Alternate Reality

Chapter 9: What side of the hay stack would you check first?

Location: Orbiting Earth

Date/time: 2553/3073 Mar 24th 5:32 GST

With several notebooks and a laptop computer Specter sat snugly in his leather command chair. This is the same chair he had used many times when planning his next move and was just as lost as the next person in guessing which star to go to.

The most recent file he had pulled was a study on determining the location of a ship based on its trajectory; Specter still wasn't used to calculating slipspace coordinates and was rubbing his temples from a massive headache. His mug of coffee was empty except for the ring of dry crust in the bottom and several numbers had been smudged off his calculator from use. In addition to the mess of papers covering his hand-carved wooden desk he held a black-market issue untraceable phone in his left hand.

His moment of silence was shattered, causing a reflex action to throw his left hand into his mug and send both the phone and mug into the nearby wall.

"Sir, I really must protest to your overworking yourself. It is most likely by now that they have died at the hands of the aliens by now. You must take a break..." Katrina, codenamed Castle, was rudely cut off.

"It was my responsibility they got away, and I am so close to a breakthrough!" Specter retorted, leaning out of his chair to retrieve his fallen phone. "I just contacted Sollaris VII and he said he might have caught something important; mentioned something about some rebellion in their history." Specter thought back to when they had brought the SPARTAN to the ONI headquarters. They merely waved 'goodbye' before John was dragged off for interrogations and a thorough medical check-up. The Master chief had left a note on his bunk before he left, it hinted that the UNSC was not nearly so united as it should be and that there were some in power whose intentions for thier future was only in their best interests. He had left contact information which he addured were secure, and ever since their payday Specter had either been researching about "slipspace" or investigating leads dropped by their "DLF" (Dear little friend)

"Our ship is not bugged we don't have to use John's call-sign here." Katrina chided.

"I want to make it a habit that we call our informant something no-one could to tie to him. Besides that, how do you know we aren't bugged; we don't have tight security, I wonder if we even have anything more expensive than a code to unlock the ship's bay doors."

"You could upgrade the security..."

"We're mercenaries, not Victor's body guards, at least no one is supposed to know..." Specter stood, idly flipping the phone in his hand. "Besides it would give the impression that I had something I wanted to hide."

"But you do."

"I don't want people to think I do."

"I always hated poker..." Katrina sighed and left the office with a click of the door.

Specter relaxed back in his chair and picked up the slipspace science essay he had rented from the library. Obviously it wasn't hard material that would point the way but it taught him exactly how these people traveled.

Maybe I should just contact John and ask him for help.

Specter sighed, and deciding that Katrina was right he place the phone in his jacket's pocket and stepped out of his office and into a fresh recycled-air filled hallway. He didn't try to take stock of his surroundings as they were dull and monotenous, causing no interest in any person who used the halls.

His path took him directly to the crew's lounge, this was where he and his lance would relax after a tense mission and let off steam. The lounge was complete with two couches and several chairs, a small fully stocked fridge, a mini bar and a small cabinet stuffed to the brim with snacks.

He retrieved an energy bar from the cabinet and sat in one of the chairs with an orange soda in hand.

Sadly this was not to be a restful place; the ship's captain boomed his voice across the comm network and beckoned him to come... quick.

Specter lunged out of his chair and stalked toward the door. His back was tight with stress created knots and his walk was stiff, stiff from hours of work. His normally clear eyes were blood-shot and had blackened underneath from lack of sleep.

When he arrived at the bridge, he noticed receiving several bemused looks from the bridge crew. He shrugged it off and stood next to the captain. "Yes." He croaked.

Momentarily taken aback at the state of his employer that captain paused, opening and closing his mouth for a few seconds before composing himself. "Right, well," He twitched his fingers anxiously and quickly continued, "I've been working with the survivors of the Triton facility and we think we've found the region of space where they might be... be warned it's a rather large area, and it's far."

"Just show me a colored in section of map!" Specter demanded, leaning in toward the captain's face, showering him with coffee breath.

The captain typed several commands and revealed a map of the galaxy with a conical narrow angled section of three dimensional space.

"Well whose space is that, who controls it?"

"Uh, mostly unexplored, but according to updated UNSC maps it appears to be mostly Loyalist Covenant controlled space."

Specter relaxed, "What are the chances that they flew into Loyalist space?"

"It's a narrow cone sir, there is and most of the beginning of the cone is the controlled space, and according to the engineers the prototype could only travel several hours in slipspace with then gives us the conclusion that they would have a 72.5 chance of stopping in Loyalist space." The captain spoke with such continuing vigor and annoyance that Specter half decided to leave.

But as soon as the high chances of the ship exiting slipspace in Loyalist space were mentioned; Specter relaxed considerably. "Thanks." Specter walked off toward the bridge door before turning and smirking awkwardly. "I'll be in my quarters; wake me up if you hear anything."

NEXT DAY

MAR 25th 03:47 GST

Specter woke to a quiet, respectful tap on his door. He groaned tiredly and rolled off his bunk and onto the floor. Luckily he was still dressed because he had been too tired to change before he collapsed on his bed.

"Yes what is it?" He asked, blinking in the light on his newly opened door.

"Sir, we have an update from Sollaris." Castle nodded, handing him a clipboard with a coded message written on it; and underneath was a decoded copy.

Specter accepted the message and sat back on his bed; Castle didn't leave, but stood by the door.

"Could I hear the message sir?" She asked politely, folding her hands in front of her.

"Yeah, sure, I just thought you'd read it already." Specter held up the message, it was short and to the point; there were strange things happening in the human government, "Apparently they can't keep track of several admirals and diplomatic leaders; Sollaris thinks there's something going on... He says here that several of the admirals were against the alliance with the aliens and that some of them were against the program that created him."

Specter paused. "I still know way too little about this universe."

"Anything else, names perhaps?" Castle asked.

"He didn't leave us much information, he only said that he suspects that an someone within ONI, an admiral Parangoski, might either have information or be involved." Specter puzzled, scratching his chin. "Could you see what you could find?"

"Sir, I doubt that they leave all their information unencrypted and floating around the net." She paused, slightly at a loss for a word. "What we're looking for would most likely be in a closed system inside the ONI office.

Specter jumped up. "Follow me, I have an idea." He ran over to the wall mounted comm system, and after activating it with a click he spoke. "Beowulf, Falcon, meet me in the hangar."

He motioned his hand at Castle, indicating that she follow him; though with her heels she couldn't really run.

"I'll be right down sir." She rolled her eyes and clicked after her speeding commander.

Specter leaned over a crowded table in the hangar bay; the sound of the techs working drowned out the sound of his speech so that only those three who leaned in close could hear. They were all wearing nondescript black fatigues with gloves and scarves, and black beanies on their heads.

Specter was pointing toward a small alleyway on their pirated map of the ONI complex and with a mathematical compass indicated the small breaker box.

"... going to be dark and cold..." He looked them straight in the eyes, "We can't let anyone know we're there."

They nodded quietly, though even if they were making any sound it was lost in the din.

"There is an air duct accessed from the roof that you, Falcon and Castle, can enter and sneak into the security office; just trank them Falcon we don't need to leave any proof we were here."

"But sir, won't he feel the needle?" Castle asked innocently.

"No, we are using nerve pellets, they are hardly anything, just hit them on their skin and they'll fall into a deep sleep at their posts without noticing why." Specter answered. "Now, back to the plan. Once you loop the security feed we can enter through the security door with your help. Then it is a matter of locating Parangoski's office and downloading her files; then we leave and rendezvous back at this deserted factory here; it's where our transport is hidden. We will go together but in case anyone gets lost we have a GPS uplink and map to our location. The GPS in routed through our ship, not through one of their satelites so we don't need to worry about our signal being cracked or even picked up." He took a deep breath, running his eyes over the map. "Any questions?"

"What is our vehicle?" Falcon asked.

"We'll take a Condor hovertank till we reach a small village twenty or so miles from there and be picked up by the ship. We will be landing at that site, drive to the factory, walk to our objective, complete our mission and head home. Get suited up and be ready by ten, be in the hangar; I'll meet you there." Specter leaned off the table and stalked toward the door. "And Castle bring the ship into atmosphere."

"Yes sir." She replied, turning tail and leaving for the bridge.

"This will be fun." Specter thoguht to himself. "Never thought I'd ever play spy before." He said out loud to no one in particular.

Mission Op. Northwind Peace Talks:

Outside ONI office in Novgorod Russia GST 22:13 Mar 25th 2552

Specter paused, pressing a few keys on his touchscreen PDA, glancing back over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of his lancemate Beowulf help to leverage Falcon onto the roof of the small outbuilding.

"Feed has been looped." Specter stated, his voice quelled to a whisper amid the blizzard that assaulted them from above. He nodded toward Falcon as she pulled Castle up to the roof top, and clicked his earpiece; "Falcon, you have dart trank pistols right? Just in case? You guys brought knives, and laser pistols as well right?"

Falcon displayed her response with an irritated pose and a wave. "Do not mock me commander, I AM Aiasa Thastus remember? I fought for a bloodname; nothing you could have accomplished."

Specter shook his head. "Then how did you become my bondsman?"

"Stravag!" Falcon cursed and shut the channel.

"Heh." Specter laughed.

In the mean time, Castle had pryed the grate off the air duct and was about to slide her feet in when Falcon pulled her out and slid silently in first... without a word or warning.

"Clanners." Castle cursed, remembering how she was orphaned in the clan invasion of 3050.

Katrina slid in after, her outfit of fur and parka, mixed with shoes which were padded allowed her to slid all the way to the horizontal section of duct without a sound. But even if there was a sound, no one inside would have heard through the blaring of an electric guitar in the security room.

Falcon peered through the slits in the grate that opened into the security observation room. She could tell that one officer manned the desk, while the adjaceent room, the lounge held three more officers; all luckily out of easy reach of the alarm. She leveled her trank gun and aimed at the guard who manned the surveilance desk as he was out of the other guards' sight. He pulled the trigger on the small weapon, and spat a silent nerve pellet onto the guard's neck; it bounced off and rolled into a corner and the guard was immediatly out cold.

Falcon pryed the grate open, its rusty squeaks unoticed with the music playing. She dropped to the ground satisfied at the comfortable warmth offered by being actually in the room, and posted Castle at the door to guard her while she checked the body of the guard.

Falcon leaned in close behind Castle, "You fire on the guard at the left, I will take care of the other two, on three."

"One." Falcon hissed, slipping her weapon up to eye level.

"Two." She leveled it to a ready position.

"Three." She nodded and burst from the door, mechanically shooting down the two guards to the right.

Castle merely tripped after her and fired three pellets until she silenced the third guard.

"You really need more target practice." Falcon haughtily stated, brushing her hair out of her face with her hand.

"I'll have you know..." Castle was cut off from finishing.

"No time." Falcon stated over her, "We must open the door for our freezing allies."

Caslte huffed, and stalked after feeling more and more like the tactical officer that she was and less like a spy.

When they opened the side door to the building they found specter and Beowulf huddled near by because the blizzard had intensified. "Got any hot chocolate?" Specter ask sarcastically. "I could use something hot."

"I'm sure you'll be fine sir, but let's just hurry this up, we don't have much time." Castle stated, holding the door wide for them to enter.

They of course shook their boots, and released a hail of snow from their shoulders, with Falcon eyeing the mess irritatedly.

The dull hallway that greeted them was plain cement walls and lights hanging from the cieling, obviously this was meant to discourage any visitors that anything important was accomplished or hidden there. The steel and hydrolic door at the end obviously led deeper into the facility and beckoned them to pass through.

It opened with a groan as the half-frozen hydrolics struggled against the weight of the two foot thick door. And the unlight hallway that opened like a maw before them discouraged further entry.

"Night vision goggles." Specter stated, slipping his goggles over his eyes and adjusting them to the dim light. The sight that opened up before him was one of disuse and because of all the dust and rubble could be clearly tracked that there was recent travel; a pair of high-heeled shoe markings led them on a winding path around curves and corners until the dust and debris metled away and two guards, one of either side of an elevator door, waited in readiness.

Specter quickly tranqed them to silence and examined them, they wore typical marine fatigues, though one was a private and the other was a sergeant. Their ID tags might be of use. Though once he looked at the panel next to the door he new they either had to have someone's hand, eyes, and head, or they would have to hack the system.

"Falcon, you know much about electronics?" Specter asked, his eyes and body language suggesting that she give a shot at hacking the door.

"Yes." She rolled her eyes, examining the console. "But I have no knowledge of how to help here."

"Castle?"

"Yes sir, one moment." Castle produced several tools from her belt and opened the panel to get a view of the insides. Specter couldn't tell what she was doing in there from his angle, all he knew was that five minutes passed and finally the door opened. "There, you see?"

"Yes, well, no time to talk let's go." Specter stepped into te elevator, motioning for silence, thankful that they all had covered their faces so as not to be caught by secret cameras.

He slipped a mechanical voice disfiguration device over his mouth and relaxed. His eyes, guarded by fake contacts which changed the look of his eyes so as to make them untraceable; scanned the elevator.

There were several buttons, most leading up, but Specter had the feeling that the information they wanted would be underground, at the negative tenth floor. He pressed the button and readied his trank gun, aiming at the door.

But when they opened there was no one guarding the door. That's odd.

This was an underground corridor carved out of the living rock. A small escape route map near the elevator provided the map they needed. "Let's check the labs." He pointed, indicating the section down the left wing of the crossroads ahead.

They walked quietly down the corridor, not making a sound, the only thing they could hear were the continuous groan of machinery somewhere nearby and the sound of some low humming in the area they wanted to reach.

They faded into the dim shadows of the intersection, glancing left, and found their path was empty.

As they grew nearer and nearer to the labs the sound the the humming machinery grew louder and louder, and when they reached the door to the observation deck they found it almost overpowering. Through the cracks in the door Specter though he could see a commanding female figure leaning over the railing, watching some events unfold below; she turned toward the door and started towards them.

They all instincfully ducked into the shadows, breathing silently until the door opened and she passed them, not looking in their direction, her attention focused on a small clipboard in her hands. Specter motioned for Falcon and Castle to follow her while he grabbed Beowulf by the shoulder and snuck the the open door of the observation deck, leaving a rock to hold the door open.

They crawled into respective corners where the light of the lab below didn't reach them, and where they could observe the tests. Specter stared in shock as several doctors pushed in a bed with a young teen patient.

"... several hours, augmentation on subject fifty seven successful..."

"...nurse get that..."

"...where's that report on fifty seven?"

The teen was drugged, his eyes rolling up into his head, and once he was out, Specter knew he was about to witness the most "life changing" surguries ever known.

"Beowulf, guard the door, I'm going to document this." He whispered into his mic, no sound was heard below.

I thought she wasn't fond of the SPARTAN program, what's going on here?

Sorry about the wait, the changes, the additions, all that's going on it's a lot. So hang in as I prepare to update more.

-Tremble Wolf