Operation: DOUBLE TAKE
[Location REDACTED] [Positioning REDACTED]
2557 Military Calendar, [H-Hour. M-Minute]
[Date REDACTED]
This was it. This was the place. It took a while for naval AIs to track it down, but they finally got it… This was the location of that combined signal, the one mixed of Covenant encryption and old UNSC encryption from the Spirit of Fire.
Apparently it was called Minuteman station. A curved structure spine connected to a main-elongated central structure. On top of this structure was a right triangle and groups of solar panels, acting like sails on a boat. The curved spine emitted bright blue lights that intermixed with the red and white lights of the sun. The station was surrounded by a small defense fleet composed of a handful of cruisers and frigates led by a Dreadnought-class capital ship.
It's unknown what Cerberus' detection capabilities were. Motion sensors, access points, all standard stuff the UNSC would utilize was predicted to be present. Instead of risking it it's better to go EVA. The compressed air from the RCS engines of the exospheric jetpack gently pushed them forward. The prowler held its distance, maintaining darkness. Forty-five-minutes passed as the jetpacks quietly pushed them towards their target. They neared what analysis stated was a possible access point.
They landed on the dead grey metal of the station… Going in quiet was...difficult, but not necessarily impossible. Just required patience and timing. With mag boots, they carefully walked towards garbage chutes located at the bottom of the station. Analysis suggested they opened every few hours. Sit tight, remain still, wait.
And when the chutes finally did open, the Spartans grabbed the edge of the opening and threw themselves in.
Above, there were cameras. The SPI modifications to their armor would make them invisible, in theory. Adapted camouflage borrowed from the Elites, along with a little Human touch, allowed the Spartans to remain unseen in an electronic sense. Their stealth configuration reflected infrared, masked body heat, and more importantly motion. As for Eezo detection, well, they had no eezo… And because of someone named Miranda Lawson and her files, pressure sensors on doors could be bypassed.
The Spartans stuck to the walls. Once the room repressurized and the doors opened, the team crept forward, stayed out of the light, minded the shadows, and avoided all bottleneck points.
It's quiet…. It's very very cold on this space station, on the strange half circle-like structure... At least according to their HUD.
The team crept forward, moving to a central room. Troops were guarding the main entrance opposite of where the team entered. Standard armament according to intel. Heavy reinforced CQC armor and submachine guns for the regular grunts. They were reinforced with engineers, manning machine gun positions.
"Cameras running on a loop," Michael said on team comms. Jai nodded for Adrianna to take the shot. "Won't last forever. This sector is blind."
In consecutive, predetermined shots, soldiers fell to the floor. Small amounts of blood trickled down their armor. Silencers reduced the noise to the same noise level of a door being slammed. Before the others could react, they were taken out one by one in quick succession. Soon enough nothing moved.
Adrianna moved in, suppressed DMR raised as she checked corners and possible areas of enfilade. She stepped over the bodies.
"Looking good. Proceed forward towards the designated objective," Jai barely whispered, muffled by his helmet. Radio silence was in full force. Convos reduced to necessity.
"Rog," Adrianna and Michael replied.
Adrianna was stacked up on Jai. Jai took the front and Adrianna stayed on the flank. Michael guarded the rear. The entrance door opened and pushed into a corridor.
They passed by a small service hanger. Viewing glass on the portside window displayed what had to be a battalion-sized unit staged in the various cargo holds in the hanger. Crews readied up Kodiak shuttles and loadmaster teams readied supplies.
This wasn't the objective, but it sure was interesting…
The intel from Miranda suggested troop numbers in the low millions, and on DEFCON One for rapid deployment across the galaxy. All because of, well…
Whatever the hell John found out there during the end of the War.
They wondered if they had assigned targets, and they wondered if it was anywhere in the UNSC. If they knew about Onyx, well, it was a possibility. Still, even a full ground assault of a few million could easily be repelled by the UNSC Army, if not the Navy in atmo. It was still a strategic assault force, designed to penetrate the weak points or secure high value assets. The question was where was the UNSC weakest?
There was nothing they could really garner from this area other than attention. They quickly swept through. Activity in the long corridor itself was very quiet. Dead almost, nothing on the motion tracker. It was strange actually. They were expecting heavy resistance, but at most, there was only the enwrapping cold and the hum of the station.
They moved on. Adrianna kept her eyes on the troops below. There was something...off. A chill ran down Adrianna's spine. Compared to any other hangar, always booming with noise and movement, the hangar below was disturbingly quiet. Many of the Cerberus soldiers were standing in perfect military rows as if they were frozen or de-powered...as though they were made of metal and wires, instead of flesh and blood
They exited the hallway, into a bright white corridor. There was a directory on the wall, with a local map and display names. Medical, hangers, supply room, so on and so forth. But nothing for operations, radio, or control or anyone of their high priority targets.
No one noticed them so far. Part of the plan, but it always tended to make Grey Team nervous. It was always standard procedure to always expect nothing will go right, and this was no different.
They cleared their assigned sectors, kept watch as they mapped out the next route.
"Clock's still ticking. We have a limited time before someone realizes their buddies are missing or find some hardcore slackers," Jai said, voicing what the team already knew.
"We can't split, too dangerous here," Jai determined. "We get to medical, it may tell us something. Troops coming back from rotation, records… something."
This was already a mess. A cobbled-up plan given to them on the off rotation. Sent in with zero recon or prep, told to gather any intel they could, especially on the priority target. Where the hell were they going? Sure, operations, archives, but on a station this vast at most the UNSC would get...subpar results.
The team followed Jai. Motion sensor popped up. At least three targets on the other side of the door. Michael opened up a panel, activated a holopad and typed in codes provided by Miranda. The small holographic circle that sat in front of the door disappeared, and the door began to open up.
It slid away from the center. Before it could fully open Jai grabbed the surface of the door panel, crushed the metal with his hand and held on to it. That prevented the door from fully opening, jamming it.
"What's that?" A trooper asked.
"Control, we have a door jam. Gonna take a look," another voice reported
"Roger, team. Maintenance crews standing by if need be," a radio crackled.
Adrianna raised up her rifle, pre-set the barrel by aiming it directly at the panel door. Two of the three red dots on the motion sensor moved towards Grey Team. She listened carefully as metal footsteps hit slab-tiled floors. About one meter away.
Adrianna stepped out and fired a controlled pair center-mass. Point blank, inside the bubble of the trooper's kinetic barrier. The hyper-sonic gas operations released two bullets that ripped right through metal and punctured his heart. Even before he fell, Adrianna shifted the barrel to the trooper right behind him. She emptied the rest of the clip into him.
Jai followed closely behind. "Jai followed closely behind. The eyes of the third trooper barely registered what had happened,before the bullets from Jai's suppressed SMG shredded his head.
"Target down." Jai reported.
They moved into a hallway. On each side were windows. Behind the glass were…
"Fuck…" Michael whispered.
They laid on the surgical tables that lined up along the hallway. Man...woman...it did not matter. Each had been turned into something...inhuman. Their bodies were ravaged with horrifying claws and lights. The medical equipment next to them pumped their desecrated bodies with bare life. Metal machines with drills and vials of chemicals were off against the opposite wall. Everything seem to be automated...planned. No doctors or medical staff of any kind. Each body also had the usual medical setup, IV tubes, heart rate monitors, breathing tubes, etc. Metal machines with drills and a variety of chemicals were off against the opposite wall. All the machines seem to be automated.
Adrianna also noticed something on each of the still bodies. Their skin was covered in deep scars. Even lines structured like the dividing fault lines between two tectonic plates. It was as if their skin was torn apart, unable to support their bodies….
"What the hell…?" Michael said, dumbfounded as with the rest of the team.
Adrianna couldn't help but feel the skin through her own body. A sympathetic, shuddering sense traveling through her skin by the routes of those deep scars… Exactly like theirs.
"Keep moving. I see a control room up ahead," Jai ordered.
This was...strange. She recognized those machines…
She refocused when she heard a shot. Jai fired two controlled pairs at a pair of technicians stationed at a small control station. They went down, slouched over in their chairs. Small strands of blood landed on the control tables.
The station itself had various panels, displays, and computers contained within a small hexagonal room. The Spartans entered.
"I'll sort through the data," Michael said as he kneeled over a small port terminal. He inserted a strange holographic disk that contained the access codes given to the UNSC again by Miranda.
There was another door connected to the portside of the control room. Jai and Adrianna covered both entrances.
"Got some files. One named Reaper…" Michael began.
"Gonna assume that's the Reaper augmentations," Jai replied.
"Okay. Cybernetics. Biotics…." Michael scrolled through. "Let's see, Lazarus, Lawson Genome, Overlord, Exo…."
The Spartan went silent for a moment. He reloaded the display as if to double-check.
"Mike?" Jai said.
"How…?"
"Mike?"
"Security team, come in," a voice said on the microphone. Another deep trooper voice. "We're detecting you're still at the door, hal copy?"
Time's almost out…
The team didn't bother responding. They readied up. Soon enough someone was going to be sent in to check...
"Control, come in!" Another deep voice yelled. "We got trooper's down, subsection eight!"
Time's out.
They were compromised. The alert klaxon sounded. The lights went off, leaving only the red glare of signal lights from the emergency generators.
"Damnit!" Michael said, "they cut off data access!"
"What the hell did you see?" Jai curtly asked, placing a hand on Michael's shoulder. "Did you download it!?"
"Yes...most of it. At least what would be considered priority."
Jai nodded, lifting Michael up. The doors were locked shut. Both Spartans gripped the edge of the door panels and forced them open. Motion tracker detected dozens of enemies forming up. This was going to get messy.
Adrianna was the first one in, clearing the next section. This medical section seemed to compose of trooper sick bays along with rooms dedicated to the other projects that Michael listed off. Filled with dozens of injured and ungeared men, covered in unnatural and disturbing augmentations, it's a good thing the team didn't go in this way.
An Eezo round hit Adrianna's shield. She turned on the trooper that shot her, only a few meters away. She opened fire, using half a mag to penetrate his kinetic barriers and dropped him.
The Spartans pushed forward, controlling the battle tempo and not allowing themselves to get bogged down. They took out trooper after trooper, technician after technician. From the injured and unarmed to the full-fledged bodyguards. It didn't matter. Orders were everyone was expendable.
"Control, this is medical, we have unidentified hostiles-" before the trooper could finish his sentence, his kinetic barriers failed. Michael finished off with a single shot from his suppressed SMG.
"Reinforcements incoming!" Michael said.
"From the Ashes this is Grey Team!" Jai reported on the open comms. Radio silence didn't matter now. Cerberus knew where they were. Fuck if they knew were From the Ashes was also. "We're compromised! Unknown priority data secured! Requesting immediate egress out of the AO."
"Negative, Grey Team," the operations commander, Lieutenant Commander Sullivan, said on the other line. "We need that priority info! Can you make it to either Operations or Archives?"
Jai looked to Mike. He slowly shook his head. Right, 'priority info.' Halo.
"They're beginning to purge data. We're gonna have to fight our way through. No way we'll make it," Mike reported.
It's unknown how fast these enemy 'VIs' could scrub zettabytes of information and data, but Grey Team would think it'd be pretty damn fast. That's the thing, this station was now compromised. It was less costly to simply move operations then defend this place.
"CONTACTS! CONTACTS!" Mike screamed as he went loud, firing controlled bursts at incoming Cerberus assault teams bearing riot shields and heavy duty shotguns.
"Negative, Ashes. We cannot complete the priority objective in time!" Jai yelled. It was a long shot anyways. It didn't matter how good the retrieval team was, a sparse deployment with a fairly sparse objective would only achieve...well, sparse results. Still, it spoke a lot to how fucked up HIGHCOM was.
Pulled out of rotation, with nearly zero preparation, pointed towards a target and told 'good luck.' As much as Grey Team...disliked some of the amazing decisions HIGHCOM makes, they weren't one to point fingers. But how they hell were they expected to pull this one off?
"Roger team. We'll switch to Plan B. Make your way to the nearest hanger and secure a landing zone," Sullivan said, then immediately cut the horn.
The team looked at each other. Adrianna spoke, "what the hell isPplan B?"
Another stray eezo round hit her shield's. Right. They still had to deal with the enemy.
Grey Team moved up. Jai and Michael laid down fire while Adrianna provided hyper-accurate rounds downrange. 7.62 shells flew right through the small slit of the Cerberus Guardians' riot shields, quickly depleting their kinetic barriers and ripping through their metal armor. They pushed forward, moving down the medical center until they reached another set of doors. Again with nothing but brute strength, they ripped both door panels apart.
On the other side were another group of Guardians. Without hesitation, Adrianna charged at them. The Spartan tore away one of the Guardian's shields, lifted him up with ease, and pummeled his head into the metal wall. Remains of his head trickled out of his helmet as his body slumped to the deck.
Michael and Jai took out the others. Precision shoots, each one hitting right through the small slit in the shields.
The team moved down the hall. Providinga synchronous gravitational spin-based around the cylinder-like central spine all they needed to do was push outwards till they hit any station wall. From there, they could work their way to any hanger.
They proceeded through more corridors and hallways, encountering another door every once and awhile. No hostile contacts. They were preparing defensives up ahead.
They reached a set of airlock doors. This was it. Adrianna kicked it once. While it left a pretty decent sized dent, it didn't budge.
"Heavy duty. We ain't ripping it to shreds." Michael said as he placed explosives on the door. "This will do the job."
"Hopefully it means we're heading in the right direction," Adrianna commented.
The team stepped back to minimum safe distance. Michael blew the charges. The doors flew back. Smoke filled the room. Grey Team turned on thermals. Adrianna holstered her DMR, and took out something a little more...personable. Shotgun.
The room on the other side was a lot larger. Before smoke blocked their view, she saw the edge of a shield curtain on the left side.
The team pushed in. Jai and Michael provided fire discipline, knocking out ledge lottierers. Adrianna focused up front. To the three Phantoms right in front of her.
The enemy raised up their arms. Adrianna felt like she was under high gravity, having to fight for every step. Her armor began to fight her, locking up and becoming more heavy.
Biotics. Eezo surrounded the Spartan, interacted with her shields and drained the energy to zero. The alarm inside her armor went off. She kept pushing forward.
One of them pulled out a sword and stepped forward.
All too familiar. Good thing she had loaded up slug rounds.
When the Phantom was close enough, she fired. One shot. One slug tore through her kinetic barriers and ripped off an arm. Adrianna cocked the shotgun. Two enemies left. It was slightly easier to move now.
She took the shot at another Phantom. Her kinetic barriers failed and she was knocked down. Still breathing though. The Spartan cocked the shotgun, fired it again at the last enemy. The Phantom's body flew back, slamming against the side of a Kodiak transport.
Now the Spartan could freely move remaining live Phantom backed up. She tripped over the dead body of her dead colleague. She hurriedly crawled towards the wall of the Kodiak.
Adrianna cocked the shotgun one last time and stepped in front of the Phantom. The Cerberus trooper's back was against the shuttle. She raised up one hand. The enemy didn't activate her biotics… She was shielding herself.
Adrianna fired another slug. The slug pierced the thin bodysuit and hit the shuttle wall. The hand fell to the ground.
"Ashes, we have a hanger but we don't know how long it'll be secured," Jai reported as the team cleared out possible hiding holes.
"Roger that, standby."
Jesus. The Prowler was on approach. Even with the advanced stealth systems of the Winter-class, there could be some possible way to detect it this close. A strange depression in spacetime, slight discoloration of the background, so on so forth. It was meant to stay camouflaged at a short distance, not this close. And once it entered the hangar it would have to de-camouflage in the presence of atmospheric pressure and oxygen. No way it could get out without taking fire.
Of course if they used the older prowler model, they could have a small fleet of Blackcat-sub prowlers at their disposal so the main prowler could still remain hidden. But what did the old Spartans know?
"Grey Team, Ashes is about to go loud. We cannot provide extraction. You're going to have to improvise," Sullivan said.
How? Exospheric EVA was suicide, and commendering enemy transport would also be suicide unless they had cover.
"Well, fuck us I guess?" Mike said.
Of course, more than likely most of this station's point defense systems were automated. A centralized computer could control it all, or it could be subdivided among various systems and each gun was independent. So if they knocked out one gun, there might be dozens more to had no damn idea, and they didn't want to hang out long enough to find out. Once everything would be purged - if it was them, the UNSC - the station would be scuttled. And like hell they were waiting right before the moment that happened.
"Ashes, we need an update on the plan immediately!" Jai exclaimed.
They knew why they weren't given the details - this 'plan B' - given their operational history and procedures. If it wasn't for their special talents, they would've ousted long ago.
Outside of the hanger curtain shield, maybe a couple dozen klicks out, something appeared. Unlike slipspace - a two-dimensional portal masquerading as a three-dimensional sphere, the objects merely...appeared.
It was a Citadel fleet. The fleet was non-uniform. Citadel-styled cruisers of different racial designs and various modifications, supported by scrape frigates and led by a single Dreadnought-class starship. They slowly approached, opening fire and releasing a contingent of fighters. The Cerberus Minutemen station engaged, firing defensive batteries. The defense fleet moved into position, deploying interceptors and aiming their fronts at predicted trajectories.
It's all out in the open now. The Winter-class prowler entered the hangar. It opened its main ramp. A backup team inserted. A platoon of Spartan-IVs exited, lead by two IIIs. IFF identified them as Tom and Lucy. The shorter one, Lucy, was holding a metal briefcase in one hand and wielded a pistol in the other.
They sure as hell weren't aboard the Ashes when Grey Team was.
"And who the hell are you?" Mike asked.
"Reinforcements," Tom said. He pointed at the briefcase, "a solution!"
Good to know they weren't sent with this 'solution' in the first place, and Command already had a backup plan in case they failed.
"And your buddies?" Adrianna asked.
"Pirates. Raiders…" Tom explained. "Pissed off baddies. Eye for eye after Cerberus invaded their asteroid-space station."
A cover up of sorts. They didn't see the point.
"Who else would field seven-foot tall supersoldiers?" Adrianna voiced the team's opinion. "They'll probably figure it out.
Tom just shrugged, "Don't know. I just work here. Pirates want this station alive so we got to stop the scuttle. This briefcase has a program that'll scrub up the data Cerberus thought they deleted. You got seniority, we'll handle whichever task you don't want to handle."
Something told them Tom had other directives by Command, but for whatever reason he didn't want to piss off the IIs.
Preventing a scuttle was dull compared to committing a scuttle, and whatever the hell Mike found was….more interesting.
Jai looked at Mike. Even without a clear view, he could imagine a faint and nervous look that painted the Spartan's face. Whatever the hell it was, well, they needed to know before they could pass it on to the UNSC.
"We'll take data download."
...
No alert klaxon anymore. At least no audible one. The station shook as the fleet of the space station known as 'Omega' laid down sporadic fire, concentrating more so on the defense fleet. The station rumbled as stray kinetic rounds and point defense fire were absorbed by kinetic barriers or struck some obscure part of the station.
One of the Omega cruisers made a sweeping arc past the station, moving right along the hallway portside viewing glass and consumed the view of the solar system. The station rumbled as it was pulled on by contradicting gravity. Nothing they hadn't seen before. Grey Team kept moving.
Whatever this fleet had hoped to achieve, whatever the UNSC had promised them or allowed them to do, they were merely here to serve as a smokescreen. Casualties, costs, logistics… It didn't matter; it wasn't the UNSC.
As a research medical station, the actual logistical importance (logistics being one of the most important, if not the only important aspect of any military asset) was relatively unknown to the UNSC, at least until now. At least in their interpretation. If Cerberus could easily relocate a logistic center, then their overall fluidity surpassed even that of the emass UNSC.
Despite the slow scuttle, there weren't a lot of guards so far. A few key defenders here and there, but that seemed to be the main bulk of it. More than likely they were evacuating if not already evacuated.
They reached the control, and that theory seemed to be right. Operations, consisting of rows of computers and holo-displays laid abandoned. Many of these displays seemed to be glitching, flashing in and out at random intervals.
"Can we really recover any scrubbed data?" Michael asked as he opened up the briefcase. It looked like a standard UNSC field computer, green screens and tiny buttons and everything. He immediately found a small, empty desk and got to work.
Adrianna and Jai cleared sectors and areas of defilade. All abandoned.
"Good to know their Os will stay to hold the line," Adrianna sarcastically said.
"Well, if they stayed here they might've blasted us instead of shot us," Jai replied.
"Might have worked. I don't like getting yelled at."
Despite the rumbles and vibrations of combat right outside the walls, the Spartans slightly relaxed. For a moment, till Jai began to figure out how the hell to get off station. Tactically acquired transport was an option now that they had cover. Easy solution all things considered, even with command interference.
Other than that, there was only one other thing on their minds: What the hell did Michael find?
"You see it?" Jai asked.
"Rog," Adrianna said.
Motion tracker. Unidentified IFF. Right outside a service entrance door. One. Brave. Fucker.
The two Spartans raised their weapons. Jai was base. Adrianna placed the barrel of her DMR right on his shoulder. The two proceeded forward. They maintained a five meter distance from the door.
They heard metal being crushed before the door was thrown forward. Jai knocked it out of the way. A bare hand somehow pushed the barrel of his SMG in the air. The other bare hand caught the bolt handle, gripping it to ensure that the chamber won't cycle through, jamming the SMG.
Jai, caught by surprise, staggered back. He lost control of his weapon, allowing the nearly naked man to take control of the SMG.
Adrianna opened fire. Failure to stop. Three rounds, two in the chest, one in the pelvis. The man kneeled to the ground, gaining his bearings. Adrianna saw he still kept his grip on the weapon, pulling the bolt handle to properly chamber a round.
Adrianna immediately emptied her clip. All fifteen rounds center mass. It knocked him back, pinned him to the ground. Blood poured out of his body, pooled in the cracks between computer desks. She swore she saw him still try to reach for the SMG. She brought out her pistol and emptied the clip into a still body.
Jai recomposed himself, looking at the down man before turning back to Adrianna. He was nearly as tall as them. Nearly.
"Thanks." Jai said.
She nodded, looking to one of many men contained within that medical area…
He fought like…
"Michael…" Jai said as he turned to find the other Spartan still at his post, "what the hell did you find?"
"Something we should for once tell the Brass."