Author's note: Time for a subplot. Enjoy!
CHAPTER 06
0832 HOURS, 17 JANUARY 2546 (UNSC MILITARY CALENDAR)
UNSCDF ARCHIVES, PLANET REACH, EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM
ACCESS GRANTED/ FILE LOADED/
PUBLIC FILE 283-A7
/OPEN FILE 1 OF 1/
FILE DATED: 13/01/2546
FILETYPE: TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: 232B-ALPHA PEGASI, UNSC COLONY MIDAS V
SUBJECTS:
LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE ASA MYUGO, DALTON R.S.O.
WARRANT OFFICER MURRAH BANKS, MIDAS V SENSOR STATION GAMMA
ENSIGN WILLIAM NOME, MIDAS V SENSOR STATION DELTA
DALTON R.S.O.: Epsilon Station, this is Dalton RSO, we're reading multiple sensor pings in your sector, please confirm, over. (pause) I say again, Epsilon Station, this is Dalton RSO, we're reading multiple sensor pings in your sector, please confirm, over. Epsilon Station, come in. (pause) Epsilon Station, please respond… is anyone there?
GAMMA STATION: Dalton RSO, come in, over.
DALTON R.S.O.: This is Dalton.
GAMMA STATION: Reading seven- strike that- nine- wait… twelve contacts, all massing near Huris… getting confirmation on sensor profiles now.
DALTON R.S.O.: Get Epsilon on the line for a better picture- I can't raise them.
GAMMA STATION: No joy- I think they're gone... Profiles complete- pings match Covenant warships. One carrier, one cruiser. The rest are all frigates. Range at one million kilometers and closing.
DALTON R.S.O.: Contact CENTCOM- tell them to prepare for imminent Covenant attack.
DELTA STATION: Dalton, come in! Dalton, we're reading multiple in-system ruptures! Fields resolving… Reading eighteen new arrivals.
DALTON R.S.O.: Thirty ships… oh God…
DELTA STATION: Sir?
GAMMA STATION: Sir?
DALTON R.S.O.: Get CENTCOM on the line- get FLEETCOM- tell everyone! Prepare NAV databases for deletion and set reactors to self-destruct. Confirm.
Pause
DALTON R.S.O.: All points- confirm last message.
DELTA STATION: Copy that, Dalton. CENTCOM reports all units mobilizing, and crew are evacuating now.
DALTON R.S.O.: Good. Confirm progress, Gamma Station… (pause) Gamma Station, come in. Oh no…
DELTA STATION: I can see it from here- the Covenant got to them, Dalton. Evacuating now. See you all groundside.
DALTON R.S.O.: Alpha Station, Beta Station, this is Dalton R.S.O. Stations Gamma through Epsilon have detected an incoming Covenant force totaling thirty ships. Winter Contingency has been declared- CENTCOM has been alerted and Navy forces are en route to engage. Your orders are to wipe all NAV databases and detonate reactors ASAP. Evacuate all personnel. Enter authorization code: SCORCHEDEARTH. Good luck, gentlemen.
0855 HOURS, 20 JANUARY 2546 (UNSC MILITARY CALENDAR)
MIDAS V, ALPHA PEGASI SYSTEM
Avery-202 hurtled through the underbrush, a titanium bullet in the light foliage. Aside from the slight rustle of his movement, the world was silent, a far cry from the din of just a few minutes ago. From where he was, it could have just been another day on the human colony of Midas V.
But it wasn't. The Covenant had come.
A white flash overhead caused him to look up through the trees. Although his view was obscured, he could make out the expanding globe of brilliant white light directly above him. That wasn't right- 232-B Alpha Pegasi was a faint orange star, and right now it should only have risen halfway up from the horizon. What was more, this new star cooled after a few moments to a bright yellow, before separating into distinct clouds of orange and red, along with an expanding ring of shining metal shards.
Avery sighed and moved on. What happened in space above Midas V wasn't his business, simply because it wasn't his mission.
Fire teams Shadow and Castle had been deployed to the surface to help repulse a Covenant advance towards Midas V CENTCOM headquarters. They were to assist the Marines at Alpha Line, three clusters of fortified bases positioned directly between the Covenant landing zone and CENTCOM Alpha Complex. It had looked simple at first. Wait for the Covenant to come. Beat them back. Counterattack if possible.
That had all changed halfway into the drop. Alpha Line hadn't just been overrun- it had been obliterated. The surviving Marines had scattered into the Tanaz forest and were trying to make their way to CENTCOM and mount a defense there. The Spartans' new orders- cover the retreat. In practical terms that basically meant create as much havoc as possible, since twelve humans couldn't exactly be considered an effective screening force over a front that was more than a kilometer wide. All the same, there had been no objections. So, for the past half hour, the two teams had been moving to regroup, all the while hunting down any Covenant they ran into.
Avery froze. There was movement in the area. And it wasn't him.
Two Special Operations Elites, in their customary dark armor moved through the forest, although they stopped moving almost after Avery took pains to minimize his own movement. The two looked back and forth through their weapons sights, scanning every bit of the area, and resolutely refusing to move on. Avery's eyes widened. They were looking for him. Alone and with standard tactics, he didn't stand a chance against them. He was fresh out of training, whereas they were likely veterans of years of battles, probably against the UNSC.
Fighting wasn't an option- there was almost no way he could win. But then again, running wasn't either. They would simply shoot him down. So fighting it was.
He checked his weapons. He'd discarded his spent assault rifle in favor of a needler pistol he'd taken from a dead Grunt, but using that was out of the question. The bright pink needles would be a dead giveaway, and time spent taking one of the Elites down would be more than enough for the other one to take him out.
He'd also long since run out of ammunition for his M6 pistol, as well, so in its place he now kept an azure-colored Covenant plasma rifle. But the bright blue bolts the weapon fired were as visible as needler shards. Avery resisted the mounting urge to sigh in exasperation. He reached for his last fragmentation grenade- he'd been using captured plasma grenades almost the entire time he'd been moving through the forest, since they were in greater supply. But a bright blue ball of fire was not what he needed right now.
He primed the dark gray grenade with a soft click, and rolled it gently towards the Elites' feet. It wasn't quiet enough- both immediately looked down, and after a split-second's examination, leapt from where they stood. Avery sprang from his position too, hurtling towards one of the Elites, conscious on a very basic level that he was the first- and probably the last- person he knew to deliberately run towards a grenade blast.
He slammed into one of the Elites with his shoulder just as the grenade exploded. Between the concussive force, shards of white-hot metal, and four hundred kilograms of Spartan and MJOLNIR armor, its shields flared once before vanishing. The Elite's comrade had recovered from the explosion enough to begin firing, and static flashed across his visor as blue plasma bolts rushed past him. He grabbed the front of the first Elite's chestpiece and drew the soldier in front of him like a shield. With a glance at his motion tracker, he rushed the Special Ops Elite, keeping the body of its unconscious squadmate between them.
The Elite moved back and forth, constantly trying to get a firing angle on Avery that didn't involve melting through its fellow's body. Firing its plasma rifle in bursts, it jumped to and fro, forcing Avery to constantly move the now-dead Elite he was using as a shield. After another burst, the Elite threw its plasma aside with an enraged howl and whipped out an energy sword. With a deft sweep, it sliced through the trunk of a tree- and then kicked said tree towards Avery.
Instinct took over. Avery dropped the Elite's body and leapt aside, curling into a ball and rolling as he hit the ground. He sprang up just in time to see the second Elite barrel into him, knocking him into the ground. He gasped for breath as the Elite pinned him to the ground with its foot. Its split lips opened as it snarled, and its sword arm drew back. Avery gulped audibly as he eyed the glowing blue points of the sword. He squeezed his eyes almost shut, not entirely ready to see Death take him, but all the same, strangely curious.
He breathed evenly, waiting for the end to come.
It didn't.
The first crack yanked his eyes open an instant before something caused the Elite's shields to flare silver. The warrior spun on the spot, distracted, and a second crack ripped through the foliage, accompanied by a bullet, which exited the Elite's body in a spray of purple blood through the back of its neck armor. The Elite slumped, and fell over backwards. Avery scrambled to get out of the way, but only partially succeeded, and the limp form of the Elite lay on top of his legs.
With a grunt, Avery shoved the corpse off. He left his plasma rifle on the ground in favor of the one used by the Elite. A quick inspection confirmed that it was holding almost ninety percent charge- double the number of shots his had left. He activated the safeties on the energy sword, and sparks danced over the weapon's hilt as it disabled the magnetic field that kept the plasma blade under control. The energy sword was powerful, to be sure, but in this case, stealth was more desirable, and using it would be a bigger giveaway than attaching a flare to his armor.
He stood up. At that moment, he heard footsteps behind him, and his motion tracker caught a contact, with a yellow 'non-hostile' IFF signature. He turned to face a two-meter figure in MJOLNIR armor toting an SRS99D sniper rifle. He approached the Spartan, who promptly raised the weapon's sights to eye level.
"Icepick," he said simply.
Avery sighed. "Hector, you know it's me."
"Icepick," the Spartan, Hector, repeated.
"Do I look like an Insurrectionist? I'm a Spartan, height and all."
The figure hesitated this time, waiting a full second before repeating his challenge.
"Fine…" Avery muttered. "Phoenix. Happy now, Shadow Two?"
Hector-176 relaxed. "Yeah," he replied after a moment, "it became harder after you pointed out that you were a Spartan- can't get around that."
"Enough chat- let's get moving. They sent this team after me- they're on the lookout for Spartans."
"Got it. Let's go- rally point is at Bravo Base- or where it used to be."
Avery consulted his TACMAP and saw the NAV marker over UNSC Bravo Base. As he and Hector marched through the underbrush, the sky darkened, and a particularly dense cloud passed overhead. Both of them glanced up.
The 'cloud' in question consisted of three bulbs- two smaller sections to the front and a larger one in the center. Small masses of black darted to and fro around it, and the speed it moved at was not natural for any weather formation, save maybe a tornado.
Hector started to crouch, but Avery stopped him. "It doesn't matter," he said simply. If the Covenant wanted to kill them, then they wouldn't need to pick up their sensor signals, if a cruiser could even pick up a contact that small. They could simply burn the whole forest with plasma, or, if they wanted to be thorough, simply glass the planet from high orbit.
Avery tapped Hector on the shoulder; they continued moving. Another white flash lit the sky above them less than a minute after that, but neither looked up. Avery's hunch was confirmed by the fact that the shade did not return after the flash.
"Which one was that?" he asked Hector through TEAMCOM.
"No idea," his teammate replied, "twenty-one teams were sent on orbital cleanup. That could have been any one of them. Keep moving."
A split second later, static washed over Avery's heads-up display, and every sensor went haywire. His motion-assisting circuitry surged and sparked deep inside his suit, and he jerked and struggled as his suit went from hyper-responsive to zero sensitivity at random. Hector turned to face him, his top turning the full one hundred eighty degrees while his left leg seized up halfway through the turn.
"You too?" he grunted.
"Damn EMP," Avery replied. "Must've been an external detonation…"
Hector growled. UNSC nuclear armaments created an electromagnetic pulse which could cause havoc in electronic systems. Firing the nukes inside of Covenant shields allowed the shields to contain the brunt of the pulse, but an external explosion, if it was powerful enough to destroy the ship, would send an unimpeded wave of energy that could scramble anything- even MJOLNIR armor, apparently.
Avery ran a diagnostic on his armor- the voltage spikes in his electronics caused by the EMP were gone now. He nodded at Hector, who nodded back. Just then, a figure- human, by its body shape- sprinted into view. Tiny green letters flashed at the bottom of Avery's HUD, decoding the individual's IFF friend/foe tag. Kimiko-390. Shadow Five.
"How is he?" she asked brusquely.
"Icepick!" Hector called back.
"You're not getting me with that twice!" she yelled. "Let's go, already!"
Without warning, a thin purple beam sliced through nearby trees, blasting smoking holes through the trunks. With a dull hiss, it slammed into Hector's chestplate. Hector, clutching at his chest, threw himself onto the forest floor. "Scatter!" he growled. Neither Avery nor Kimiko wasted a moment.
Avery consulted TACMAP as the trees rocketed past him. There was nothing. Avery bit his lip as he switched from TACMAP to his motion tracker- things in space weren't good if the Covenant had spare time enough to shoot down NAV satellites.
Five red blips lit up on his display, moving in a loose arrowhead formation towards Kimiko and himself. Avery pulled out the needler on his thigh armor panel and checked the energy coil. Pink and glowing. Good, he thought…
He noticed the yellow dot representing Kimiko move in closer to the 'point' of the Covenant wedge. At that same moment, a pinprick of red light appeared in the periphery of his vision. As he turned to observe, it grew from a spot into a coruscating globe. Shaking the red spot from his mind, he raised the needler and took aim at the emerging scrawny figure of a Jackal. He could deal with the red dot later, whatever it was.
Avery blinked as a crimson lance ripped through the forest. Trees toppled and split, and three contacts vanished instantaneously from Avery's motion tracker. Kimiko appeared from between the trees, holding a weapon Avery had never seen before. He wiped that from his mind- kill enemies first, ask questions later.
Sweeping past Kimiko, he fired his needler's entire load of quills directly into the first Jackal, which squawked and dropped its beam rifle in surprise. Not even slowing as a cloud of burning pink mist grew behind him, Avery rushed the second remaining Jackal, which crouched behind its handheld shield.
Not even bothering with weapons, Avery roared and simply plowed on, shoulder forward and head down, directly into the Jackal, carrying it along in his wake. After a further second, a wet crunch announced his impact with a tree. Avery lowered his shoulder slightly and pushed forward again, stopping after a cacophony of crack and crunch sounds confirmed the Jackal's grisly fate. He stepped back, surveying his work for a brief moment, before finally gathering up all his feelings from the past few minutes and balling them into his foot, with which he then kicked what was left of the Jackal's corpse. With a sharp crack, bark popped off the tree trunk behind the dead body, and wood fibers splintered off. Avery frowned- he hadn't meant to kick that hard.
He moved back towards Kimiko, who by now had swapped out the large weapon he'd seen her use before for an M7 submachine-gun. The larger of the two was now strapped to her back. The weapon had a shaped brace, presumably for cushioning the weapon against the user's shoulder. The rest of the weapon, simply put, looked like a rectangular casing, with the exception of the cylindrical piece running through its center. It didn't seem to have any magazine or ammunition feed.
"What was that?" Avery asked.
"Some sort of laser," Kimiko answered, rising to face him. "When the Covenant attacked, CENTCOM ordered everyone into the defense- they went to ONI and requisitioned-" she put extra emphasis on that word in particular, and Avery nodded- the spooks could be somewhat hard-headed, "- some of the prototypes from their weapons labs. Hector and I raided what was left of Alpha Base before meeting up with you. That's also how we got fresh ammo."
Avery nodded. "And the others?"
Kimiko shook her head. "There's too much cross-talk on the E-band. We haven't heard from them."
Just then, Avery heard a rustle behind him. He and Kimiko whirled around on the spot, weapons leveled.
Hector walked slowly towards them, his right hand clamped over the center of his chestpiece where the beam rifle had hit him. Avery rushed to his teammate's side and pulled out a canister of Biofoam, only to discover that the hole in Hector's armor had already been filled.
"Very near miss," Hector commented, shaking his head. "If it had just been a little to the left that shot would have severed the spinal cord, but as it is I'm fine."
Avery very much doubted that anyone would be 'fine' after taking a sniper shot to the chest, but the UNSC used Biofoam for a reason. Any internal bleeding or organ damage could be sorted out with the medical compound- or at least, held in check until the soldier got to a field hospital.
The trio then moved off to the west, towards the pre-placed NAV marker at Bravo Base. For a while, there was nothing- no motion contacts, nothing on TEAMCOM or the UNSC E-band. Avery frowned at the last one- just a few minutes ago the E-band had been flooded with chatter from UNSC units in the area. What was going on? He tried a COM ping. Nothing happened. He turned to Kimiko and Hector, a slight tremor in his voice.
"E-band's down- I can't get anyone." Glancing skywards, he added, "Probably jammers."
Avery's COM crackled to life- it was the E-band. He blinked in surprise.
"All points this, is CENTCOM- any units east of Alpha Line receiving this transmission rendezvous at CENTCOM Delta Complex ASAP. Aerial support is inbound to cover movement." The message then repeated itself.
Avery squelched the channel- he didn't need to hear CENTCOM's message on an endless loop. He, Hector and Kimiko then doubled their pace. As they moved, they picked up further chatter on the E-band, although by now the conversation appeared to be centered on CENTCOM and the aerial support, with only occasional reports from Marine officers as they retreated from the Covenant advance-
"Hammer Three-One, this is CENTCOM, what is your status, over?"
"CENTCOM, Hammer Three-One, we are coming up on the Tanaz forest, and we'll release ordnance once we are within firing range. Confirm strike coordinates, CENTCOM, over."
"Hammer Three-One, release ordnance in grid square Lima Kilo Eight-One-One-Seven; confirm, over."
"CENTCOM, I read Lima Kilo Eight-One-One-Seven."
"That's correct, Hammer Three-One. Be advised that your fire mission will be danger close for UNSC ground assets in and around the forest, over."
"Copy that, CENTCOM- what are we supposed to do?"
Avery's heart dropped into his gut at Central Command's answer.
"Warn them."
"Copy that, CENTCOM. Over and out."
The three Spartans increased their pace to a full-blown sprint.
Several minutes later, dappled yellow and green gave way to bright and glorious blue. The three Spartans emerged from the Tanaz forest and sprinted across open grass towards a small bluff directly in front of them. A series of bluffs and ridges lay behind and around it, all leading up to the rocky plateau known as Devil's Face, which housed CENTCOM's Delta Complex. Avery slowed momentarily to consider why CENTCOM was rallying forces here- Alpha Complex was located only several kilometers further to the North, beneath the Yakrat mountain range. It would have been a much more secure location. He shook his head, banishing the thought. CENTCOM gave orders, he followed them. Everything else was academic. If CENTCOM was at Delta Complex, then he would go there.
Halfway between the forest's edge and the rocky bluffs, a shudder passed through the ground at their feet. The shudder then became a constant hum, and the feeling passed from Avery's feet to his ears as they picked up a low rumble, which grew steadily louder as something approached.
Just then, Avery's COM snapped to life once again, and a voice from earlier filled his helmet speakers.
"All points, this is Hammer Three-One. We are moving towards the Tanaz forest, grid square Lima Kilo Eight-One-One Seven. Get clear immediately. Hammer Three-One out."
Hector started to speak. "Well that was abru-"
With a thunderous roar, seven UNSC Shortsword bombers streaked barely forty meters overhead from behind the bluff, the pressure currents from their movement forcing Avery, Kimiko and Hector to the ground. Avery's eardrums screamed at him in protest as they throbbed through the pounding noise, and Avery quickly turned down his suit's audio amplification to avoid permanent ear damage- in situ cloning was both boring and time-consuming, and he had no intention of being separated from his team after their very first op. He and the others turned to watch the Shortswords, which by now were flying low over the forest, tiny black specks falling from their ventral bays. Even with reduced sound, he could still hear dull thumps as their ordnance hit the ground. After several seconds, the bombers pulled out of their run and turned back, flying higher this time.
At once, several things happened. First, a curtain of orange erupted at the forest's edge, and raced through the trees until not a speck of green was left. Towering flames and roiling black smoke engulfed the Spartans' view as far as the eye could see. Short of a miracle, nothing would survive that.
Second, the E-band crackled to life once again. "CENTCOM, this is Hammer Three-One- bombing run successful. All hostile contacts in one-klick radius neutralized; returning to base. By the way, three friendly IFF contacts IDed, CENTCOM- we've found your missing Spartans; send pickup ASAP. Hammer Three-One out."
"Friendlies?" Hector spat. "If we'd been a minute later, they'd have torn us all a nice new set of-"
"Just get moving…" Kimiko sighed. "We can teach CENTCOM what 'danger close' means later."
Avery had to agree with Hector, though- that had been too close. He placed a NAV marker on their location, and motioned to his teammates to stay low.
Barely five minutes later, the low, rumbling sound of jet engines filled the air once again, and a Pelican dropship crested the nearest ridge. Flattening the grass around its landing zone as it lowered itself, the dropship came to a steady hover five meters from the three Spartans. Not wasting any time, Avery, Hector and Kimiko hurried aboard.
The trip to Delta Complex was both quick and uneventful, albeit loud, as the Pelican's engines roared in Avery's ears. It touched down a little over ten minutes later, owing to an extremely crowded landing zone- the pilot had been forced to circle the area three times and maneuver away from aircraft, both incoming and outgoing, before being able to land. With silent nods to the pilot, the three super-soldiers descended and moved through Delta Complex.
One thing Avery noticed immediately was the look of the place- it did not look like a fallback position for the beaten remnants of a Marine defense force. True, there were many wounded Marines being carried on stretchers to parts unknown or being tended to by medics, but the wounded were far and away outnumbered by the uninjured and fresh. Men rushed back and forth, lugging supplies, ammunition and weapons to designated collection points, where other Marines picked up those same weapons. The air was filled with voices, interspersed with the hum of vehicle engines and, every so often, the sounds of aircraft engines, whether it was the roar of a Pelican's jets, or the whirring of a Hornet or Falcon's rotors. The Marines were not despondent or beaten-down. The more experienced ones, who could often be identified by their relative calmness, showed resignation and determination, whereas the younger, less experienced soldiers seemed more enthused about the current state of affairs.
But, Avery noted, there weren't just Marines present. Many logistics officers from the Navy were also present, their grey uniforms and blinking datapads a ubiquitous sight amongst the Marine formations. Avery understood why they were there- a good portion of the Marine forces had not been present on the surface during the initial Covenant attack. In fact, most of the Marines here were probably reinforcements sent by the UNSC fleet in orbit. Looking around again, Avery could see the distinctive black body armor and sealed helmets of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, who seemed an army unto themselves. With the exception of the odd noncom who was speaking to a superior officer or fetching a weapon, the ODSTs seemed to stay amongst themselves, either unwilling or unable to mingle with the nearby Marines, who seemed content to stay a short distance from them out of respect. Avery noticed that more often than not, a young Marine looking at the Helljumpers would fail to keep the awestruck expression off his face.
Most easily noticeable, though, was a tight-knit cluster of soldiers who stood well apart from the rest of the personnel in Delta Complex. Two meters tall and clad in their distinctive MJOLNIR armor, forty-plus Spartans spoke quietly amongst themselves. Despite the fact that he'd trained alongside them for over seven years, Avery quietly marveled that such numbers were here, in a single location. As Avery, Hector and Kimiko approached, two of the group left the others and headed in their direction. Even without consulting his IFF reader, Avery could discern from their size and movements that they were Felix-292 and Tanya-386- Shadow Three and Shadow Six, respectively.
"Took you long enough to get here," Felix remarked dryly, holding his M6 in his left hand as he inspected it halfheartedly.
"Lost contact with everyone," Avery replied. "What the hell's going on here? Thought this was a fallback point."
"Twenty-eight successful ops, that's what happened," Tanya interjected, and Avery didn't have to see through her visor to know that she was smiling. "Covenant forces been pushed back over most of the continent, and CENTCOM told everyone in the sector to haul ass over here for a counterattack. Jenna got called in- she and the other team leaders are meeting with General Lane to plan the counterattack."
Avery nodded upon hearing about his team's leader, Jenna-439, but half a second later Tanya's last word hit him with the force of a MAC round. Counterattack. A counterattack meant that the UNSC was no longer on the defensive- that they could push back, even win back lost ground.
This was a chance to kick the Covenant off the continent, and then Midas V as a whole, and perhaps- was it possible?- out of UNSC space.
Avery shook his head, bringing himself back into the present. First things first, he told himself. "So where will we be?"
"Leading the charge, if CENTCOM has half a lick of sense," Hector snarled, but Avery detected a slight note of satisfaction in the statement. He simply nodded, and glanced back towards the east, past the now-charred remnants of the Tanaz forest. Somewhere out there, he knew, there was a Covenant landing zone. Beat the Covenant ground forces there and their forces in space would either have to glass the planet and deny themselves whatever they were looking for, or try to land again and be taught the meaning of futility.
He smiled. Up until now, the UNSC had deployed Spartans in fire-team sized units- four to six Spartans, at the most. And even this tiny number had caused incredible damage to any Covenant forces brave enough- or foolhardy enough- to face them. He smiled as he contemplated exactly what the Covenant would think about facing down forty Spartans.
1900 HOURS, 26 FEBRUARY 2546 (UNSC MILITARY CALENDAR)
NARROW BAND POINT-TO-POINT TRANSMISSION; ORIGIN: UNKNOWN; TERMINATION: PLANET REACH, EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM
/FILE ACCESS GRANTED/ WORM-PROTOCOL FIREWALL ACTIVE/ AUTOMATIC DELETION SEQUENCE: ACTIVE
PLNB TRANSMISSION: ACS712-PV
ENCRYPTION SCHEME: ECHO
PUBLIC KEY: N/A
FROM: CODE NAME PUPPETEER
TO: CODE NAME OVERSEER
SUBJECT: PROGRESS REPORT
CLASSIFICATION: EYES ONLY, CODE-WORD –CLASSIFIED-, TOP SECRET (SECTION THREE ZULU DIRECTIVE)
/FILE-EXTRACTION COMPLETE/
/STARTING FILE 1 OF 1/
Two operations complete, and both are successful- they exceeded all expectations. Many of the Marines on the ground can't see a difference between them and the Class-Is. A couple of our own did notice one or two things, though (see below). By and large, though, they're performing up to standard. The experience barrier isn't as big a problem as previously predicted- unusual, considering they were thrown straight from training into front-line ops. Nobody here's complaining, though.
But they can't keep doing it like this. They've shown that they can beat the Covenant back in the numbers they've been deployed in, of that there is no doubt. But to use them like this removes them from Section Three's jurisdiction, and they'll be placed directly under -XXX-'s spotlight.
Stealth ops are already in the pipeline, and standard personnel will be phased out in favor of Type-Sierra operatives shortly. Highest-risk ops get priority, since we only have forty-eight teams. Camo systems are also being looked into- acquisition might be difficult, given how tight a ship Ambrose runs, but his R&D budget is nothing to sniff at- more than I can say for ours.
About the above: the Class-II Sierras don't seem as quiet or restrained as the first generation. Not an issue now, but the last thing we need is a Spartan bucking authority and going rogue. Checking the numbers, though, the effect makes sense- psych conditioning wasn't that extensive compared to combat training. Cause and effect. Operatives will be monitoring them to determine the extent of that effect- reconditioning may be necessary.
/END FILE 1 OF 1/
/DELETION COMPLETE/