Tinker, Tailor, Spartan, Spy Chapter 4

I awoke to total blackness. My head ached, my mouth was dry, and my eyes were sore. I blinked away my grogginess and shifted my body, feeling at my surroundings. It hadn't hit home yet that something was wrong. The pervading chill on my skin worked to rouse me, and I slowly cleared the murk from my mind.

I soon found my hands and feet were bound. This began setting off alarms. I was in a sitting position, my arms behind me, wedged over what I assumed was the back of a chair. My feet were likewise stuck, this time seemingly secured to a bar behind them. Twisting my neck revealed that the darkness was a result of a thickly woven cloth bag over my head, cutting out all light. Panic began rising in my chest. I had been captured. At least that meant that I would survive a while longer. Nobody would go to the bother of capturing me if they just wanted me dead.

Further testing revealed that I would not be detaching myself from the chair, so I sat back and waited, suppressing a rising heart rate and trying to coax out memories of when the abduction must have occurred.

I was on Reach. I remembered going to a bar. Nothing eventful happened there as far as I could recall, but I didn't reach my accommodation... That, and the fact I generally felt like absolute shit at the moment, pointed to a drugging. Someone had given me a knockout toxin while I was distracted, and judging from the general sickness I was feeling, it was probably a full syringe of the stuff.

I heard faint, muffled echoes, disrupting the utter silence, directionless. I stifled my body language, trying to erase any signs of fear. The echoes became louder, clearer, sounding more and more like footsteps, until they suddenly came to a stop. Then followed the creak of a door, the scrape of a chair on the ground, and indeterminate speech. I felt movement at my neck and instinctively flinched, only for the presence to undo some kind of fastening and pull the bag off.

The sudden, harsh light blinded me initially. I blinked and squinted around the room, making out three figures. Two, probably security personnel, moving away from me towards what was presumably the door. The third sat opposite me, hands clasped before them as they leant forward.

"Good morning, Mister Locke. My name is Serin Osman."

My vision now adjusted, I looked to the source of the voice. Serin was a sharp-featured woman of vaguely mid-eastern appearance, dark hair tied back tightly against her skull, wearing a passive, small, but nonetheless vaguely malicious smile. I looked around, looking at my surroundings as well as attempting to glimpse the other two before they left. The room was clean, and almost pure white. An interrogation cell. The two guards... I had been right. Grunts, security assurances wearing standardised bodysuits. Osman was clearly the one in charge. But as they turned to shut the door, I caught the logo on their lapels...

"ONI." I stated flatly as the doors slammed shut, leaving us alone in deafening silence.

"Yes, Mister Locke. An astute observation. But now we've got that out of the way, allow me to explain why you're here." I turned back to her, and raised my hands as best I could, palms out and indulging in a bit of dryness for the first time in a while.

"I'm all ears."

"Wonderful. I'm sure you're aware that we know of your... Activities following your involvement in Agent Delta Foxtrot's asset retrieval mission."

"I am."

"Then you should also be aware that you've been a thorn in our side for quite some time." That made me curious.

"What?" I asked. "How? Haven't I been doing you a favour?" Osman sighed and leant back.

"Mister Locke, all government agencies can be looked at with the viewpoint that it is a human machine. A construct designed to manage and execute necessary changes to its environment pertaining to its area of concern. In the case of the Office of Naval Intelligence..." She fixed me with a look so pointed I wouldn't know whether or not to call it weaponised, and continued. "...It is a very efficient machine. We are good at our job, Mister Locke. That is why we are the ones doing it. Only now, you have appeared to have taken it upon yourself to do it instead."

"I'm sorry?"

"Over the past few years, you've driven our logistics AIs halfway to rampancy and then some. No less than sixteen times have we dispatched agents to eliminate key Covenant targets and had to extract them early because you had already done the job, creating significant, not to mention wasteful, resource consumption ." She sighed and got up from her seat, strolling over to one of the walls.

"The Office of Naval Intelligence is a very efficient, well maintained, and precise machine, Mister Locke, and your activities, though guided by good intentions, have been a proverbial wrench in the gears. This meeting, though somewhat... Unconventional... Represents our attempt to reach out to you, for a partnership of mutual benefit." I blinked.

"This is a job interview."

"Essentially, yes."

"You could have just contacted me. My professional address is public."

"You would have been spooked, Mister Locke, and then we'd have to waste yet more resources on reacquiring your location." I paused, meeting her gaze.

"If you know what I talked to your agent about, then you know I'm not too keen on your organisation."

"I was hoping you'd matured since that meeting. Perhaps this will change your mind." She reached out to the wall, a holographic panel appearing under her fingers. She spoke into it, as if it was an intercom. "Send down the Jericho VII file." My stare got a fraction more fixed.

The wall by Osman lit up with another, much larger holographic display, this one displaying some kind of report. Unsurprisingly, the title read "Battle of Jericho VII". Osman scrolled through the headers to the subtitle "Deployments". There was a large RESTRICTED block over it initially, but it dissolved under her gaze. She gave the display a gentle flick, allowing it to gently drift down, showing the names of every ship, infantry regiment and more deployed in the battle for my homeworld. The battle they had lost, and with it, the lives of millions.

"Your psychological evaluation states that you harbour deep-seated resentment for ONI, and the UNSC as a whole. Obviously this is a result of the loss of your family in the UNSC's failure to stop the glassing of your homeworld. Supplementary data from Agent Delta Foxtrot suggests that your particular disdain for ONI stems from your perceived notion that ONI pulled the strings to withdraw from the battle." She snapped her fingers and the hologram stopped scrolling. "This is emphatically not the case." She pointed at the bottom of the Deployments header. I looked to it.

Deployed: SPARTAN Blue Team

Deployed: SPARTAN Red Team

"Spartan? What is that meant to be?"

"A top-secret UNSC super-soldier programme with a frighteningly good track record and moral implications that would make tabloid journalists froth at the mouth."

"And you're telling me this, a supposed military secret, why?"

"For the same reason you're here, and the same reason I'm here. I'm quite important, Mister Locke, and you should feel flattered that my superior thinks that you're worth my personal attention. You're here because you're valuable, and considered so to such an extent that you have been given the privilege of knowing that the UNSC deployed some of its most valuable assets to the centre of Covenant operations on your planet, carrying a nuclear payload, nonetheless, in an attempt to save it. Regretfully, they did not succeed." It sounded outlandish at best. I wasn't so easily convinced.

"I doubt I'm worth all that. You haven't done anything to counteract my preconceptions. As far as I know, this is all lies."

"Mister Locke, ONI does not go to this much effort for a simple odd job man. You are a uniquely skilled individual. We simply wish to extend a hand to you, offering you the opportunity to continue your work almost completely unchanged, only with government funding, backing and organisation. We would not begin a relationship we would wish to keep and maintain for a significant period of time with lies. I can personally assure you that this project is real, its results continue to operate, and one particular member insisted on watching the glassing of your planet for almost an hour after being extracted. We want you to stand with us, Mister Locke, and are prepared to expose extremely confidential data to this end."

"What if I were to refuse?"

"Then you would immediately be knocked out again and returned to where we found you."

"You're not worried about the information you've just given me?"

"We are not concerned about conspiracy theorists, Mister Locke, no matter how accurate their theories may be. What is one voice in a galaxy full of them?"

"And if I were to accept?"

"You would be untied, briefed, outfitted, given relevant contact details, and immediately sent on your first mission. Over time, we might allow you better access to the relevant files on the battle, depending on your perceived commitment to your new employment."

"..."

"Take your time, Mister Locke. Do not make a rash decision, as the only two ways out of ONI are via retirement... Or body bag."

I had no reason to trust her. She was ONI. But what she was saying made sense. And they certainly weren't going to be stupid enough to lie to me, if I was going to be walking around in their facilities. I'd heard about crazier things than this whilst browsing Waypoint. ONI could give me all the equipment I needed to save people, the structuring and intel to save yet more.

I was disgusted at myself for even considering the idea, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. I still didn't trust ONI, no matter their intentions, but with time and maturity, I'd found my distrust of the UNSC waning anyway. Losing a battle against superior alien forces was at the very least not unforeseeable. There was still a pit of loss in my heart, but the blame only sat where it did because there was nowhere else for it to go.

Plus, the mercenary racket wasn't anywhere near as profitable as it was. Most of my employers had been swept up by the UNSC as they fled the Covenant's approach towards their planetary bases.

Still...

"You're asking me to make a very big decision on very short notice."

"Yes." Unrepentant.

I sat there for a while, eyes down, thinking. Serin sat across from me the whole time, waiting for me. Her expression never wavered.

"...Alright. I'm in."

"Excellent." She signalled for the guards to come back in and release me. Before they arrived, she looked at me again. "One last question. Tell me, how many humans have you killed?" That was a question I had always prepared myself to answer, but never expected to be asked.

"Humans? Seventeen, maybe more. Why?" She smiled, that viper smile that still makes me shiver to this day.

"Well, Agent Locke, you're going to be increasing that total rather rapidly."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

A month later, my position hadn't changed all that much. I had gone full circle, really. The only real differences were that I had a new job, was a few hundred light years away, and the restraints on the chair this time around were significantly less comfortable.

"Talk, you ONI scum!" The burly man before me screamed as he brought his fist swinging against my jaw, sending spikes of pain racing up and down my body.

Say what you like about ONI, (I certainly did), but their hospitality is still a lot better than the Colonial Cooperative Army's.

"I've got nothing to say." I calmly replied. That only seemed to make him more irate. He growled and began pacing again, contemplating his next plan of attack.

My first mission had begun well. I had been dispatched to a backwater colony that had gone dark recently, with seemingly no Covenant involvement. Upon landing, I'd learned that a small Insurrectionist group had somehow managed to shut down the planet's only superluminal communication relay, and somehow went on to defeat the planet's relatively diminutive UNSC garrisons. The word around town was that they were trying to reactivate the old warship graveyard the garrison had been responsible for protecting. The ships were a few hundred years old, no match for modern UNSC frigates, let alone anything the Covenant had to offer, but could still threaten and possibly even assault UEG fringe worlds.

ONI command was not pleased to hear this, so I was ordered to nip it in the bud. In the luggage I'd brought with me was what initially seemed to be an eccentric narcotics smoking kit, a fancifully-designed array of tubes and pipes, but in actual fact, when reassembled, the components locked together into a deadly weapon. A Hard Sound rifle. Designed with the intention to use high-powered sonic pulses to induce untraceable, fatal organ haemorrhaging at long range. The perfect assassin's weapon. The target was unspecified, but the data packet I later received told me "As many high-ranking Insurrectionist officers as possible." That pretty much meant anyone with a funny symbol on top of the stripes on their shoulder. I'd managed to rationalise these orders. The UNSC didn't need some two-bit Innie group trying to "liberate" the only remaining military industry centres. The UNSC would have to divert ships to deal with the threat, which in turn would lead to the Covenant's push accelerating, which would result in the death of even more civilians then there would have been if the ships had not been diverted. By ending these lives, I was saving far more. Hell, I might even be saving our species.

At least that was what I told myself. ONI sat entirely within the grey between moral and immoral, never shifting, never exposing itself to either side in its entirety. I was doing its work in hope of the good it might bring. For the lives that might be saved. Taking life to prolong those of others. I hoped it was worth it, because I was far too deep down the rabbit hole by now.

The first target was obvious. The leader of the entire movement, General Amadeus Lloyd. He'd grown the movement from barely a street gang into a veritable militia while the UNSC was busy getting killed by the aliens, using a mixture of brutality and inspirational propaganda.

Most of the public thought Insurrectionist activity had halted when the Covenant appeared, a spot of wishful thinking in that we all had a common enemy now. This was not the case. They simply went underground, easily escaping detection now that the UEG was too preoccupied to deal with them. ONI typically maintained at least one mole in each organisation, receiving small data packets in morse code, tapped out and transmitted via tiny boxes linked by quantum entanglement back to ONI HQ. The bandwidth wasn't much good for anything other than simple sentences, but it was generally enough.

The mole here hadn't transmitted in a while, though. I was going in blind. He could have been killed, or simply lost his communicator. Ultimately, it didn't matter. I wasn't to attempt contact. I was an Agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence, yes, but my official job title was more along the lines of "Acquisitions Specialist".

Sitting on the roof of a residential block, waiting for the good general to be carted by on the back of a warthog for one of his little rallies, I thought that was an awfully fancy name for a hitman.

I watched the minutes tick by, letting the sound of marching grow ever closer. The rally turned a corner, stony-faced, fatigue-clad soldiers bringing up the front, and in the back, a host of three Hogs, trundling along behind. Two had guns mounted, flanking the central one, where the general stood, stoic and proud as he was carted through the quietened streets for a weary populace, wind blowing through his long grey hair.

I shouldered my weapon. The beauty of hard sound weaponry was that the unique brand of tissue damage it produced was only identifiable via autopsy, and even then, few would recognise it. Most doctors would write it off as a stroke or heart attack. Not to mention it was effectively silent unless you happened to hit someone in the ear.

The basic optics provided for me weren't entirely suited for my range, the magnification uncomfortably high, but I made do, scanning over the crowd of soldiers, seeking their leader. Whilst doing so, however, I noticed something odd. An officer, leading the march, had a plasma pistol on his hip. Flicking over the rest of the procession, there was an extremely alarming amount of Covenant weapons being carried in general, by everyone from commanders to sergeants, ranging from pistols to full-on rifles.

This was wrong. Covenant weapons were available on the black market, yes, but they were few in number and extremely expensive, even broken ones fetching hundreds of thousands of credits. How did some second-rate militia leader manage to get his hands on so many?

As I flicked my view around incredulously, I heard a creak from behind me. The hatch I'd gotten here through. I rolled over, seeing a shaven head emerge from the hatch, followed by a fatigue-clad body. I'd been ratted out.

He raised a weapon, and I swung mine around, but he was faster. Two darts shot from his weapon, stabbing into my chest, and arcs of pain shot through me, my muscles spasming and clenching, soon leaving me with not even the breath to scream. Everything went black, and I awoke in the company of the fine gentleman who at that moment began beating me bloody.

They'd recovered my weapon intact, and although they lacked the bio-identification necessary to fire it, it was a dead giveaway as to my involvement by the government. So, they set about torturing information out of me. Five minutes in, he'd given me a fair beating, interspersing the blows with inane questions, my name, my rank, that sort of thing. Each got a smart-ass answer, and the hits got harder. By the end, they were hard enough for me to taste blood, but he had yet to get really serious.

It wasn't my first time, but I knew I wouldn't last long, if the array of grisly instruments placed just out of arms reach were anything to go by. Initially, I tried to buy time by asking my own questions, working ineffectually at the zip-lock ties around my wrists.

"How'd you get ahold of so many plasma weapons?"

"None of your business, mister agent. The general has his contacts."

"I doubt any amount of speeches will win you several million credits worth of stolen alien weapons. What's really going on here?"

"I said it's none of your business. I'm asking the questions here. Now shut your mouth before I shut it for you." He selected a particularly sharp implement from the tray beside him, and began brandishing it at me.

"Now, mister agent, what can you tell us about why you're here?"

"I'm here to kill the General. That's it." The blunt sincerity in my voice seemed to convince him.

"That's it? No data recovery? No getting your mole out of here?" He seemed almost disappointed. I decided to push this card as far as possible.

"We don't even have a mole here." I lied. "Not important enough."

"But... We... I... No, no, you're lying to me. Damn, those big-shot commanders of yours know how to pick 'em."

"I'm not lying."

"Well, if you are, you ONI lot must have shit for brains. We're the biggest revolutionary front this side of the Orion arm. Now, enough games..." He approached with the blade. This was the point at which I was probably supposed to bite my suicide pill, but I didn't have one, and was unlikely to have done so anyway.

He held the blade to my skin, resting it lightly, edge first. "...Tell us everything you know about the defence placements in all the UNSC fortress worlds nearby." I had to laugh. He was asking for information that I really and truthfully did not have.

"You think they give an assassin that kind of information? I don't know anything."

"I... Grr... Come on, you have to know something." He was getting exasperated, pushing the edge into my skin.

"I'm sorry. I don't."

"Bullsh-eeeeerrrrrkkkk!" His rebuttal was cut short, and he briefly spasmed, collapsing to the ground. Behind him stood the exact profile of our mole, short and weaselly, with intense, squinty eyes, holding a Humbler shockstick.

"You're damn lucky the general wanted to brag about his prize, or you'd have been stabbed full of truth serum and dumped in a ditch before I even knew you were here." He muttered as he put the stun weapon away, picking up a knife from the tray table and getting to work on my bindings.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, you've got to get us out of here. You brought an evac bird, right? Job like yours, in and out?" He finished cutting my hands free, and moved to the tie around my ankles. I rubbed at the marks around my wrists as I replied.

"Yes. I've got a Pelican two clicks away from the city limit. There's an Assault Prowler in orbit waiting to pick me, or us now, up."

"Fan-bloody-tastic." He grunted as my feet were freed. "Two clicks? More like five from here. With you a wanted man? Goddammit..."

"We should move as soon as possible. If they find him-" I gestured to the unconscious torturer. "-like this, they'll sound the alarm."

"Help me stuff him in the cupboard there. That'll buy us ten minutes before they come looking for us. Hang on, if we tie him up, it'll be fifteen." He went looking for more restraints, and I began to drag the man in the general direction of the cupboard. I was halfway before I smelt the stench.

"Ugh! God, has he..." I looked down. The shock had made the man wet himself.

"Huh? Oh, right, yeah. The unconscious setting does that sometimes."

"It stinks. What do they drink around here?"

"You don't want to know. They get it out of an indigenous creature. Believe me, it smelt worse when it went in his front end than it does now."

I grimaced and dragged him to the cupboard, my new friend then tying him up, gagging him and helping me bundle him inside. Before we shut the doors, I grabbed the man's pistol, while my friend went to scout the area. He checked the corridor, and we were out.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Garage. We steal a hog, drive like maniacs, and get the hell off this rock before anyone catches us."

"And go home empty handed?"

"If that's what it takes, yes."

"I can't leave now. This is my first mission, I can't go back without something of note."

"You got a death wish? We have to go now!"

"Something's wrong here. You've seen all those Covenant weapons. If they can get their hands on things like that, who knows what else they might be able to get. This is a significant security risk."

"Argh... Fine, stay, do whatever you want. Give me the bird coordinates, and the contact frequency for the Prowler. If you're not back by sundown, or a patrol gets too close, I'm getting the hell off this stinking planet."

"Fair enough." We stopped, and I tapped some numbers into his handheld. "Good luck."

"Keep your luck to yourself. You need it more. If you want the general, he'll be in his office. North side of the complex."

And we went our separate ways. Fortunately, the base's population seemed to be mostly distracted in the mess hall, judging by the noise, having captured the ONI assassin and brought them that one crucial step closer to liberating the colonies. I snuck by the hall unnoticed, and soon found my way to the General's quarters. Fortunately for me, he had it signposted.

Coming up to the door, my new gun raised, it sounded like the General was having a meeting. Pressing my eye to the crack between the doors, I strained my ears to hear their words.

The general was sitting at a board table in a contrastingly drab office. The walls were the same concrete grey as all the others in the base, despite what looked like a painting, judging by my slim sliver of vision. He seemed focused on the space directly in front of him, presumably his subordinates.

"...And you're sure that the Covenant aren't interested in attacking colonies without entrenched UNSC forces? You'll leave us alone?"

...Or maybe not his subordinates. He used 'you'... Who was with him? I shuffled quietly to try and get a view, but to no avail, saying myself with the rest of the conversation. There was a quiet beeping sound, and the room was quiet for a second.

"...Yes." A strained, slightly hissy voice. An alien? Dealing with Insurrectionists? The Covenant had made it clear that they wanted the entirety of Humanity dead shortly after first contact, so why were they...

"Excellent. It's heartening to hear that such an advanced and enlightened civilisation shares our view on the tyrannical government our people have suffered." More beeping. A longer pause.

"...Yes. Our weapons... For you. For us... Your metals."

"Of course. We're not so backward that we don't understand trade, you know!" The General chortled. "Just let me get the documents, and you can load up your ship to the brim." He got up, and turned directly to me, making for the door. I fell back and scrambled to my feet, pre-emptively pointing my gun at the door. I took a deep breath.

"You know, I really can't thank you enou-"

BANG

As soon as the General opened the double doors, I pulled the trigger, putting a bullet square in his forehead. His lifeless body fell back, chunks of viscera staining the floor, and the doors swung open. I stepped in, shutting the doors behind me, and immediately swung to face the other side of the table.

It was an alien, unlike any other I'd seen before. Grey-green, moist and clammy, and humanoid in shape, a strange beard-like crest lining the jaw, and a flattened nose with four widened nostrils. Covering its body was an odd black jumpsuit, leaving the hands and feet exposed. In its clawed hand, it held a small, distinctly Covenant unit, smooth and purple. It looked at me in shock, like a deer in the headlights.

For a second we stared each other down, until we both moved. It ran for the door, and I caught it on the way. It was a good bit smaller than me, and weaker, so I had little trouble overpowering it. I was soon holding it down, gun pointed at its face.

"Make any noise, and I'll shoot you." I demanded in hushed tones. Trembling, the alien glanced at the module, still clutched in its hand. Was it a translator? I released the arm, and it pressed the item to its head, listening. Then it moved it to its mouth, whispering in an alien language, and the device beeped. It released it, pressed it back to its ear, and spoke in hurried, broken English.

"Ikrl not your enemy! Ikrl bring weapons!"

"I'm not with them. Why are you bringing the weapons? The Covenant hates humans." The same routine again, ear, mouth, beep, ear, speech.

"Ikrl not care about Covenant! Ikrl is Yohnet! Not true Covenant! Walk the path, not fight the war!" A non-military Covenant species? Trading with humans? Why?

"Then why trade with humans?"

"Ikrl need to feed! Sell humans Covenant weapons, sell Covenant human's metal!" I took a second to process this. Then it clicked.

"You're making money behind the Covenant leader's backs."

"Ikrl make money, live better! Humans die anyway! Weapons weak!" Selling old Covenant weapons to human Insurrectionists for an inflated price... The... thing, Ikrl was smart. I wondered how feasible it was to be able to get him off-planet. A Covenant prisoner, with a functional translator. The first was already rarer than four-leaf clovers, but the second? A means to reliable communication? If I could pull this off, the data he could provide could turn the tide of the war!

Then again, it wasn't going to be easy. Intimidation seemed to have worked so far.

"You're coming with me. Cooperate and I won't kill you. But if you try to stop us, I will." Ikrl responded with frantic nodding after the translation was complete, which satisfied me. I ushered him out of the doors, and began running, the alien in front of me, down the corridors, following the signs to the garage.

Pretty soon, it seemed that a little less talking would have been more prudent. We passed the mess hall just as the troops were finishing their celebration. Racing past, it didn't take long for one of them to recognise me, and soon the whole hall was running after us.

Jostling and cramped as they were, they had trouble keeping up. We reached the garage with them in tow, bursting through the doors, slamming them shut and twisting the latch, locking the heaving rabble out for at least thirty seconds.

The garage was a repurposed warehouse, by the looks of it, tacked onto the side of the complex I'd just escaped. Fortunately, there was only one person there, a man covered in oil, holding a clipboard.

"Hey, who are y-" I smacked the butt of my gun into his temple, and he he toppled over. I grabbed a random set of keys from the desk he'd been standing at, frantically glancing at the number on the keyring. Finding the matching Hog, I bundled my terrified cargo in the passenger seat, revved the engine and shot out through the open exit, just in time to hear the doors burst open behind us.

I drove recklessly fast through the streets, following my limited sense of direction through the city streets to where I'd parked the Pelican.

It didn't take long for the soldiers to catch up. They knew the land better. Pretty soon, I was being harassed from behind, three more Hogs trying to overtake, knock me off course. They'd stowed their guns for now, but that was likely to change as soon as we got out of the city. Fortunately, none of them had mounts.

Managing to stay ahead, I watched as the buildings got smaller and sparser, eventually giving away altogether. It was at that point they opened fire.

A barrage of plasma shots erupted from the passengers, pinging off the car's chassis. One hit the frame behind me, hissing and dissipating. I glanced at the hit area; the burning was minimal. It seemed the weapons really were significantly weakened. Still a darn sight better than bullets though.

Ikrl sat to my side, clutching the seat, and evidently terrified. Luckily, it seemed we were on target to-

Barely a mile away, there was the silhouette of a Pelican taking off.

"Wh- No, no, no no!" I cursed. We were so close! How could we possibly-

A thought struck me.

"Ikrl! Do you have a ship? Where is it?" The alien gave me another terrified look, translated it, and jerked a finger backwards. I grit my teeth. This was probably not going to work.

"Hold on."

I hit the brakes, hard. The Hog bucked, skidding on the road, and the three pursuing cars swerved to avoid us. One went tumbling, the occupants strewn about, and the others simply skidded in circles. I reversed, span the car around, and hit the accelerator again, taking off back the way we came.

It took a while for the two remaining cars to catch up again, and by that point we were back inside the city. Ikrl was waving me this way and that, directing me through the streets expertly. I found myself wondering many times he had been here.

At last reaching the place, smashing though a wire fence on the way in, we reached a derelict building area, and we both dismounted, leaving the Hog draped across the gap to block our pursuers. Dashing for the building, plasma zipping over our heads, we barely made it.

Once inside, Ikrl pressed a button on his translator, and a Phantom appeared on the ground, as if from thin air. Active camouflage. The deployment bay doors hissed open and we clambered aboard, letting them close us in as the crazed rebels finally made it inside, dim purple lighting illuminati g the cramped space. Ikrl bundled his way into the cockpit, not even bothering to shut the door behind him, and immediately began takeoff.

The floor rumbled underneath me as the antigravity drive activated, then lurched as we took to the air. I watched the ground sink away through the tiny window as we soared off into the distance.

I took a deep breath. We'd done it. The good General was dead, and I was bringing home not only a Covenant captive, but also a Phantom, in full working order. My first mission had gone pretty well, all things considered.

Now to finish it.

I came up behind Ikrl, who looked parched, like the escape had made him sweat out all the moisture in his body. He was shaking slightly. I laid a hand on his shoulder and he froze.

"I apologise for threatening you earlier. I won't do it again, unless you pull a gun on me." The alien settled down slightly on hearing the translation. "Now, I'd like you to head to the following coordinates..."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Impressive work, Agent Locke." My handler aboard the Prowler said, closing off my debriefing. "I'll inform my superiors immediately. They'll be very happy to hear about the assets you recovered."

"Thank you, sir."

"And you said that you don't believe that the CCA's forces were particularly extensive?"

"Their numbers at that outpost were quite low, sir. I believe they overwhelmed the UNSC garrison via the superior technology they acquired, rather than by numbers."

"Good to hear. With the head of operations gone, hopefully morale will fall and the group will disband. Good job, Agent. Dismissed."

I saluted and left the room. I admit, I expected a much greater sense of self-loathing at the point I turned in my first mission for ONI. But there wasn't any. I genuinely believed that I'd done some good here. One man dead, who knows how many saved. It was the same thing I'd been doing for years. Even Ikrl had been treated civilly when I brought him in. It was all good.

The door to the briefing room opened for me, shutting again when I stepped through, and I was surprised to see the mole waiting for me.

He looked up, and grinned sheepishly.

"Ah, hey, I... Uh, sorry for abandoning you. Couldn't see it was you at the wheel on the first Hog, and I kind of panicked."

"I don't blame you. It was pretty hectic."

"Thanks. But you pulled it off pretty spectacularly, huh? Alls well that ends well."

"Indeed."

"Yeah. You know what, let me buy you a drink. Or at least bribe the mess sergeant to give you a drink."

"Thanks."

"No worries. Hey, you said this was your first mission, right? Like, ever?"

"First for ONI, but I've got several years experience as a freelance assassin."

"Yikes. Hardcore. I have a feeling from now on, they're going to be giving you the tough ones. But hey, keep this up and you'll be a Lieutenant in no time."

"Here's to hoping."

And at the end of the day, a few years later, I got something far, far better than just a rank.