Chapter 5 - Provectus

February 25th, 2544 (26:05 Hours – Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, near Reach

In Slipspace aboard the UNSC Juno

:*******:

Duncan had gotten to catch up with O'Reilly, Cosmo and Stanton in the days following the bombing. Everyone was in their respective battalions in different systems. The 15th Battalion was treating Cosmo well enough. Stanton had had a hard time but he had a few good squadmates to help him adjust to life in the 9th Battalion. However, O'Reilly was a different story.

As it turns out, the Irishman was now part of the 10th Battalion, in Duncan's place. They had both been confused about their deployment orders but gotten settled into each other's units.

"A bit of a mix-up but it paid off in the end." O'Reilly had said. "Look on the bright side Sunny Jim, I've got a few cuties on my end thanks to you. If anything, I can only thank you for that mate. And hey, I think one's got a thing for me."

"Glad to see that I could help." Duncan had laughed. "I guess we'll be taking each other's places from hereon in. Since my new nickname is Irish, I figured I might as well get used to talking like you."

"I'll send you a dictionary of words we use to help you live up to the clout. Can't have my doppelganger defaming muh good name, now can I?" O'Reilly winked.

That was almost two months ago. He hadn't told him about how his first mission had gone south or how he spent the following week at Falchion waking up from nightmare after nightmare of him pulling ownerless limbs from underneath burning rubble. He hadn't even told Erica, or the rest of his team for that matter. He mostly kept it to himself as he worked alongside his fellow ODSTs. He didn't want them to be concerned for him. They had enough to worry about in keeping themselves from being lost to the unknown depths of active slipspace.

Less than two weeks ago, Lieutenant Colonel Garrison had informed everyone in Bravo Company: they would be participating in an operation in response to the Molnar Bombing. That had quickly gotten Duncan's blood up. That meant that they had found whoever was responsible, and there were already rumors spreading among the older ODSTs that it was the Insurrectionists. It was the most obvious answer which was why the troopers were so ready to get to work, having come to their own conclusions the moment Waypoint broadcasted the first images of the bombing.

The only problem was that the operation was different by far than anything they had done up until this point. They had been transported from Falchion to the Paris Class Heavy Frigate, UNSC Juno.

There they had met with an officer with unknown affiliations. They were given only her name: Lieutenant Cordova. She visibly had Mediterranean roots and a distanced disposition to everyone around her. Surprisingly to Duncan, the others also kept a good distance from her unless they needed to engage in direct conversation. Early on, during a chat in the ship's mess hall, Zack had referred to her as a Spook. He was promptly slapped in the back of the head by Nova and told to keep his voice down. But the word's meaning wasn't completely lost to Duncan.

He had heard it used by Marines in the Reserve unit he had served with back on Earth. It was a term used mainly by regular UNSC personnel to identify someone suspected or confirmed to be affiliated with the Office of Naval Intelligence. It was said that you could identify a spook by the way they kept their identities hidden, kept a distance from other servicemen and were always looking over their shoulders when others were too close. Cordova seemed to match the description and that didn't bode well with him, or anyone else. Duncan didn't know much about ONI, only rumors that they could make you disappear without a trace and have even your family deny you ever existed.

Despite whatever suspicions the ODSTs had, they had to put it aside for the mission. The Lieutenant would be working as the liaison officer between them and the commander in charge of the overall operation, a man whose name Duncan didn't know beforehand either. Added to Nemeth, he figured that maybe he should start reading up more on Reach some time.

Colonel James Ackerson was a man that the ODSTs got only the briefest glimpse of when they first came aboard the Juno. He had introduced himself then given them the rundown of the fact that this new mission would require time and patient training. He then had all 250 of the troopers of Bravo Company sign waivers ensuring their sworn secrecy regarding everything related to this mission under penalty of court martial. Duncan had hesitantly signed his signature and so did everyone else. The question thereafter on everyone's mind was what exactly was so top-secret that it warranted waivers.

After that, Ackerson disappeared from the scene entirely, leaving everything to his liaison officer. Lieutenant Cordova personally briefed the Company on the new drop pod technology that would be implored in the upcoming operation. The Long-Range Stealth Orbital Insertion Pod, or LRSOIP, was a new variant of their own pods. Upon closer inspection, it really wasn't a pod at all, but as Cordova had put it: "The smallest manned UNSC ship capable of transitioning from slipspace into normal space safely."

The Stealth Pods were constructed from a simple Titanium A shell with a layer of heat resistant Lead Foil as additional protection for reentry. The real kicker was the Stealth Ablative Coating that allowed the Pod to avoid radar detection. Duncan spent some time considering how that worked since even while HEV's had a similar level of Lead Foil and ceramic skin, these features were subject to the intense reentry flames rudimentarily encountered on any drop. While the external skin burned away to protect the occupant from the extreme temperatures, sometimes the feature failed and the driver was sentenced to the horrors of Heat Death within their own pod. Considering that they would be exiting from slipspace, he wondered what other precautions there were to ensure that the alternate space's radiative effects didn't fry their pods' electronics and leave them tumbling helplessly towards a planet.

He quickly found out.

Lieutenant Colonel Garrison had come along for the trip since, unlike most Battalion Commanders, he had a direct leadership role as Company Commander for Bravo. He had worked with Cordova during the preliminary tests to choose the best ODST Teams to conduct the first drops. While modern Shock Troopers had since the HEV's introduction into service in 2461 to grow accustomed to piloting them, the ODSTs of Bravo Company had less than two months to do the same with the LROSIPs. That meant regular training drops from the Juno.

1st Platoon and the rest of Bravo Company had, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, found themselves launching from the Juno's drop bay into slipstream space. The fact the Juno was a Paris Class allowed for the entire Company to drop simultaneously. It was something impossible for smaller variants like the Stalwarts that had a more limited drop capacity, making the Paris more ideal for ODST operations.

The troopers would fall through slipspace in the wake of the Juno before transitioning into the Epsilon Eridani system just above Reach. They would hit the drop zone and quickly regroup, marking the end of the exercise.

They encountered problems early on. Not everyone transitioned at the same time or came out in the same place. That left drop formations more disorganized, an issue the Lieutenant Colonel had sought to rectify as time passed. Then there were some ODSTs that didn't transition at all. Since they started training, there were at least two shock troopers in Bravo Company who were confirmed to have dropped from the Juno but never emerged into real space: Private Aiden Dikes and Sergeant Taro Strawson. No one knew what happened to them and most understood that they likely never would. The trainings continued regardless.

Duncan had used the opportunity to integrate with the rest of Epsilon and observe the way they dropped. Everyone griped about the heat on the way down. Usually late into a drop, Yuri would delay pulling the chute until he reached just within the danger limit. While the Staff regularly ordered him against it, doing so made his pod burn as bright as a comet. The way he shouted in euphoric Russian on his way down made it almost seem fun. While Duncan surely wasn't going to try it himself, he couldn't say it wasn't interesting to look at.

On free days they worked on learning pod maintenance along with a team of Tech Specialists. While the pods were bulkier than regular HEVs, they were surprisingly easier to take care of than their predecessors. Duncan chalked that up to ONI being able to develop better gear on a whole for the standard trooper. It also made him wonder what else ONI could and had already made that they just weren't telling anyone about, creations held in secret that could possibly turn the tide of the war.

Today he was focused on memorizing the Stealth Pod's schematics inside the Juno's mess hall. While it was nighttime on Reach, it was breakfast time for the ODSTs and everyone was trying to eat fast before the day's training began. Duncan took a spoonful of cornmeal from his bowl after he read a paragraph on the Stealth Pod's schematics sent to an information pad. The Lieutenant had provided the pads to some of the NCOs for studying its functions and Duncan had asked the Staff for his.

"You sure you don't want to eat first, study later?" Rico asked, wiping the bacon grease off his mouth. "You've got time once we get back onboard."

"I'm multitasking." Duncan said through a mouthful of corn meal. "The last thing I want is for the pod to kick out on me before I've even transitioned."

Nova knifed through the second half of her omelet while side-eyeing Duncan. "Leave him be. If he wants a better chance of not ending up like Dikes or Strawson then more power to him."

"Nerd." Zack coughed.

Duncan didn't even look up from the screen. "A novice nerd's more useful on a mission than a dead dunce."

Zack choked on his coffee a little. Duncan gave him a competitive look and he smirked back, ready to meet the challenge. The moment Nova saw him about to open his mouth she took her fork and shoved a piece of her omelet into it, quickly shutting him up. Zack recoiled and gave a muffled scream as the egg steamed his tongue.

Nova and the rest of Epsilon laughed save for the Staff who walked up to the table with coffee in hand. "Now Specialist, what did I tell you about torturing our radiomen. If his tongue's seared, how's he going to talk properly to the people we need to hear from the most?"

"Sorry sir." She half-heartedly apologized.

The Staff looked past her, shook his head and pointed behind her.

Nova looked back to see Zack leaning over her plate with his mouth open, allowing a mush of fried eggs and diced vegetables to fall on the rest of her omelet. It fell painfully slowly. When he was done, he looked up and froze once he saw Nova glowering down at him with a murderous glint in her eyes.

He gave a nervous laugh.

Hector quickly intervened, wordlessly getting out of his seat to push Zack to the other side before sitting down between them, continuing to eat his bowl of cereal.

"If you think you've saved him, you haven't." Nova murmured, glaring down at her defiled breakfast.

"I know." Hector said simply, taking another spoonful of cereal. "Just delaying the inevitable."

The Staff didn't bother sitting down. Instead, he went over to Duncan. "Private, I need to speak with you."

Duncan put his bowl aside. "Is it the pad sir? You can have it back. I'm almost done but-"

"No." The Staff said. "The pad stays. You come."

The Staff Sergeant said nothing more as he strode for the door of the mess hall. Duncan peered at the others who gave him uncertain looks. He got up and followed the Staff through the exit. The two walked for a few minutes through the ship's halls, passing by crewmen on their way to stations and technicians handling corridor panels.

They stopped at a window somewhere in the Juno's midsection. Beyond the viewing glass, the bright green and blue globe that was Reach was no larger than a coin against the backdrop of stars.

The Staff spent a few moments staring out into the vastness of space and sipping his mug of coffee. When he was satisfied, he turned to Duncan, eyeing him with a good deal of suspicion.

"Do you know why I called you out here, Private?"

"No sir."

The Staff took another sip of his coffee. "I decided early on not to ask you how you felt about the Molnar because I wanted to see how you'd react to it overtime. You sure don't look it, but I've got a hunch that says you're good at hiding it when something bothers you." He placed his mug on the windowsill and turned to fully face him. "Long story short, I want to know what Private Duncan Iris' mental state is after seeing his first glimpse of action."

Duncan's brow furrowed. "Action sir?"

"Back in New Alexandria."

"…That counted? We didn't even fight."

The Staff scrutinized him further. "One thing you'll need to know out here is that action isn't drawn out heroics like any of the propaganda reels they show back on Earth. Out here, it happens" He snapped his finger. "Just like that. And just like that." He snapped again. "It's over. It's a split second that marks the difference between life and death. What I want to know is whether experiencing it for the first time either gave you a taste for it or knocked the fight out of you completely. If I don't find out now, it may compromise our combat capacity as a squad further down the road."

Duncan's gaze fell to the floor. "You want to know if I still have it in me to go back out there, sir?"

The Staff nodded. "I know the rest of the squad and most of their strengths and weaknesses. But I'm still gauging you."

"I'm no weak link sir." Duncan lightly laughed.

The Staff remained serious. "What I want to know, trooper, is what you were thinking when you were helping us move those dead bodies from the Molnar for half a day, non-stop. What I want to know is where your head's at."

Duncan swallowed, feeling his mouth go dry. He knew exactly what the man was asking for. He simply didn't know how to say it outright. He didn't want them to think he was a liability. He had what it took to be a trooper, he had made it this far, hadn't he? Duncan thought twice about it and reminded himself that that wasn't what was being asked of him either. What was being asked was what he thought. If the Staff had been monitoring him out of the corner of his eye for almost two months then there was little he could do to avoid telling the truth.

"I-… when we were at the site, I…honestly…wanted to throw up then and there." He looked at the Staff who nodded for him to go on. His attention turned to the distant planet.

"I've never been in combat or anything nearly as chaotic as that before so…it was a real shock to suddenly be seeing so much of it in one go. I remembered looking at everyone else. I was jealous that you guys seemed to be so unaffected by it…you just got the job done with no problems. It reminded me that I've still got ways to go, you know. At the time, I felt like I shouldn't have even been there."

He blinked at the last thought. "I remember staring back as we were leaving New Alexandria and thinking 'wow, what did I just get myself into?'"

When he was finished, he looked up to the Staff who was leaning against the wall, thinking on what he said. "Had any nightmares?"

"Yessir."

"I see." The Staff picked up the mug and took another long sip. "Did you actually ask anyone else what they were thinking after the bombing?"

Duncan shook his head.

"Then how would you know they weren't affected? Their visors were polarized, you couldn't see their faces, so how do you know that?"

Duncan froze where he stood. He didn't know how to answer.

"Don't get me wrong." The Staff sighed. "They're six of the toughest Helljumpers I've ever met. Some of them are so stiff necked that even an Elite would have trouble cutting through it. But as much as they're Shock Troopers, they're also still human. What you saw them do out there shows one of two things: either they've learned to hide it well or they've learned to harness it well."

"Harness it?'

"They use it." The Staff explained. "It acts as the motivation to help them get the job done because when it comes down to the wire, they know what their reason is for fighting. They drive it, they don't let it drive them."

Duncan recalled his nightmares that had haunted him for the last few weeks after the bombing. The Staff Sergeant's words cut like a surgeon's knife through a slumbering patient, precise and efficient.

"Can I ask you something, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"…Which do you do?"

The Staff looked at him with surprising casualness. "Depends on what time of day you ask me." He turned back to the window. "My point is that I want you to harness it. You'll need to for this upcoming op. That way, when you look down your gun sites at the faces of the people that bombed the Molnar, you won't hesitate."

Duncan understood what he was saying. Once they were on the ground and facing the enemy, there would be no going back. He had to have the resolve to pull the trigger before he got there and shape up before this war did it for him. He could wear the Helljumper BDU and have all the training to be called one, but to actually be one was a state of mind, one he was going to have to learn.

A woman's voice came on over the ship's communication systems, interrupting his thoughts.

"All Bravo Company personnel, please report to the drop bay on level E for scheduled training."

The message repeated two more times then stopped.

"Level E." Duncan sighed.

"E for eviction." The Staff said. "Time to go."

Footsteps coming from behind them caught their attention. They turned around to see none other than the Lieutenant Colonel walking unconcernedly down the hall towards them. They both quickly saluted as he came up to them and nodded in turn.

"Staff, Private."

"Good day sir." Duncan said. "Ready for the drop?"

"Always ready son." Garrison said. "You mind if I borrow your Staff Sergeant for a minute?"

Duncan quickly shook his head. "No sir, I'll be on my way."

"Thanks."

:********:

Duncan jogged off, heading for the nearest elevator. Garrison started off at a stroll and the Staff followed close behind.

"I think I've figured it out sir." Atell said.

Garrison looked at him with a curious smirk. "Really, and what's that?"

"Why you brought Iris along."

The Lieutenant Colonel's curious smirk slowly faded into a cool, contemplative grimace.

"The deployment orders sir, the mix-up wasn't an accident, was it?"

"No." Came the simple reply.

The Staff nodded, hesitated for a moment then continued. "During a conversation last month, I learned a thing or two about him. And not to change topics sir, but it's really the same topic. Remember way back when you used to tell me, Joels and Harper those stories?"

Garrison looked him in the eye. "Yes."

"Well sir…that name came up a few times."

The older ODST stopped for a moment, allowing the younger to go slightly ahead of him. He gave the Staff a look that was a mixture of intrigue and respect. "You don't miss anything do you? Really, I only wanted to speak with you because I was curious to see if you'd figured it out already. Tell me again why you're a Helljumper and not a detective?"

The Staff shrugged. "I found work where I could sir."

The comment earned a laugh that was shared between the two of them as they carried on towards the elevator.

"So, what about Private Iris, is he shaping up to be a promising addition to your squad?" Garrison asked.

The Staff nodded. "Harper and Joels say he needs some work, but we had to admit he's got a spark in him. But that's not really why you picked him, is it sir?"

Garrison slowly shook his head.

"Then…why exactly, from your point of view?"

The two arrived at the elevator and the Staff pressed the button for level E. Garrison caught sight of the viewing window and the vast space beyond.

"Why?" An aged memory played in his head. "Just an old promise."

He watched the doors close, sealing away the sight of the stars as they descended deeper into the ship.

:********:

"Three…two…Go! Go! Go!"

At the end of Garrison's countdown, the ODSTs of Bravo Company inside of their Stealth Pods launched from the Juno's drop bay like bullets being fired from a rifle. Duncan clenched his teeth against the jarring effect of the launch that caused him to bite his tongue on a few occasions.

He watched his pod and hundreds of others fall away from the heavy cruiser and into slipstream space. They fell in a spiral-like array, vaguely reminding him of a DNA strand as they headed through the void.

"Transition in thirty seconds." Garrison said over Company comms.

Zack came in over team freq. "Now for the hard part."

Duncan felt his pod beginning to rattle, jostling him from side to side. They had already had weeks of training to prepare for this but the unusually bumpy ride, more so than one could expect from a regular insertion, was almost impossible to get used to. It was like what he'd experienced when the pressure wave from the Molnar hit, then to drag out that experience for thirty seconds straight.

Duncan punched in the codes on a nearby pad that would begin the pod's transition sequence. He counted the seconds in his head: Twenty-five seconds…fifteen seconds…five seconds…

"Transition!" Garrison said over comms.

Duncan punched the green button that immediately entered the sequence. Through his pod's window he saw others ahead of him transition into normal space. A split-second later, his pod was enveloped in a bright flash of pale blue light, causing his helmet to polarize to compensate.

A heartbeat later his helmet depolarized as the stars winked on all around him. The closest star of Epsilon Eridani blazed sunlight through the viewport. After only being in the void for thirty seconds it still came as a relief to see daylight again.

A list of stellar coordinates appeared on one of his displays personalized to him and his squad.

"All Bravo Company personnel meet at your designated coordinates. Wedge formation, let's go."

Duncan pushed the pods joysticks forward and manipulated his rocket thrusters to plummet even faster towards Reach. The rest of Bravo Company were already assembling into a wedge formation with the Lieutenant Colonel at its descending tip. Duncan maneuvered his pod to fly just above the Staff's as the rest of Squad Epsilon and 1st platoon took up the rearguard of the formation.

They descended into the exosphere. Within 2 minutes the reentry flames had started and were licking over the Stealth Pods' frames. At 1 minute and 30 seconds Garrison ordered them to break up into their platoon clusters. Their initial wedge formation was to make sure they landed in relatively the same regional area. Breaking up into their platoon clusters was a necessary precaution taken later into the drop to keep ODSTs from landing on top of each other. It also kept them relatively close to their base units.

At 1 minute, everyone pulled their drag chutes. Multiple ODSTs whipped back in their pods as their insertion vectors slowed dramatically. Everyone except Yuri seemed to get the hint.

"Matchstick, get that drag chute out now." The Staff demanded.

"Matchstick do this, Matchstick do that, but no one ask Matchstick why he's called Matchstick!" Yuri said. "YA zhivu, chtoby goret'!"

He continued on ahead of them.

"Matchstick." The Staff said, sternness entering his voice.

A few tense seconds passed then Yuri's pod released its drag chute. He was still ahead of the rest of the formation but they were slowly catching up. Duncan could hear him laughing and shouting in his native tongue on his way down.

Duncan comm'd Hector. "Hey Heck?"

"Yeah?"

"Is he actually Bipolar?"

"You saw what he did. You tell me man."

The formation continued down to the surface, drifting slightly apart. They burst through the clouds, turning them into swiss cheese with the barrage of pods.

It was nighttime on this part of Reach. Below, Duncan could see their drop zone coming into view. It was an arctic landscape. There was a frigid sea near the horizon where icebergs the size of cruisers patrolled the waters.

At 50 meters the braking rockets on 248 pods activated. A second later they slammed into the frozen terrain. They blew off their hatches and leaped out with weapons at the ready.

Duncan blew off his hatch and jumped out into a foot of snow. He scanned the tundra plain around him through the scope of his M7. There was little save for a few snow mounds and other LRSOIPs landing nearby.

The Babd Catha Ice shelf was a barren snowscape with a 200-meter-tall cliff face over a kilometer away from where he'd landed. They had been constantly dropping here over the last two months as a sort of testing ground.

In the distance he could see the shadow of a pyramidal structure with segmented sides amidst the mountains of a distant land protrusion. He wasn't aware of any UNSC bases in the area and neither was anyone else he asked, but they decided to simply accept it was there rather than risk asking more questions that might get them offed.

A nav point appeared in his HUD at the base of a nearby snow mound. Duncan and the rest of Squad Epsilon winked their green acknowledgement lights and started towards it.

:********:

Colonel Ackerson watched from the balcony of an observation tower on the Babd Catha Ice Shelf as the ODSTs of Bravo Company began gathering up.

He was pleased at the progress they were making with the Stealth Pod training. On the other hand, he was concerned at the amount of time that had already passed since the discovery on Epsilon Eridani IV. Cordova had a team keep an eye on the movements of the individuals at the Meleonich Facility. So far there were no major developments. That meant they were still unaware of the large proverbial hammer that he was about to strike them with from orbit.

A door opened and Lieutenant Cordova stepped out, saluting. "The exercise for today is completed, sir."

"Casualties?"

"None this time, sir. Anchor 9 confirmed that all 248 pods successfully transitioned from slipspace."

"Good." He said, smiling at the results. "They're almost ready."

"Are we still looking at the 6th sir?"

Ackerson nodded. "We can't go any later than that. We need to finish this and quickly, that and it already cost me a pound of flesh just to use the ice shelf. And I think you know why."

Cordova glanced at the distant mountains and the pyramidal structure that was partially hidden with them. "I understand, sir."

She saluted again and moved for the door but stopped halfway in. "Also, Colonel, all the requested forces have arrived in system for the operation. As of now, they're all on standby."

Ackerson gritted his teeth then forced himself to relax. "All of them?"

"All of them, sir." She watched him closely.

The Colonel closed his eyes and breathed out. "…Good, very good."

But the subtle grimace on his face showed that it wasn't. He was swallowing his pride here in more ways than one. As he looked out to the squadrons of Pelicans that began arriving on the Babd Catha Ice Shelf to pick up the ODSTs, he hoped swallowing that pride now would allow him to resurrect it to even greater heights once this operation was over.

Provectus - Advanced