Chapter 8 - Curiositas
May 8th, 2545 (11:31 Hours – Military Calendar)
Aquilla System, Actium
High Mediolanum, Republic of Pavia
Heraklion Block
:********:
An M7 SMG with an attached suppressor was as ODST as the color purple was Covenant. It made stealth operations much easier with its small size and high magazine occupancy which increased the chances of killing anything on the other side of the scope. Anything, that is, up to 50 meters. Targets beyond that lay outside of the weapon's effective range. The same couldn't be said for the aforementioned target if it had a weapon with a better launch distance. That last part was presently Duncan's sole concern. With his SMG he could take out a Grunt or Jackal pretty quickly and even give an Elite a rainy day at close range. However, the purple armored plating of the incoming Wraith tanks gave him second thoughts.
Four of them were coming down the street ahead, bound for his position. They were closing the 100 meters of distance between them in that menacingly slothful way they were known for. Worse yet, the cars, vans and trucks lying in their path didn't do more than bounce off the front of the lead tank.
Duncan quietly retreated against the corner of the building serving as his cover. He chanced looking back to check on the others.
The avenue that Squad Epsilon had been moving up for the last five minutes lay 1.5 kilometers northeast of the HMPD. On the way here they'd had to dodge patrols of Ghosts and Jackal snipers perched on top of buildings while always keeping an eye out for passing Elites. So far, they hadn't encountered much trouble, but their expectation was initially that they would encounter more Grunt patrols. Logically, the diminutive aliens would become more commonplace since they were approaching the parts of the city dominated by them. Only that was slowly panning out not to be the case. They were mostly encountering Jackal patrols in the outer edges of the other species' habitat zones. They had even run into one by accident while making their way down this avenue. It was as if the Jackals were expecting them. They had ambushed the squad from the front lobby of an accountant's office as they passed by on an adjacent sidewalk. While the ensuing turkey shoot wasn't unexpected, the attention that they were about to receive definitely was.
Less than a minute after the failed ambush a response was already on its way: a column of Wraith tanks. They had probably been in the immediate vicinity when the report went out that humans were in the area. And since the ODSTs had yet to encounter any sign of the 22nd other than a number of long-abandoned pods, they were effectively on their own.
Their only option was escape, and their best route was through a means Duncan wasn't necessarily excited about.
He watched as Hector finally got a grip on the iron manhole cover marked with the branding 'High Mediolanum Sewerage' and yanked it out of the way. The small vertical access tunnel below was dark. Yuri gave him a congratulatory pat on the back, then switched on his VISR mode and climbed down.
After a few seconds Hector gave the Staff who'd been bracing behind a nearby car the thumbs up.
The Staff in turn looked to Duncan, held two fingers at his visor then pointed them around the corner.
Duncan quickly swiveled around the corner again to check the progress of the Wraiths. Sure enough, they were closer by at least 12 meters. He turned back, held up eight fingers and flashed them twice. The Staff checked in on Mito next who was manning an adjacent corner. Still looking out, the private flashed five fingers once then connected his forefinger and thumb into a zero. The second column was even closer. It wasn't a good sign, Duncan knew. It gave them an even smaller window of escape.
The Staff nodded just as Deaks appeared, dragging one of the dead Jackals behind him. Duncan recognized it by the myriad of bullet holes that riddled its body. It was the same one that had come racing out to face the troopers as if it had the strength of some berserk Brute. The squad quickly and collectively taught it otherwise.
As the corporal reached the sewer entrance, both the Staff and Hector gave him a look. He shrugged back and unabashedly tossed the body into the tunnel. It landed with a wet plop, prompting a sudden burst of surprised Russian from Yuri. He swiftly caught himself. They purposefully hadn't been using their comms out here out of concern that the Covenant had somehow pin-pointed their location by listening to their frequencies.
The Staff waved the rest of the squad over.
Duncan dashed from the corner. He and Mito were the last two to reach the gathering at the opening.
Nova went down, followed by Zack and Rico. They had to jump a little at the bottom to avoid landing on the dead alien directly below. Deaks simply leaped down, eliciting a slight crack from alien bones upon impact. As he pulled it out of the way, Mito came down the ladder right after. He was forced to jump after nearly slipping on some of the blue blood tainting the rails.
The Staff stopped observing the corners of the avenue to watch Renni descend, then once she was out of sight, gestured to Duncan. Duncan switched on his VISR mode, grabbed onto the sides of the ladder and slid to the bottom. He felt his boots shift a little with each step over the naturally slimy floor of the subterranean tunnel.
High Mediolanum's sewer system was thankfully not as putrid as what he was expecting. Special chemicals canceled out the high sting of ammonia and the methane-induced pungency that would have otherwise overwhelmed his helmet's air filtration systems.
The passage was long, disappearing out of sight from end to end, but was wide enough to give everyone a decent amount of room. Pipes lined the sides of the dark walls and a semi-pathway of protective grating hung over a river of sewage that flowed freely down a lower tunnel.
Duncan moved out of the way for the Staff to hop down. Hector was the last in and gently slid the manhole back into place, sealing them away in the dark.
The Staff placed a Nav marker on their TACMAPs. On their HUDs they examined the network of subterranean passageways and corridors that comprised the area of the sewer system within their vicinity. To Duncan it looked more like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle with straight lines and rounded alcoves so highly organized that it all could have been the brainchild of a few masochistic urban developers. And that was only the system in their proximity, not the entire district, or the whole city for that matter.
The Nav marker appeared to lead them further east along their original route. The squad moved out at a slow saunter. Nevertheless, the sounds of the Wraiths were slowly coming closer and louder. Eventually, the troopers had to stop when the first heavy tank turned the corner and began moving down the avenue. Both of the two armored columns converged on the roadway above, generating a cacophony of whining gravity propulsion drives that drowned out every other sound. The noise was so intense that it forced them to lower their armor's audio reception settings just to avoid going deaf.
A minute passed where the tanks above seemed to be considering where the reported enemy forces had disappeared to. Then, possibly operating under the assumption that they had escaped, they gradually moved on. After several minutes, the last sounds of their engines disappeared into the distance.
With the tanks gone, the squad was free to continue down one of the the tunnel's intersections. They turned left, then right and left again before stopping at a metal door. A sign over it read: 'Bypass Chamber Herak.4'. On the TACMAP appeared a rectangular room on the other side with the Nav marker resting in the middle.
Hector gripped the wheel handle and started twisting, earning a subdued screech of aged metal. With a final tug the door hissed open.
The darkness of the room beyond proved no match for their VISRs which highlighted its interior with a customary green glow. They stepped inside to look around at the six bypass pipes lining the two sides, three on each. The pipes rose up from pumping sockets on the grimy floor up to holes in the ceiling likely to different sewer tunnels.
Once it was confirmed secure, the squad started settling in. It was no easy feat given the slick and muddy ground beneath their boots.
Deaks was the last to come in. The Staff stopped him at the threshold and pointed to the dead jackal hung over his shoulder like a fox coat.
"Oh come on, can't I keep him sir?" Deaks begged over his external mic. He grabbed the jackal's slack mouth and wiggled it around like a dog's. "He's so adorable, don't you think? Come on, please?"
While everyone else looked on with either disapproval, revulsion or a fair mix of both, Duncan was still surprised by how his squadmate had so easily carried the body the whole way here, one that was arguably bigger than him. Whether he was always that strong or simply that enthusiastic about a dead body, both ideas equally unnerved him.
The Staff stared at him for a moment longer then, with a sigh, allowed him in. The others gave him a wide berth as he ecstatically rested the body near one of the bypass pipes then unceremoniously plopped down beside it. Immediately he went to his dire work of unsheathing Silver Buddha and resting the corpse over his lap so he could get a good handle on it. However, as he began whittling into the first of its finger sized teeth the Jackal's eyes shot open. It began struggling and flailing about, its movements only hampered by its many wounds and Deaks' arms.
The squad quickly took aim. Yet they never had to open fire.
Deaks grabbed the alien's flexing jaw with one hand before it could scream. With the other, he stabbed Silver Buddha into the base of its neck nearly up to the hilt. The Jackal's movements intensified as it writhed under its captor's restraint. Then slowly its movements plateaued and finally ceased.
In the place of the flailing sounds arose a kind of crying. It took Duncan a second to realize that it wasn't coming from the alien, but from Deaks. "I-, can't believe I had to-, to put him down." He said in a way that mocked the grief of someone mourning for a dead pet. He let go of its mouth and held its torso closer. "If only I-, got to say goodbye to him. I would've, I would've told him…" His voice dropped back to normal, "that he would've lived a little longer if he'd just stayed still."
The corporal gripped Silver Buddha and pulled out the weapon, creating a small outpouring of blue gore onto the floor. He didn't bother wiping the knife and immediately restarted his work. Maneuvering the blade through the damp recesses of its jaws he began systematically digging around then flicking out its frontmost teeth, effectively unburying their roots from the gums. He grabbed the first four and inspected them with an air of satisfaction.
The others looked on with varying degrees of quiet disgust.
"You're sick, man." Hector said.
Deaks didn't even bother looking up at him or stopping for that matter. "Am I really the one that's sick or have you all just fooled yourselves into thinking you're healthy?"
Hector shook his head and walked away from the conversation before it could evolve into another of their philosophical spats. He sealed the first door shut behind them and headed for the other when the Staff caught him by the shoulder. "We'll hold here for now."
No one moved to dispute the order, no one except Renni who stepped up. "Sir, shouldn't we be on our way?"
The Staff glanced over his shoulder at her. "What's the rush, Ep-10? We've got time."
"But shouldn't we use that time to-"
"Matchstick." The Staff turned to Yuri who was already squatting in a corner. "How much time until we need to be in position?"
Yuri squinted at the mission clock on his HUD. "We have…5 hours and 50 minutes."
The Staff looked back at Renni. "See, we've got time."
Hector walked away from where he stood beside him.
Off on the side, Duncan was trying to figure out why he'd asked Yuri when the mission timer was running on everyone's HUDs. Then he remembered.
Yuri got back on his feet and started walking.
The Staff kept his focus on Renni. She looked conflicted about his decision and voiced her opposition. "Sir, we need to get moving. Wouldn't that be the best course of action considering how our movements are currently hampered by these conditions?"
"What's the rush?" The Staff repeated. "If anything, this gives us some time to talk about a few things. I'm sure you won't mind."
Renni hadn't noticed she was being flanked up until the moment Hector and Yuri both stepped past her on the left and right, the former yanking her SMG out of her hands and taking the two frags on her belt while the latter pick-pocketed her M6 from her thigh bracer. They casually walked off with her weapons in hand all before she could react.
She moved to ask what was going on when she noticed that everyone else was quietly watching her, their rifles resting across their chests with their fingers actively on the triggers. There was a tension in the air that she hadn't noticed until now.
The Staff sauntered off to the unopened door and sat on the several steps in front of it. He clipped his rifle to his harness and leaned forward, his hands folded together and his sights settled on her.
It was much like what Duncan envisioned a 20th century mobster meeting would look like, mafia family and all.
Renni's visor depolarized, revealing the troubled expression on her face. But there was something else there. Unless Duncan was mistaken, he thought she looked almost accepting of the situation, as if she knew exactly what was about to happen.
"What did you want to talk about, sir?" She asked hesitantly.
The Staff didn't answer right away. He allowed the silence to pervade the subterranean chamber for a while, increasing the private's own visible uneasiness before he spoke.
"Why weren't you at the mission briefing?"
Renni stared at him. Her mouth worked like she was searching for something to say, but ultimately couldn't find what suited her.
"Here's a better question. Where were you during the mission briefing?"
Only the natural ambiance of the chamber answered him.
The Staff breathed out his dissatisfaction at the conversation's one-sidedness. "Let's start from the beginning so you'll know what I'm after here. You see them?" He pointed to the rest of the squad. "They're my troopers. This is my squad. When we're not on duty, what they do is officially none of my business. However, I am responsible for their actions on the field, including their successes and failures in operating as a team. For the last several hours straight, we have been on active duty, shooting and being shot at…together. Now during the briefing, I did not see you, Private Mahonis, present in that hall. You disappeared right after we showed Garrison the recordings. What I want to know is this: Where were you?"
Renni closed her eyes in contemplation, then opened them again in an air of admittance. "I was…having a conversation with the Colonel."
"About?"
She looked shocked. "Isn't it…a conversation between me and the Colonel…considered private?"
The Staff's head slowly cocked to the side in an unamused glare.
Renni visibly straightened. "I spoke with him about the current situation."
"What else?"
"…I gave him my recommendations."
The Staff whistled. "A Colonel taking advice from a Private? I've known Garrison for years and he's always the one giving me advice. Not you apparently. Somehow, it's the other way around. But something's telling me that you're not just a private. So what else did you 'give' him?"
The core question was laced into the quandary. She gradually picked up on it and, with measured reluctance, sighed out her answer as if she couldn't hold it in anymore. "I'm the one who gave him the Smartlink update, sir."
A quietness settled on the room as the Staff stared at her. He leaned back in thought. "And how did you get your hands on that kind of tech? Where did it come from?"
"Where?"
"Yes." He said firmly. "Where?"
Renni looked around but saw only unempathetic, polarized visors staring back. She swallowed nervously and kept her eyes focused on the ground rather than the Staff. "The Office, sir. It's from the Office."
"As in, Naval Intelligence?"
Renni nodded.
Everyone else stiffened slightly at the revelation, and at what it entailed about the most recent addition to their team. Yet the next question wasn't for Renni.
"Irish, I want a second opinion. What do you think?"
While he hadn't been expecting to be put on the spot, Duncan had already formed his own opinions about the update after having reviewed the tutorial several times. "It's top tier, sir. I'm talking end-to-end encryption that puts Icarus class intrusion software like the Loki Suite to shame. Not just anyone can make an update that could climb the language barrier between UNSC Standard English and Covenant lexicography like its no more than a word-puzzle."
"How big a barrier?" The Staff asked.
"Bigger than the Premieres sir. Way bigger. We've been trying to understand their language for years, but it's as if whoever made this had it figured out decades ago."
"Sounds like ONI." The Staff remarked, turning his attention back to Renni. "That at least answers where. Now what about how?"
Renni's hands unconsciously clenched into fists, then unclenched. She remained quiet. Yet the Staff proved unwilling to change topic. As expected, the private broke first.
"I worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence."
It was out in the open now.
No one moved to address the proverbial cobra that had just been laid out on the table of the conversation.
Renni seemed to relax a little, like a solid weight had been removed from her shoulders.
"Which Section?" The Staff asked.
Just as quickly as she began to relax, Renni stiffened again. Unless Duncan was wrong, even though he hadn't been wrong whatsoever in the last two minutes, he would have sworn that it looked as if the Staff had given her the first question that genuinely caught her off guard.
"Sir?"
"In ONI, which Section did you work for?"
She licked her lips in a brief internal counsel. "I-, …can't disclose tha-"
"Deaks."
The summoned corporal shot to his feet with Silver Buddha in hand and stopped a meter shy of Renni. She was wide-eyed by then, glancing between him and Epsilon's leader.
"I know you're new here so I can forgive you for that." The Staff said. "But in the ODSTs there's no room for sideways answers like the one you were just about to give me. I want a straight answer. Which Section did you work for?"
Renni didn't answer.
"Hey, can you do me a favor?" Deaks asked. "Can you smile for me, like, a toothy smile? I just want to see something."
The way the corporal was sizing her up went a long way in making Renni's eyes widen further. She looked to the Staff who didn't seem interested in stopping his subordinate.
She breathed out in defeat. "Section II sir. I worked for them during my time in ONI."
The Staff finally nodded to Deaks. He noticeably deflated and walked back to his corner of the room.
"What rank were you back in ONI?"
"…A Lieutenant, 2nd class."
And here was another revelation that threatened to throw Duncan clear off his feet. His mind swam with other questions that were undoubtedly about to be answered.
The Staff's visor depolarized. He was looking her over as if seeing her for the first time. "Really?"
"Yessir."
"Explains how you were able to talk with the Colonel like he was an equal then. In that case, you saying 'yessir' is ironic. Had we met under different circumstances it would be the other way around: I'd be the one saying 'yes mam' to you. And I'm to believe you gave up what was probably a comfortable desk job on Reach and that rank in exchange for a spot in the 105th?"
Renni grimaced, her voice becoming firmer. "Whether you believe it or not sir, that's what I did. After I requested a unit transfer, I was stripped of my rank and became just like any other RCT at Camp Lincoln. No special courtesy was given to me for being a former officer. I had to start from scratch in a field that I wasn't even accustomed to and made it this far." She looked to the weapons of the others. "However, I'm not very sure how much further I'll get."
The Staff nodded in understanding as his gaze fell to the floor. "We're not going to shoot you." His eyes shot up to hers. "Even if you are ONI."
Renni's grimace deepened into one of confusion. "Sir?"
"What do you guys think?" The Staff asked.
"Is there really such a thing as a former ONI agent?" Nova asked with a hint of suspicion as she moved to the Staff's side. "How do we even know your story checks out? Who could we confirm that with?"
"If you ask me, once ONI always ONI." Deaks declared.
"She doesn't look like ONI to me." Yuri interjected.
Deaks rounded on him. "And what does ONI look like to you, Match?"
"Something like Baba Yaga. But this one?" He shook his head. "No, not ugly enough. She might just be big-balls new blood that knows how to scare vets."
Renni held up her hands in her own defense. "Please, understand that I didn't want-"
"Were you sent to spy on us?"
She turned to the Staff who'd asked the question. "Sir?"
"Enough 'sir'. Answer yes or no. Were you sent here to spy on us? Yes or no?"
The chamber returned to silence. Renni noticed that the rest of the squad weren't just watching her. Now they were actively aiming their weapons in her direction. While the barrels were still pointed down at the floor, they could easily whip upwards to set their sights on her at a moment's notice. She took in a few steadying breaths. "No."
The Staff's sharp gaze narrowed, like his eyes alone could pierce her. She met his gaze with a steadfastness that shielded her against its intensity.
A full five seconds elapsed before he spoke again. "Next question. Whether I'll believe your answer to the last one depends on how you answer this one."
Renni remained steadfast under his continued interrogation.
"What purpose did you have in mind when you stole that tech from ONI?
The ODST to which the question was directed stood at solid attention before her superior. "In case this ends up being required for a follow-up, I will provide context. While working for ONI Section II, I played a part in an experimental program that worked on creating a Smartlink update based on the hybrid-intrusion suites that the Office had invented for select 4th Generation AIs. I was given the opportunity to test out a prototype in the field. The test, like many others, was a success. When our results were reviewed and granted commissioning, the software was given to special personnel-"
"Spartans." The Staff said drily.
Again, Renni looked taken aback. "Ye-…yes. Spartans. They utilized it in their operations with resounding success involving more complex Covenant technology, such as information mainframes and control terminals. We have-, ONI had serious technological advances such as these that could change the course of the war lying at their very fingertips."
She stopped with the look of someone who had high hopes for something, only to see them dashed right in front of her. "However, they wouldn't allow them to be issued to the ordinary frontline soldier or even the ODSTs. Different review boards would reject the idea of giving it over, citing a lack of resources or experimental ethics concerns." Her hands clenched into tight fists once more.
Then it was Duncan's turn to be caught off guard as she looked up with an honest fire in her eyes.
"I chose to leave because I realized that ONI wasn't really working to save everyone." Renni said. "We weren't…they weren't trying to help every human being to survive, just the ones they deemed useful. I realized that once I saw what they were capable of versus what they actually did. It was always their Modus Operandi, who was useful to the Office's ends were given what they needed and whoever wasn't, well, what about them? The war just gave them the perfect excuse to execute that guiding philosophy."
"And you stole their stuff because you wanted to help Grunts like us?" The way the Staff said it made it sound more like a statement than a question. "That's all?"
"That's all, sir."
"…Well…you definitely are helping us. Maybe you were right to do it. But what's to stop ONI from figuring out what you did and coming after you for it, and by proxy, coming after us?"
"I wiped all traces of my activities related to my final actions before I went my separate ways with the Office. I even memory wormed the resident AIs so that they couldn't record what I had done in extracting copies of the update from the system."
"And what's to stop them from coming after you once they find out it was distributed to non-certified personnel on Actium?"
"The Colonels."
"…Care to explain?"
"In the time that I went missing I attended a meeting with Colonels Garrison and Mentieth along with Lieutenant Colonel Serakovich. After me and Colonel Garrison convinced them of the plan, they all came to an agreement that should they be questioned, they would provide no information to ONI regarding who gave them the software other than declaring it confidential."
"Confidential, even to ONI?" The Staff couldn't help laughing at the irony. "Those three are something else."
"Yes. Even if they had to take it to an after-action tribunal, that would be their story. However, they also agreed not to tell anyone about the update except the ODST teams that Garrison sent like ours. That means out of every UNSC-affiliated individual currently on Actium, less than a fraction of a percentile actually know of its existence. And even less than that know where it came from."
The Staff's expression changed from a suspicious glare to an unreadable poker face. "Tribunal? Garrison's really willing to take things that far?"
"He is."
"And I guess the reason why he didn't tell us is to preserve our plausible deniability then?"
"That's correct."
"That way if we die out here there'll be less witnesses at his tribunal." Deaks added, still busy plucking teeth from his private corpse. He stopped to tap the bloodied butcher's knife against his helmet in a thinking gesture. "Gotta say, you can never call ole Colonel Gary anything less than a genius."
The Staff ignored him. "Still there's something else I want to be certain about."
Everyone's eyes were on the Staff as he pulled out his shotgun, pumped a single round into the chamber and set it on his lap. "Tell me something Mahonis. Just one more thing."
Renni swallowed. "Sir?"
"Have you ever worked with Spartans?"
"Spartans?"
"Yeah. Anything involving them?"
If they weren't before, the entire squad really was aiming at her. Their sights were set just on the ground at her feet.
The tension reached a crescendo that coalesced around the person standing at its very center. She looked the Staff straight on. "No sir. I haven't worked with the Spartans. Not directly. I only tested part of the software that was later provided to them. That's all."
"And we can trust that?"
"You can quote me on it to the Fleet Admiral himself if you'd like, sir."
One end of the Staff's lips pulled into a smile. Then his whole expression shifted from skepticism to a renewed calmness, changing the atmosphere of the room entirely. He got up, slapped his shotgun onto his harness and walked up to her with a calculated saunter. He held out a hand. "Consider this your official squad introduction. Welcome to Epsilon, Private Mahonis."
Duncan noticed that he didn't call her Ep-10 then. She probably would have noticed it as well. Briefly uncertain, she ventured to take his hand and shook it.
"Mito, keep an eye out because we haven't done yours yet."
At the Staff's words the private, who had spent most of the time not aiming at anyone and looking quietly confused, straightened up. "Ugh-, I-, I'm not getting that same kind, am I?"
"Not necessarily." Nova said, depolarizing. "Sometimes we throw people into pools of boiling water. Other times we question them at gunpoint. Hopefully, you'll get the easier one of those two." She watched the private shiver a little and gave Duncan a suggestive wink. Duncan only shook his head at what terrible images she had probably just planted into Mito's mind.
The Staff whipped out his assault rifle again and made for the last door. "On your feet, Epsilon. We're moving out. We've spent too much time here as it is."
"I thought you said we had time?" Renni asked.
"We did. Now we don't."
He left for the door, twisted the wheel handle and pulled it open. The squad started getting up and following after him.
Duncan checked the timer on his HUD. From what he could tell they had already spent 10 minutes talking in the sewer. When the Staff initially approached them in the HMPD's armory about what he planned to do, he had mentioned 15 minutes. So they had at least saved 5 minutes thanks to what Nova called the Staff's expert 'people skills'. As he walked past Renni, he could only grimace at a glaring fact. There was no longer a way to escape the Office now that they had a self-proclaimed 'former agent' literally on the team. And Duncan still had his doubts of how much of an ex-Oni Agent she happened to be. At the most he was relieved that she didn't seem to have any major connections to the Spartans. That brought with it its own relief. But then there was always the chance that she secretly knew or could at least piece together what they had done if she really considered some of the Staff's questions. For the time-being he was resigned to keep an eye on her, like everyone else was probably going to from here on out.
The last 10 minutes had to have been some of the most intense of Renni's life. Her mind was still adrift in all the different things she'd been asked.
Two questions stuck out the most. The first was when the Staff asked her which Section she had worked for. Most outside personnel knew little about ONI beyond what the three letters stood for. The rest was often conjecture. It was the same even for many of the most high-ranking UNSC officers. Yet the Staff was somehow familiar with their internal organization up to the point that he believed her when she told him that she had worked for Section II specifically. She could have just as easily said Section A or Section Yellow and it would have fooled him all the same if he didn't truly know what she was talking about. But he did. How?
The next thing that bothered her were his questions about her involvement or lack thereof with the Spartans. It had prompted the most noticeable reaction from the rest of the squad. It showed in the way everyone looked ready to shoot her then and there, everyone except Mito. He was the only other new addition so he was relatively in the same boat as her in not knowing much about the squad's history. Then why were the original members so ready to cut her down in regard to a unit that many other ODSTs viewed with marked scorn? Or maybe that was it. Did they want to shoot her simply because, for all they knew, she might have helped create their greatest rivals? The tension between the Spartans and ODSTs was not an unknown phenomena. It was only new to troopers that hadn't heard the stories about Spartans or had yet to meet them on the battlefield. It took time for certain tales to reach some corners of the galaxy. Yet when they did, they spread like wildfire, especially when Spartans were in the same general locale as a unit of shock troopers.
Maybe that really was it. But it didn't explain how the Staff knew so much about ONI.
Renni sufficed that she didn't know or have the time to find out right now as the squad moved for the door. Still, she knew the others had their suspicions of her. Now the feeling was mutual. For the sake of the mission at least, she hoped they could both put aside those feelings.
She watched Hector and Rico approach her, this time from the front.
Hector held out her SMG and the two frags. "Here you go, Ms. ONI-lady."
"Ms. ONI-lady?" Renni wasn't sure she liked the nickname. However, it didn't seem like one needed to like a nickname for it to stick. Iris had his own, along with Mastovich. She figured that maybe letting them call her what they wanted was probably the only route she had at the moment to regaining some measure of their trust. She took her belongings back.
"Enjoy it cause you're stuck with it." Hector said, almost reading her thoughts. He patted her on the shoulder and walked on.
"Don't worry, drop enough Covenant and save enough of our lives and we might just be tempted to like you again." Yuri said and held the handle of her M6 out to her. She reached for it, but before she could grab it, he swiveled the gun around in his hand to aim the barrel at her. "Emphasis on might." He held her there for a second then spun it back around. After a palpable hesitation, she slowly grasped the handle and took it from him.
When her Smartlink connected to the weapon she discovered it now had a full clip of ammo. At the time it was confiscated, her M6 barely had 3 rounds left in it.
"Um, sorry…did you give me an extra clip?"
Yuri turned and walked backwards to the door. "You won't be very good combat medic with no ammo, will you? Serves you right for not coming to armory with us."
"…Thanks."
"Pozhaluysta. Now come on before you get left alone in the crapper."
Renni couldn't help laughing a little under her breath at what was apparently a show of kindness in the middle of an overwhelmingly hostile day. She took one last look around, clipped her pistol to her thigh bracer and jogged after the others.
Curiositas - Curiosity