Piper herself was somewhat okay with the happenings of the past few hours. She had another interesting report to write in the Publick Occurrences, Diamond City's newspaper, and the Minutemen had advanced soldiers that can most likely end the war with the Institute.
Just as she was getting her mind off of the subject, Piper saw someone standing nervously at the other end of the courtyard; decked out in strange armor and holding a strange weapon. However, the face of the being was easily recognizable as the soldier that was supposed to be in the clinic right now, waiting for her injuries to heal. Piper casually jogged over to the soldier of unknown origin, stopping only a few feet short.
"Hey Piper?" the soldier asked calmly.
"What's up?" Piper chirped.
"What's going on? Why is everyone in such a hurry?"
Piper slowly glanced around the courtyard as the sea of people constantly flowed behind the reporter.
"Word has it that an aircraft of some kind landed somewhere north of here. A couple of friends of mine radioed that there was a survivor found among the debris. We have a vertibird bringing the survivor here for treatment."
"Wait a second. What's a vertibird?" the soldier quickly asked.
Oh…. Right.
Piper didn't want to scare the soldier when she first woke up by telling her that she woke up in an apocalyptic wasteland, but she would have to sometime.
"It's like a helicopter." Piper quickly added, deciding that she didn't want to begin a ten-hour lecture about how the world came to be.
"Oh."
The two sat in silence as they waited for the vertibird to arrive.
"So..." Piper began suddenly. "I didn't get your name last time we spoke. What do I call you?"
"Tasha. My name is Tasha." she said.
When the silver glint of the aircraft came into view in the skies above the Castle, the doctors at the helipad prepared themselves for what came out of the passenger hold. The doors slid open to reveal McCready and Cait carrying an unconscious form between them. From Piper's view, the figure looked similar to a synth patroller with pre-war light combat armor. However, Piper caught a sharp inhale from the soldier next to her.
"Devereaux…"
Before Piper could ask what the Tasha was talking about, she sprinted off to the figure being escorted to the makeshift emergency room section of the Castle. Tasha paced frantically along the congregation, trying to ask as many questions as she could before the doctors halted her advance outside the corridor to the emergency room.
Piper ran to the pacing soldier, hoping to find some answers.
"Who is she? Why are you so worried?" she asks.
Tasha stared at the ground as if she didn't want to answer the question.
"Fine, I'll let you worry about your friend. But we will talk about this later."
Piper then took off to find McCready.
The Institute
Nisha sat calmly at her desk as Joel left her office, silently thinking about the photo that was brought to her moments ago and what it could mean.
"There's gotta be more like them…." she thought aloud.
She then pressed the intercom button and called forth a few scientists from the Robotics section of the Institute. While she waited for them to arrive, she stared at photo collection that sat in one of her desk drawers. The collection only had a few pictures, but they had plenty of meaning to her. This collection held the remnants of her memory of Shaun, her baby boy who had led the Institute while she was in the Vault. Memories began to flash in her mind, memories of the time before the war; memories of Shaun in her arms, in his crib….
….being taken by Kellogg, bearing witness to her husband's murder.
Tears began to form in her eyes as she placed the pictures back into the drawer. She shook these tears from her eyes as footsteps approached the door that lead to her office. Four male scientists in orange coats strolled into the room.
"Gentlemen, please take a seat." Nisha began cooly.
Two of the scientists took seats in the two chairs in front of the desk while the other two stood in place.
"Why did you call us here, Director?" one of the scientists asked.
"I called you all here to give you four a special task."
The four leaned closer with curiosity.
"All I need you to do is to create a squad of coursers specially made to a certain set of parameters. "
"Sounds easy enough." said another scientist.
"Not so fast. I need the squad constructed, programed, and deployed within the day." Nisha replied.
The four gathered in front of her slacked their jaws and gazed at each other with wide eyes for a few moments before regaining their composure.
"Within a day?" one scientist asked.
"Is that even possible?" asked another.
"If you don't screw around, then yes." Nisha answered.
"So, what are the parameters?" a third scientist asked.
Nisha smiled: they were in.
"I will give you a report by the end of the hour. Dismissed."
The scientists nervously stood up and walked out of the office.
Nisha turned to prepare the report.
The Castle
Piper roamed the Castle's halls looking for McCready, hoping to find him in a good mood to talk.
"McCready!" she called, her voice echoing off the walls.
No response came.
She continued down the corridor into the barracks, only to find the sniper laying on one of the beds taking a nap.
'Damnit McCready!'
Piper slowly made her way to McCready, being careful not to wake up the sleeping sniper. When she got to the bed, she took one last look at McCready…
...before placing both hands on his back and rolling him off the bed.
Piper watched as McCready squirmed like a fish on the floor of the barracks.
"What the hell Piper!" he complained.
"Had to wake you up somehow." Piper casually replied.
McCready got up and dusted himself off.
"What do you want?" McCready asked as he looked at Piper
"We need to talk about what happened today, Robert." Piper answered quietly.
"Ok, why?"
"Why do you think? We just found not one, but TWO soldiers that fell from from the sky! To add to that, they aren't from this time. If you don't believe me, look at their gear. I know for sure that the U.S. government weren't that advanced in weapons in armor. Also, that fish-out-of-water look shows that they don't even know where they are. How do we know if their hostile, or if their highly advanced Institute synths?" Piper asked.
McCready sat quietly for a moment, thinking about Piper's questions, debating her points among himself.
"First off," McCready began, "they aren't Institute goons. While I was at the crash site, the aircraft that was their had no Institute markings written on the side of it. It had something called the 'UNSC' painted on the sides of the hull. Also, the chest plate of the pilot we brought in had the same markings on it."
Piper stopped and remembered back to when she was a the first crash site, how the Tasha had some similar markings on her gear. But instead of the 'UNSC' marking, it had something called 'ODST' written on her uniform.
'Perhaps their related' Piper thought to herself.
McCready continued to explain his points, "To add to that, Piper, if they were Institute goons, they would've shot us by now, or at least sedated us to take us prisoner."
"That didn't stop the Institute from using McDonough as one of their pawns." Piper countered.
"That's true, Piper." McCready agreed, remembering how the Diamond City mayor revealed himself to be a synth working for the Institute. "However, I believe the Institute learned their lesson from that."
"That's a bold statement to be making, Robert." Piper warned.
"Yea, I guess your right about that too." McCready said. "How about we just ask about their origins when they had enough time to recover."
"That was the plan originally, but okay." Piper replied.
The sound of footsteps halted their conversation. Piper and McCready sharply turned to face the door as Curie decided to walk in.
"Madame Piper, Monsieur McCready?" Curie called.
"Yes, Curie? What do you need?" Piper asked the French medic.
"Madame Tasha asks to speak with you." Curie told the reporter.
Piper turned to McCready, "Well, looks like we can get that chance now." she said cheerfully.
The three exited the barracks.
New Pride Bar
March 14, 2547 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Paris IV
Captain David Recker sat alone in one of his favorite bars in the world, pissed at the world. After storming out of the ONI facility, he took his ship straight to Paris IV, and told his crew that they had shore leave. He sat in the bar for what seemed like hours, trying to wash the memory of the failed operation away from his mind.
It wasn't working.
The echoes of the comm chatter still rang in his mind, more so due to the alcohol. The argument with Admiral Parangosky was still fresh in his memory, he could even recite the argument word for word if he wanted to. He wanted to be happy, he wanted to act as if he wasn't about to strangle an ONI operative.
But he couldn't.
He was on his fifth shot of whiskey before a familiar person walked into the bar…..
Admiral Parangosky.
"What the hell are you doing here?" the captain grumbled as she walked up to him.
"I came to apologize." she began.
"I don't need you to apologize. You were right: the squad is dead, I shouldn't care, end of story."
Margaret stopped and stared at him.
"Yes, they are dead." she said truthfully. "But, I was wrong. You should care for them. They were your soldiers, even if they were assigned to you by me and weren't even on the ship for more than a few weeks."
They sat in silence for a few moments, until a bartender came to give David a sixth shot. The ONI admiral ordered a drink for herself as well.
"I petitioned for an expeditionary team to go to the site." she began once more after drinking through half the glass. "If you want to go, give me a call."
She got up and left after that.
Once again, David was left alone in the bar. However, Margaret's words began circulating in his mind.
'You should care for them'
'I was wrong'
As the words circulated, he thought about the mission that she proposed to him. If he was his normal self, he would've accepted It immediately.
'I should accept it...' he silently thought.
'What if this was an ONI trap? You have went for those before…..' his mind countered.
'Ah screw it… IF this turns out to be a trap, at least you had a good run.' he proposed to his mind before standing up and leaving the bar.
Thanks for reading. Please review and let me know if there is something you have in mind for this story or a new story idea. I would like to apologize in advance if the log at the beginning of the chapter is a bit off in terms of formatting. I had a better layout, but it got wiped out when I moved the document to the Doc Manager (if anyone can find a solution to this problem, then let me know).
As always,
RNG OUT!