The soldiers sat together, both watching the display of space's weird nature outside and simply chatting each-other up. Vic and Vesna were on the catwalk next to the windows, having taken Sergeant O'Niner's place as they peered through binoculars at some of the meteoroids that were landing around them. It was a beautiful sight, if a little concerning, but, well, kinetic energy wasn't much of an issue, since the moon supposedly had some sort of specialized defenses.
In the meanwhile, they listened in on Paul and Katja talking with the squad below. The Dominoes and Nub seemed to be getting along well with the entire group, thankfully, though that was a given since these guys were apparently Rookies among the ranks of the Clones. One of the reasons they were even put up in this outpost was to make sure they earned some experience before they were cycled out with the next platoon. The group, however, talked to the muffled tune of Russian band 'Agata Kristi's' 500 year old song, 'Like In War'.
"... And the she drove us over a BROKEN BRIDGE and managed to flip the vehicle!" Paul described the battle of Szurdok Ridge, a major part of the campaign on Reach. He was laughing loudly, as were the Clones around him and Katja. He continued jovially as he arranged his rifle strap, "I still don't know how I survived, but I've since sworn to never get in another car with Spartans!"
"Yeah, it was something!" Katja chuckled, then flashed the lads a grin as she leaned her back against the wall. The clones continued to listen, laughing, while katja joked, "You'd think they give you a driver's test before letting you behind the wheel of a 'Hog, but not for Spartans, apparently!" and yet more laughs filled the room, even from the folks sat at the top of the catwalk.
"You're kriffin' kidding me, man. Supersoldiers that can't drive, heh," Hevy shook his head, arms crossed as he shot a glance every once in a while toward the screens. He looked over to one of his brothers and asked him, "You hearing this, Fives?" as said brother was watching the hologram screens with Echo. Cutup, who had brought some food, sat himself down to keep listening to the story.
"I heard it," Fives replied, rather unimpressed with the shenanigans when his mind returned to some of the bantha crap they'd be doing in training.
"Hey, Paul..." Cutup started, looking over at the guy as he handed him a drink, then started on his own. After taking a sip, he asked the Hungarian soldier, "If ya don't mind us 'Regs' askin'... This where you also got those prosthetics?" and he tapped the metal arm he had. Ves and Victor up above looked down from the catwalk, a bit sad at this memory being brought up.
"Same battle, yeah. Well, part of them anyhow, like the arm being taken by a Covvie Elite during CQC. Same planetary defense... My home," The Hungarian replied in a low murmur. He lifted up his mechanical hand and looked at it, clenching and unclenching the mechanical fist that now acted as his own hand. He was thankful for UNSC procurement getting them the stuff necessary for him to still feel pressure and some other sensations through the fingers, but...
Echo, suddenly curious, turned to ask, "What happened?" only to feel the room temperature drop.
At first, it was a frown on Paul's and Katja's faces. The Reach native started describing, "The Covvies emerged with a small group during the early days of the invasion. The Battle was going well at first. We were winning on the ground, fighting hard. Hell, even space didn't seem to be that big a problem..." And he sighed deeply, rubbing his face and trying to contain his anger. Katja nodded, looking at her own drink as she listened.
The Hungarian descendant's voice grew low, angry, "Then the Covvies just started throwing more and more assets. The Spartans and we destroyed one thing one day, they'd appear with two of the same thing or worse the next. Six weeks of continuous fighting and all of it went to hell the last fucking days of the fight. Entire Covenant fleet, five hundred ships strong, bore down on Reach while we were evacuating..." Then he sighed, noting the surprised looks on the boys. He explained and motioned to Kat, Vic and Ves and stated, "I, Kat and the other Misfits barely got out thanks to NOBLE Team."
"Kriff me..." The heavy gunner of Domino squad blinked, while O'Niner listened, ever stoic.
"They managed to pour in that many reinforcements...?" Fives almost couldn't believe it, arms crossed. "How strong was the Covenant?"
"Stronger than us, that's for sure." The Polak beside Paul shrugged, then sighed deeply.
"The fact it took their Schism and the hinge-heads joining our side for us to have even an inkling of a chance at winning should tell you. Bastards burned every colony they ran across during the near 30 years of the war..." Paul himself replied, Katja giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder while the Clones looked to one-another and back at the duo, stunned.
"Hinge-heads being the alien allies we came in with..." The girl rubbed her face, then paused as she saw the sheer confusion of the men. With them, her own confusion grew a little exacerbated as she asked, "You guys okay?" while the room felt a little more cold than usual. She had a nagging feeling on what they were gonna aska bout right then and there...
"... Did you say 'burning'?" The entire squad asked suddenly. Everyone from O'Niner to Echo and to Heavy basically chorused the same four words. They looked to one-another as twins normally would again, then looked back with concern to Paul and Katja, as well as to the Romanian and his Russian wife up above, both of whome had been tuning into the conversation. What did they mean by burning, exactly, thought Fives.
"Covenant had a thing for orbital plasma bombardment. Saturation bombardment, too..." Paul nodded, then continued to explain even as the men's faces grew grim with the realization, "Turn the world to glass, leave nothing standing on the surface. I'm pretty sure there's still some fires burning somewhere on Reach's surface today, nearly..." The Native of the planet now in question turned to his friend and asked her, "What, eight years later?"
"About?" The Pole shrugged, seemingly a bit disheartened, too.
"... That is..." Mumbled Fives, his eyes shooting wide open.
"Kriff me, man, that's horrifying... And you had to witness this while leaving...? Your own home?" Hevy seemed surprisingly sympathetic for the man who carried the assault cannon into battle. Paul nodded, while Ves and Vic simply looked upon one of their friends with sympathy. The Clone Troopers took the reactions to heart at that, noting just how much Paul was trying to contain some degree of fury in his mind.
"I have footage from my helm cam on it, yeah..." The Hungarian replied, a little strained in not just bursting into tears of fury. He pulled the chip from his helmet and handed it to Hevy, who passed it to Echo in turn. Paul breathed shakily, then watched the men slot the chip into the side of a hologram display that immediately powered on into a flat screen. Images of the fighting, bullets and tracers lighting the void. Images of warships up above exploding under the constant stream of energy weapon fire from the five-hundred strong Covenant fleet that'd come to finish the job. Footage from aboard one of the few surviving UNSC vessels showing the planet's demise at the hands of plasma beam batteries.
"... Holy hell..." The Sergeant blinked, eyes wide. It felt all too familiar to a Republic Navy order as they watched it. The massive excavation beams on the bellies of the Covenant's seamonster-like warships cut deep gashes onto the surface of the once blue and green planet, boiling away the oceans. Indiscriminate destruction boiled the oceans away as Paul's hands balled into fists, his grip on the seat he was on causing the metal to dent on the chair's leg.
Hevy finally showed his colors as the team's heavy weapon specialist, a fury boiling in his words as he spoke, "... And you guys say you're allied with'em now?" while the rest of the Outpost's Clone garrison looked to him with little surprise. Ahead of them, images taken out of time, showed the Misfits in the middle of battle. Paul was the cameraman, while Katja was beside him. Vic and Vesna led the way, with a few others whose ID tags played revealed as they advanced, including the Platoon's 1st Lieutenant. All of them were bandaged, injured, marked by plasma and bloody bandages and heading for one of the last evacuation sites on Viery... Fighting still, to the last bullet. The Silhouettes of Elites and other alien troops bore down on them...
"Hinge-heads suddenly got stabbed in the back and realized their 'Great Journey' isn't what it seems to be," Katja offered, her voice a bit of a growl. Paul, meanwhile, seemed annoyed as the girl continued her explanation, "Their leader, the same bastard who burned Reach, is leading the Swords of Sangheilios, basically the folks we came here with..."
"I'll be damned if that there's not ironic," Cutup murmured in his unusually thick accent as he leaned back in his seat. Droidbait, meanwhile, sighed deeply as he looked at the Marines clambering onto evacuation drop ships and firing their weapons. Another man got caught in the plasma blast, falling as his armor boiled away. His comrades pulled him into the ship while Paul fired a handgun with his sole good arm, his left.
The group remained quiet for a little as Echo shut the hologram down, then turned to them. He watched Paul calming down in real-time, slowly, as Katja patted him on the shoulder. He watched Ves and Vic descend from the catwalk as Fives took their place to watch the storm, before the two approached their friends and put reassuring hands on the man's shoulders. He breathed again, less shaky, then nodded in thanks to his friends.
Cutup said, "You folks are close as can be, huh?"
"From training to fighting together all the way to the end of the war," Vic nodded, "It's how I and Vesna met and how this entire platoon of a dozen weirdoes linked up," and he smiled, "We've basically been a team since we were all eighteen," and he sat down next to them with Ves. Echo chuckled at that as he kept tabs on their sensors, then hummed as an irregularity appeared.
Vesna chuckled, "We've been through a lot, regardless of when and where we went."
"So, this is just another adventure for you guys," Hevy quipped, grinning, "One where it ain't extermination that's threatening the world, but a bunch of slaver bastards with an army of clankers and fighting side-by-side with us, Clone trooper Regs, eh?" which got the Misfits to laugh. Well, whatever part of the Misfits these four soldiers were. Echo, meanwhile, furrowed his brows.
"Uh, guys...?" Echo called out, a bit worried, "... Sensors are malfunctioning..."
The entire room suddenly went quiet. Vic and Vesna approached the console to look over the receiver data, to which the Clone explained to them, "Data from the main radar dish array and the connectors stopped streaming in when an Asteroid landed nearby, about... One klick off the base," before he tapped a few extra buttons and adjusted a pair of knobs, trying to re-adjust the antenna. He huffed and said, "Huh... Sarge, we may wanna contact the pilot and Wide-Eyes. Tell them to get inside."
O'Niner nodded, then activated his com and started, "O'Niner to Wide Eyes. Get yourself and the pilot inside. We might have a situation..." only for static to play in his ears. He huffed and spoke again, "Hey, Wide, come in. We have a situation and we need all hands on deck..." before sighing. He looked to Vic, who was trying to contact their pilot. He gave a shake of the head, then murmrued, "Something ain't right. Nub, grab a gun and let's go. We're investigating."
"Sergeant, with all due respect," Vesna started, surprisingly stoic and serious, "We should send a Mayday and prepare... This doesn't feel like a coincidence..." as she checked her pistol. The man hummed, looked to his boys and shrugged. They all nodded in agreement, to which Vesna added, "If they're still alive... They're probably in hiding. If not, I'd rather we be prepared. I understand if you wish to go look for them, so do I, but..."
"Safety of the outpost comes first," O'Niner sighed deeply. He spoke to them, "We can continue our chat after we've secured the area. Boys, get to the armory and gear up. I've got a bad feeling about this and I'd rather we'd all be armed and ready..." only to get nods of approval. The group scrambled for the armory, while O'Niner looked up and asked, "What do you see, Fives?"
"... Trouble, sir," The man replied, dead serious, "Big trouble."
... A sole Confederate drop-pod lay in the distance, open.
Infinity
It really hadn't been that long since Padmé had come aboard the UNSC's command vessel. Yet, here she was, having dinner with the officer cadre of the ship and watching them at work on the Bridge. Never a dull moment, Admiral Lasky had told her, especially not when they were on their way to an important operation to support their allies. She chowed down on something they called a 'Burrito', something that could be eaten by hand, and found the flavors incredible, honestly.
She was also thankful most of the people on board spoke Basic, or English, as they called it. Even with some heavy accents going on, the group welcomed her and Threepio aboard with very little issue. Heck, she felt part of the crew as she sat here, a styrofoam plate in one hand and the burrito in the other as she watched the group working. An engineer had come onto the deck to repair a shorting console relating to a minor subsystem that also had redundancies.
The ship was much more spacious, too, though that should honestly have been expected with a vessel that was five kilometers long and necessitated a tram system to properly traverse from one end to the other and around. She sighed as she finished the burger, then looked over to her left as Threepio trotted over, stating, "Hope the maintenance bay was nice."
"Oh, the people there were wonderful! Very friendly, too. It seems that master Skywalker has decided to give them the schematics he made of me, so they know how to build Spare Parts, too," The Protocol Droid replied. He looked around the control room, then said, "I don't presume you've seen the Lieutenant of Crimson Squad, have you? It seems as though General Surik is looking for him."
"Haven't really seen the Spartans around. Has she tried the place they call the 'S-Deck'?" The woman raised a brow.
"I suppose I should find her and tell her. Thank you for the suggestion, milady," Threepio replied kindly. Genuinely, how had he not thought of that immediately? It was really kind of obvious, regardless. He nodded in thanks to mistress Padmé, then turned and paused, surprised, even though his steely, gold-laced face didn't actually show just how suddenly surprised he'd been.
"You're welcome, Threepi-OH!" The Naboonian queen yelped, almost jumping out of her skin and dropping her food and plate. She'd managed to surprise even the folks behind her, one of whom had bumped his head against the console's top by mistake. The engineers looked at her with furrowed brows and a little miffed. She gave an apologetic look... Then looked to the General.
"Hi," Meetra smiled coyly, well aware of what she'd done.
"General Surik!" Padmé scoffed, then crossed her arms to denote her anger... Not before taking another bite of her burrito, however. She chewed, swallowed, then berated, "You scared the life out of me!" while the electrical engineers behind her chuckled at that, their anger quickly replaced by amusement at the woman's slight expense. She cast a glare back, which got them immediately back to work, then looked back at Meetra with a sigh and a more understanding, yet still slightly angry look.
"Heh," The girl rubbed the back of her neck and laughed awkwardly, then told her, "Apologies, milady. I figured I should drop by the bridge to see our ETA to the planet before I find Six. Did Admiral Lasky ever mention where we're going? Because I've missed the briefing on it..." admitting on the side in a quiet whisper, "Slept in, heh," as she averted her gaze, avoiding meeting the woman's eyes.
"Some world named Ossus..." The Queen, to her credit, didn't continue berating her. She did, however ask, "Something wrong?" upon noting the narrowed eyes, furrowed brows and the overall look of semi-confusion of the woman. It was almost as if she was trying to remember the name of the place through sheer brainpower. Threepio, meanwhile, waddled off to have a chat with Roland nearby the hologram projector table, with Roland greeting the droid with a heavy sigh.
The woman then grinned as she recalled, "I know Ossus... It's a former Jedi world, ancient..." Then her grin grew twice-over, obviously with her knowing something nobody else did, "I see. Oh, that's gonna be fun. Hope the Arbiter and his team are okay with waiting for a few more minutes before we arrive..." as she arranged her robe. She wondered privately if they had already gotten into any form of trouble.
"Something the matter, General?" Padmé inquired, feeling a little worry well up in her gut. It was probably nothing, though.
"Nope..." Meetra shook her head, then offered with a smile instead of a grin, "Just something familiar, really," then she turned fully to Padmé and told her with a hint of friendliness, "I'm gonna go find Six and the others down on the S-Deck. Oh, by the way, master Skywalker's downstairs with some of his men, eating at one of the mess halls," before departing.
Padmé nodded in thanks, looked at Threepio probably bugging the hell out of Roland, smiled, then stepped off to take a tram with Meetra. She stopped the girl mid-walk and asked her, "Why are you looking for one of their Special Forces members, General?" as the two walked together. Well, this was a rather surprising twist of events, honestly, thought the Queen, but alas.
"I and Six are... Well, he's the first strangely similar person I've found on this boat. I met the Chief and the others as well, but there's just something about him that stands out... Guess finding him nearby the Memorial Wall at the top of the ship really helped set the tone for what kind of soldier he is," Meetra offered, remembering the fact the man was looking at four names, a set of dog tags in his hand clinking. It was a tone-setter alright.
"He must've lost comrades. I want to know how..." Padmé offered, then continued, "What war could the UNSC have possibly fought to lead to them being this well-armed?" as they entered the Tram and sat down. It was a strange situation, knowing the Sangheili and them had been at war through hearing the murmurs of the various crews told her some part of the history, which is why it was surprising that these folks weren't much worse off.
"They offer up the briefing on the Human-Covenant War quite openly. Be ware, though. It will make some of the more recent 'wars' seem like kids' play... Not to downplay the current War or anything, but the Casualties in their Great War alone are horrifying. It paints you a pretty picture about how surprising their alliance with the Sangheili is." Meetra replied with a terrifying calm about her, despite Padmé seeing the turmoil within her as well. Anakin had told her that Meetra may well be an Ancient Jedi. Weird prospect, but the Force was strange as it was.
"Oh..."
The awkward pause that began now persisted until the two reached their respective destinations. Technically, Padmé had gotten off first, going to the Mess to talk to Anakin. It was cute that they thought they could hide their little relationship, but it was about as obvious as the difference between Day and Night on any planet with a proper orbital cycle that permitted the two to be different. She'd bet a Credit on it.
Entering the S-Deck after descending a couple of decks, the woman smiled as she saw Richard and Six in the Gym, as usual. The two were training in hand-to-hand again, but the difference was that there was a certain someone watching them go through the motions. Meetra approached Ahsoka from behind and poked the girl between her shoulder blades, causing her to yelp and jump. The blonde Jedi then chuckled and asked, "Enjoying the show?" with a teasing voice.
The two men were in their sparring outfits:Grey tank tops with the UNSC emblem emblazoned upon the front, as well as shorts and training shoes. It left very little to the imagination for any young woman who would be interested in such matters, regardless of if they were a Jedi or not. And Meetra was, much to her dismay, blushing a little after seeing Six in that outfit.
Ahsoka, despite her own initial reaction of surprise, giggled at that as well, then said, "Guess I'm not the only one here to enjoy the sho-" only for her voice to crack as she realized that she had, in fact, admitted to the very thing her hero had asked. Yes, Meetra was a personal hero of Ahsoka's. No, Master Skywalker was, too. The girl thought to herself that young women could have multiple heroes, as if it was fact.
As the silent freakouts of the two Jedi women occurred, Richard asked Six, "Do you think they know we can see them...?" while they took their momentary break. He plucked up his bottle and sipped some water, then looked right at Ahsoka, murmuring something like, "And do they have to be like that...?" though Noble Six was sure that, even with his enhanced hearing, he'd misunderstood it.
Six shrugged, "Honestly, Dick, I don't think it matters..." then sighed deeply as he looked over to Ecklund and Dinh, both of whom were laughing. The blonde with braids and the Asian man with long black hair grinned at their CO, only to realize he was looking at them and immediately turn back to their own training, fistfighting some hard-light stands meant specifically for training. He sighed, turned back to the girls to watch them freak out, then tilted his head toward Richard for them to start their own spar again, regardless of prying eyes. Richard nodded quickly.
Six swore to himself, the Spartan-IVs Jun had picked were some times the least disciplined bunch of the UNSC. Some times. Compared to them, though, Dick was a saint that could actually listen to orders.
Even if he was from Gamma Company.