Chapter 8 – Praeparatio
June 4th, 2545 (14:24 Hours – Military Calendar)
Prozyion System, Kroedis II
En Route to Capital of New Palermo
:********:
Duncan was slowly learning how important information was as a resource. For one, he learned that there was a reorganization of Gypsy Platoon after Miridem. Following the loss of a squad leader, they reintegrated the squads from their original Teams 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 designations into their current format but with the same leaders. Team 1 became Jinx under Stewards. Team 3 became Jester with Quinn. Team 4 transformed into Jack under Ambers and Team 5 turned into Joker under Haskin.
What prompted the change was the loss of an entire squad, Team 2, in the wake of an operation gone sideways. That and Stewards wanted to change their traditional naming schemes to make things more creative.
The first fact put certain features of life into crisp definition: that the end naturally brought about a change for both the person or persons doing the dying and the ones left behind. Also, the ramifications of that end would apply to persons coming afterwards who would take the place of the lost. It was human history in a nutshell.
The ramification in Duncan's case was that he was made aware of how easy it would be to get killed in this job, and not just killed, but wiped out with everyone else. The reality of that was something he'd known in the ODSTs for the better part of a year and a half already. However, the AMADDS and their operational style introduced him to an entirely new facet of that reality that he had never quite thought of before, and purposefully so.
Firstly, his armor. His tactical vest, one infused with a light layer of Kevlar diamond weave, his pistol holsters, elbow and knee pads along with his small backpack were only enough to deal with human threats. It was no match for an ODT BDU when put up against plasma weaponry. Though there was a slight chance of plasma getting involved, the main concern on this operation was human ordnance.
There lay Duncan's second issue and his greatest dilemma. Having spent so much time defending civilians from genocidal aliens and ambitious terrorists, he was soon to be in danger of being killed by the very people he'd been fighting to protect.
Kroedis II was a world under siege. The colony was straddling the star map boundaries between the inner and outer colonies. From a strategic locational standpoint, its assault was inevitable. However, Kroedis was not under siege by Covenant forces, but rather by its own inhabitants.
According to the mission details Stewards had given Gypsy back at the Hill, the planet was under martial law. At least it became so after UNSC forces in-system suddenly, and it appeared unilaterally, withdrew from the planet on May 15th.
The others spent some time judging and deriding the UNSC as cowards for abandoning yet another world. Duncan stayed silent. The date alone of May 15th connected too many dots for him and he kept it to himself that he knew exactly why they'd left on that day.
It was only one day after that final operation of the 53rd on the Covenant Staging Grounds, the last time any living human being set foot on Actium. It was one day after the Aquilla system fell.
The understanding he'd arrived at during that recon operation into the Sabat Mountain Range, the realization that came as he saw the grounds for the first time, was that the Covenant needed Actium for its numerous slipspace transit points. With them, they would have gained highly useful access to two neighboring human systems. One was Illyria. The other was Kroedis II's local residence of Prozyion. In the second case, the UNSC must have realized that even with the destruction of the staging grounds, once Actium fell then it wouldn't be long before the Covenant visited this world as well. Perhaps knowing what was at stake versus available resources, they'd decided it wasn't worth the effort. He could only justify a potential withdrawal up to the tactical view of things, not to the point where they left an entire civilian population behind. It was something he would have to see for himself to believe.
Either way it seemed that the discovery of Actium was inextricably linked to the situation in Prozyion. The moment Aquilla was found, Kroedis II's fate was sealed. The sad truth that he also tried to ignore was that even the sacrifice of the bulk of the 53rd might not have been enough to save Aquilla's adjacent systems, just those that were far enough away to avoid detection.
No matter his reasoning or that of the wider UNSC, the residents of Kroedis II hadn't taken very kindly to the notion that they'd been abandoned.
What were days of civil unrest at the rumored withdrawal of local UNSC forces became weeks of rioting and looting in the largest cities and settlements, creating conditions on the ground that were becoming increasingly chaotic. So much so that the wealthier residents of Kroedis were beginning to pack up their properties and flee to other systems. The wealthiest among them, a system branch of AMG Transport Dynamics, was leading the charge on the effort to flee its setup in the planetary capital of New Palermo. The branch was trying to make a run for it with all its available assets, and its leadership just so happened to be their current employers.
The training with Ambers didn't take more than 2 days before the 'graduates' were certified to go about their daily tasks in Hayth. The whole affair was geared more towards assessing the capabilities of new recruits than improving them. Such tasks they were sent to do included going out with their respective platoons to accomplish the assignments set out for them for that particular week.
For Gypsy, what followed was a 4-day trip through the darkness of slipspace. Upon arriving at Prozyion, Stewards had the Mayweather run a scan of the local space around Kroedis II. Sure enough, there were no signs of any UNSC frigates in the area, only a number of civilian star-freighters gunning their way through the atmosphere. Afterwards he contacted their employers. The AMG branch officials sounded relieved to hear from him and warned him to come quickly to an arranged set of coordinates.
The situation on the ground was deteriorating at a rapid pace. That was the impression Duncan was getting from how hastily Stewards had Gypsy geared up in the ship's armory. His rushed demeanor was copied by the leader of the other mercenary platoon tagging along for the mission. Captain Gonzo, for all his air of an easy-going man, made it obvious that he would tolerate no slackness here among his own Gator platoon by calling out anyone with what he deemed to be the slightest infraction of equipment-based conduct. Guns were loaded, additional ammo was packed, personal food and water supplies were strapped into place and boots were tied extra tight. Duncan even learned what an aglet was after Gonzo personally chewed him out for having it a certain way on his boots during inspection. Stewards immediately straightened out Gonzo for going at one of his men, a mercenary that didn't fall under his purview of command. The other captain backed off reluctantly, making an off-handed remark about 'medications' that no one paid attention to.
Duncan noticed a weird tension between the two men, again a strange fact given that their temperaments were roughly the same: relaxed yet subtly lethal. He thought maybe they were both on edge about the assignment. That was saying something given the types of people they were or were presumed to be. That fact also put him on edge also.
At the conclusion of the inspection, the platoons loaded up into a pair of Pelican dropships, one for Gypsy and one for Gator. Gypsy's pilot, Hermes-4-1, was the same woman Duncan had saved during the warehouse extraction training. Langley was a former airman in the 31st Air Reconnaissance Group. She used to run hot drops for the Sigma Octanus Defense Fleet up until she was recruited into the AMADDS. As a former Senior Airman or E-4, she had accrued a level of experience in the air that easily translated to space as the cargo bay's atmosphere-pressurized doors opened.
"Three...two...and we're off." She said on the comms as she piloted them down into the brightening glare of Kroedis' exosphere. The second Pelican came close behind. Hermes-4-2 showed his intent on not coming in second by flying right alongside their dropship, nearly wing to wing. Together they descended at mac speed to the surface.
During the flight, Duncan picked up on the sense that mostly everyone was worried. Their faces were relatively calm but in the restrictive manner of persons that knew they were being watched, watched by each other. The occasional glance of their neighbor sitting in the opposite seat made them look away to the open cockpit and the fires of reentry or to the rifles resting in their laps. The tension said it all, everything that no one else was willing to say.
Something about this mission felt different.
Whatever 'different' meant was a notion nowhere near Duncan's consideration. He didn't have the experience that they did to feel much, merely an impending sense of trial at knowing he was on his way to do something that he'd never done before.
Despite that concern, another kept his eyes steadily fixed to none other than the captain.
Unlike the rest of Gypsy, Stewards was the model image of calm. Like a certain messiah somehow finding the ability to sleep on a storm-tossed boat, he was sitting in his seat holding that same honest smile while staring at the fires on the cockpit window. Honest amusement maybe, Duncan wondered, or he knew something they didn't. No one seemed to know what the exact state of things would be on the ground. They would have to find out upon landing. That evidently presented him with no cause for worry. Possibly, like that same messianic figure getting up to rebuke winds and waves, Stewards was aware of how he was going to stand up in the middle of an unexpected ordeal and find a way to bring them through it. Duncan hoped that was the case. Although, that wasn't the real reason why he was staring at him.
For all that honesty in his smile, there was very little of it in actuality. Stewards was a man with secrets and Duncan was aware that he he'd been exposed to at least one of them outside the Bastille Building. The man that came out those front doors was not the same one that left him and O'Reilly at Olivia's store. He was much paler like a vampire stepping out of his tomb for the first time in a century. Still, he was smiling of course which made the situation that much more terrifying. Then he injected himself using that strange vial that O'Reilly would only tell him was something the captain needed regularly.
Was he sick? Was it an illness? A reliance-turned-addiction? The specifics were unfortunately beyond him. If he wanted concrete answers then he would need to ask around. Unfortunately, the one person who'd be the best source of info on the situation was none other than Stewards himself. He hadn't brought up the subject after the incident and didn't show any interest in explaining it either.
"Not gonna lie to you, boyo." O'Reilly said from his seat to the right of Duncan's, leaning over to whisper. "I'm feeling a little weird. This op's...off."
Duncan replied at the same lowered volume. "How so?"
"Just the idea of the UNSC completely leaving a planet before the Covies even show up, how often does that happen, you know? I mean seriously, we don't just up and leave places like this."
"We?"
O'Reilly didn't seem to catch on for a second. A bit of atmospheric rumbling later he understood his mistake, registering it with a subdued somberness. "Right, I meant them. That's not normally how they operate."
"Draco III?"
O'Reilly's fallen gaze snapped from the ground to meet Duncan's. "They're not the same thing."
"You sure?"
"Positive. The Navy left us behind on the ground along with the civilians. Here, they took all the ground-pounders too but left everyone else to fend for themselves. How does that make sense?"
"...Emergency reallocation of resources?"
"That's another thing completely. If that was what they were doing then why leave companies like AMG to fend for themselves. Don't they need that for the war effort?"
"They're cutting their losses."
The answer came from neither man but drew their focus to the third party to their conversation. Stewards wasn't even looking at them in his seat opposite theirs. His focus remained on the cockpit, catching the glow of the flames in his dilated pupils. Then as they shifted to the two men, they narrowed to an almost feline acuity. It intrinsically made Duncan uneasy, especially considering that his vision couldn't be the only thing that was sharp since he'd heard them over the hull's rumbling.
"Their losses, sir?" O'Reilly asked.
"They've made a cost-benefit analysis of both the planet's strategic value as well as the production value of their military stakeholders." The captain explained. "It's a judgement call, comparing them to the level of economic and military investment. This was their conclusion. HIGHCOM's weighed everything on Kroedis II in the balance and found it wanting."
"They think they're not worth the defense?" Haskin asked from a seat closer to the cockpit.
Stewards shrugged with the nonchalance of a man explaining the normality of adverse weather. "Once a system falls to the Covenant, every neighboring system is usually put under high-alert for a possible invasion. The possible tends to be inevitable. Aquilla was one of the most strategically important colonies in this quadrant of the Milky Way, and the most important hands-down in terms of ship production for this sector. When it fell, the UNSC knew Prozyion would be next. They probably figured that dying for AMG's abundant supply of ground vehicles wasn't the same as dying for ships that can help them in space, like the ones Actium had. Like I said, they made a cost-benefit analysis and didn't think the benefit outweighed the cost of defense. Plus, they've already lost plenty with Actium. Hence their departure."
"The wolf chewed off its wounded leg to save the rest of itself." Quinn said in a parabolic contemplation.
"How does that work?" Al asked next to him, scratching his head at the idea. "Think about it, if they chew off their leg then they'll just bleed out."
"It's a saying." Quinn hissed.
"A saying that doesn't make any sense."
"Neither does leaving the people behind that you swore to protect." Kiko added. "But hey, that didn't stop them."
Duncan felt a flash of anger stir in his being at the comment. He wanted to set the record straight. Yet he was stopped when he saw a similarly restrained anger lurking behind O'Reilly's stare, only held back by some hidden confusion.
"And I've got to stop you right there, oh pal of mine." Thurston said, patting Kiko on the shoulder. "See, I think all of us remember that oath we took, right? To defend Earth and all her colonies? Well, Earth came first on that list so they let you know their priorities right off the bat." He pointed to the cockpit window where the image of the surface was becoming clearer. "That, my friend, ain't Earth. That right there is one big secondary priority that just got expended along with everyone on it."
"He's right." Ambers noted. "It isn't Earth. Better question though, are we about to do the same thing?"
Her question alone had changed the attention of the conversation, one that had quickly grown out of its original two-person format, back to the one that had changed it first. Stewards panned around the bay to the faces waiting for his answer. For once, his gaze dropped to the floor as if trying to work out the details for himself. In the end, he let go of a long sigh. "We've done it before." He said in a saddened tone which didn't match his relaxed smile. "We're doing it now actually given the situation with the outer colonies. In that regard, the AMADDS are no different, and will act no differently today."
His focus sharpened on them once more. "Rules of engagement are as follows. For the sake of this mission, we cannot allow civilians to exfil with us. Given the reports, we won't be able to mount any sustainable evacuation effort without being overwhelmed and or violently overrun. It will compromise our ability to carry out this mission. Therefore, any assistance to civilians is strictly prohibited on my order. You will focus solely on anything pertaining to asset extraction. At this moment in time, Gonzo is running over the same operational standards with Gator. Both our platoons are expected to carry out this mission in-line with Kirkley's pre-established guidelines. Is that understood?"
The affirmatory response came slowly. No one wanted to be the first to say "Hooah" to an order like that. Too much was concealed in it that made them stop and think about the encroaching surface.
To Duncan, it was a double-edged sword. While it was an uncomfortably humbling moment for those having at the UNSC's integrity, it also brought his dilemma to mind in a painful crispness.
"And what do we do if they try to leave with us anyway, sir?" He dared to ask.
Stewards looked him straight on and said what Duncan could never bring himself to say with any measure of innocence. He tapped a finger against the stock of his battle rifle. "We brought these for a reason."
:********:
"Stay calm, stay alert and let's try our best not to get Saigon 75'd." Langley commented over comms, trying to crack a joke to dispel the tension as the Pelican leveled out.
Duncan knew what she was going for. It was a reference to one of the most infamous days for airmen in a conflict that was starting to look unnervingly similar to the one they were walking into.
Inside the bay, Stewards ordered Gypsy onto their feet. They clung to the overhead handles as they felt the Pelican jostle slightly on its landing gear. With a hydraulic whirr the rear door opened. It slowly descended like the ramp of a siege tower soon to unleash a band of deadly warriors onto a rampart. Once it hit the asphalt, the platoon filed out of the bay into a very busy world.
It was afternoon and Duncan saw that they were surrounded by the most traffic he'd ever seen in his life.
Flanking them from left to right and back to front were lengthy roadways that split into junctions, roundabouts and free-flow highways. But they weren't free-flowing. The whole place was one giant traffic jam.
In ancient times the scene would be composed of bare-backed men leading water buffalos or oxen yoked to cargo-laden wagons, moving them along the reedy paths of river deltas while bound for the closest town market. The modern spectacle today put a different spin on it. The streets were filled to bursting with flatbed trucks each ferrying dozens of wheel-clamped Mongooses on their back compartments. Hundreds of Warthogs were either driven or towed down the roads by larger vehicles. Their random spurts of movement were routinely stopped dead thanks to the preposterously massive grid-lock that so many vehicles could wreak at once. The air stunk of fumes, frustrated fusses between drivers and unspoken fear.
A lightning strike from the hand of the Almighty as punishment for sins, in the eyes of a pre-industrial humanity, was an idea that had not disappeared overtime. Instead, it evolved into the much more visceral delivery of a pillar of ionic fury at the hands of heaven-bound invaders. The atmosphere here was perhaps the same that the prophet Jonah might have found as he gave a stern talking-to to the Assyrians. Only the thousands of AMG Transport Dynamics personnel presently scrambling about were choosing to repent of their sins by fleeing imminent judgement rather than donning sackcloth and ashes. Akin to billions of others, their sin was having made the unconscionable mistake of being born, and the only real remedies to it were to either run away or to become ashes themselves.
Replacing tunic-wearing men leading wagons were site workers dressed in orange, red or gray jumpsuits. Their faces were made sweaty by the afternoon heat and their expressions showed a mix of strain and terror at the possibility of a glassing beam falling on them at any moment. Above them, titanic arms cast massive shadows that moved along the ground. Looking over his shoulder, Duncan saw the full visage of cranes performing operational pivots while hoisting large container units across the site below.
By the way things were looking, they'd chosen to evacuate the site of its resources as well as its native population. Good choice, Duncan thought, except he had to think on the fact that they were the only ones who could choose that option. That was because the AMADDS were the ones giving it to them and no one else. So who was guilty of the greater sin?
"Gypsy, on me." Stewards said, reining in everyone's collective focus to himself as he jogged over the small helipad they'd landed on. They followed after him. Just 20-meters to their right, Gator was doing the same with the dragon-tattooed Captain Gonzo ordering them out the blood tray of the second Pelican. The two platoons descended a pair of stairs to the sidewalk that lined an adjoining street.
Stewards took the lead with Gypsy down a sidewalk headed south. It became the south to Duncan strictly at the captain's say-so. Word of mouth had to fill in for the directional unknowns that resulted from a lack of an HUD. He was facing a potential hot-combat scenario the way it was traditionally addressed, with plain old eyes and ears.
As they continued along the intravenous network of roadways functioning just about as well as clogged arteries, the crew received more than a few curious looks. The AMADDS weren't ordinary security by any stretch. The specialty of their service and their gear made them stick out like a sore thumb in the eyes of antsy truck drivers with nothing better to look at. The group of roughly 40 mercenaries continued past, unabated by a growing number of stares punctuated by rumbling engine kickbacks and structural groans from the cranes.
The further they went, the more they saw that the facility named 'Coliseum-1', a branch of the vehicular manufacturing corporation they'd come to assist, was actually comprised of several separate facilities. All were connected under the shadows of concrete expressways, tunneled underpasses and ground-level highways that were overwhelmingly occupied. Then there were what Duncan presumed to be a dozen conveyer belts made into bridges which linked Coliseum-1's major buildings from 10-stories off the ground. These 'bridges' were actively transporting vehicles and personnel on their mobile surfaces. The lengths of them were encased in glass paneling, selling the effect of hallways that extended out of interior structures to form a connected grillwork of urban formations.
Coliseum-1's several major structures included a building at their backs a kilometer to the north. It was covered in a web of protective scaffolding, catwalks, snaking metal pipes and support platforms framing 50-meter-tall cylindrical processing units. A trio of 100-meter steel chimneys lay at the center to complete the setup of a material refinery. Those same chimneys would normally be producing smoke in excess. Today, they were utterly silent.
Next was the place on their distant right about half-a-kilometer to the west. The simple building was longer than the refinery yet smaller by floor-count. Its glassy exterior was tube-shaped and ringed with supporting arches on one side, creating the impression of an oversized plastic bottle halved down its length. Due to the glass, everyone could see the rows upon rows of maintenance gantries upholding the dismantled frames of automobiles. The vehicles ranged in various states of evolution from bare chassis frames to fully developed, multi-axel products ready for shipment. Those on the developed end of the spectrum were being lowered to the floor to be wheeled out to carrier trailers waiting in the outside parking lots. That had to be the lifeline of every automotive HQ, a maintenance building.
Closer to their left at 300 meters east stood a building made of concrete. It was 10-brick-and-mortar stories with multiple garage doors set in its every side. A lattice of raised expressways enabled trucks to drive up to both lower and higher garages. They cruised in and out to carry away an array of Warthog and Mongoose models along with civilian cars. That had to be Coliseum-1's vehicle storage facility.
Marching further south they cruised past the imposing walls of gray and white-striped granite that took up close to 5 hectares at the manufacturing plant's heart. The 10-lowest levels were granite, the upper 20 were glass that shined in the afternoon gleam of the star Prozyion. Despite their sunny glow, the sight beyond the glass was still visible; level after level of halted conveyor belts guarded by the silhouettes of jointed robotic arms. Hundreds of them were stuck in a freeze-frame of a time when they were carrying out their function, sewing wheels, doors and engines together using an assortment of rivets, buzz-saws and blowtorches. The main assembly building was by far the largest on the facility grounds. It was nonetheless shutdown.
The one place that didn't seem on the verge of going dark lay 200 meters straight ahead to the south. The structure wasn't the largest or the smallest yet its form possessed the smooth granite walls and blue-tinted windows of something he could expect to be a corporate headquarters. The crew were headed straight for it.
Aside from those main buildings there were dozens of smaller ones scattered throughout the crisscrossed interior that he guessed were depots, customer service areas or container shipment lots.
Coliseum-1's magnitude combined with its large organization reminded Duncan of Misriah's La Grotte facility on Miridem and Sinoviet's Clay-Antonia Shipyards in New Memphis. He desperately hoped though that he wouldn't have to encounter any situations remotely similar to what he'd experienced at either site.
Each consequent setup they jogged past gave the place that feel of a metropolitan center of its own. And it wasn't even the city of New Palermo. Coordinates placed Coliseum-1 off along the northern city limits. To the point of locating the main settlement, he didn't need a HUD or a rifle scope, just his eyes.
The city of New Palermo, or at least its northernmost outskirts, was visible far behind the building he believed to be the management and administration department. There, skyscrapers stuck out into blue-skies; their heights only outmatched by two things.
One was the unbelievably steep, reddish-brown cliffs of a rocky plateau that the Mayweather's scans showed completely encircled the outskirts of New Palermo. The plateau was roughly 200 meters above sea-level, only Kroedis II didn't have a sea, not for an astronomically incomprehensible period. The planet was a complete desert. Such a feature made it more like Mars than Kholo could ever be, because Kholo was the way that it was out of artificial means rather than natural ones. Having the distinction of territories scattered across its exterior rather than the distinction of continents, Kroedis II was host to endless dunes, sparse vegetation and plentiful rock plateaus that made most of the surface share a lot in common with the Colorado Desert. New Palermo had been established in the center of one of the largest plateau formations that held the rough shape of a cretaceous hurricane paralyzed in time. The plateau's 'inner eye' granted the city both protection as a barrier against the high terrestrial winds and close to 100 square kilometers of flat real estate. Part of that real estate was presently on fire, lending to the second thing.
Second were the rising pillars of smoke that trailed off along the western troposphere at the behest of the jet-stream. Where there was smoke, there was usually fire, and where there was fire there were also persons starting those fires. How they were doing it was anyone's guess. No one made a move to say what they thought as they saw it. They proactively went out of their way to set gaze and step alike on their destination.
They jogged onto a front courtyard serving as a temporary drive through for many Warthogs and flatbeds waiting to get underway. The stalled convoys were facing towards what Duncan saw to be the iron gates of the 15-meter wall surrounding Coliseum-1's perimeter. He took note of it as they filtered through the jam. They started up the three flights of stairs leading to a row of revolving doors.
Coming inside, the mercenaries were greeted with a baptism of air condition and the gray marbled floor of a wide lobby. Above them, an angelic host of decorative chandeliers illuminated the room with white light which turned silvery as it bounced off the smooth flooring. Things were not as business-like as the scattered clusters of leather chairs and coffee tables would normally indicate. In fact, the furniture was becoming a hindrance to the scores of jumpsuited workers maneuvering boxes, machines and other cargo to the convoys waiting outside.
The workers were wary enough to keep a distance between them and the incoming guns for hire, making room for them to head to the front desks.
The attendants there were working at their stations. They typed away on projected displays while using headsets to issue instructions and information to and from those on the move. Painted on the wall behind them was the slanted, blockish text of two letters; a white colored 'A' and turquoise 'G' artfully connected together to form the letter 'M', all above the name 'Transport Dynamics'.
One of the persons behind the desks stood up and walked out to greet the approaching group.
He was the only person with a remotely business-like appearance thanks to his broad-shouldered demeanor and analyzing disposition. Funny, Duncan thought, since the disheveled state of his suit along with the bags under his eyes made it apparent that the last few days of his life had been chaotic.
The man stepped carefully to the two he accurately guessed to be the leaders. "Aegis Material Acquisition?"
"And Defensive Delivery Services." Gonzo proudly finished. "That'd be us."
Stewards nodded. "We're here to assist you however we can, sir."
The disheveled official experienced a wave of relief that registered in the crack of a smile and the slight slump of his shoulders. "I'm Daniel Henderson, Strategic Manager of this branch of AMG. It's good to see you. Would you follow me please?"
:********:
The Strategic Manager of Coliseum-1, Mr. Henderson, led the AMADDS down a series of hallways beset by a constant cascade of shredded papers and office-workers doing the shredding.
Before long they were brought into a room guarded by two security personnel that didn't bat an eye at opening the doors for them.
They fanned out into a dark chamber with a high-vaulted ceiling. The little light there was emitted out of the circular dais of a tactical planner stationed at the center. Standing around it was another man not dressed in business attire but in a black and blue uniform, an officer's cap and amber shades reflecting the light of the planner. An M6C magnum was clipped to his utility belt which accented the 'POLICE' branding on his high-collared tactical vest. His wrinkled face creased even more as he peeked over the brim of his shades at the arriving group.
Stewards, Gonzo and Mr. Henderson settled around the tactical planner while everyone else stood off at a watchful distance. They were well within earshot as Henderson introduced the three men.
"Captain Stewards, Gonzo, I'd like you to meet Mr. Gage. He's the Chief of Police for the New Palermo Police Department."
"Or what's left of it." Gage huffed.
"Yes, well, he'll be working with you on this mission."
Stewards shared a casual handshake with the chief of police. Gonzo simply nodded to him.
"Might I ask what the specific details are for this mission?" Gonzo asked, folding his arms across his chest. "Beyond the general idea, we really don't know what you want from us."
"That's why we're in front of the planner, Gon." Stewards said, earning a disdainful look from his fellow captain.
"As I partly explained in the brief I sent to your respective offices," Henderson began, "The situation here is currently dire. Allow me to elaborate."
He held a hand over the surface of the tactical planner. In response, the device warmed then brightened. An unclear holographic image appeared hovering a hand's breadth above the screen. It resolved into a portrayal of New Palermo and the circular chasm within which it resided.
"Here's the rundown, gentlemen. In the middle of the night on May 15th, the Army's 122nd Division garrisoned here in New Palermo left without warning. They withdrew from the Prozyion system nearly wholesale with our defense fleet. We've figured it had something to do with Actium if both the Navy and Army decided to leave in unison. It's believed that they left for Reach. Either way they certainly didn't deem it a priority to tell us why. It's thrown New Palermo into a precarious state."
He opened his hand and made the display zoom in to show the pillars of smoke rising well beyond the skyline, creating a forest of haze and a foliage of smog that blocked out light in various sections of the city.
"Mr. Gage and his NPPD did their best to maintain order and did so for about three days."
"After that, things went to hell in a handbasket." Gage remarked. "If I may?"
Henderson nodded for him to continue.
"The straw that broke the camel's back came from within the NPPD itself. Many of my men came to the conclusion that there wouldn't be any reinforcements coming to help us maintain order. Without the Army we could hardly keep up martial law and it was a miracle that we did for as long as 3 days. Then what essentially ended all that was several dozen of our Special Weapons and Tactics Teams going rogue. My command structure fell apart. Soon I found myself with only a handful of personnel I was still able to control or even contact. Afterwards, we started seeing riots and organized mobs across the city. They've been arming themselves too. These last two weeks I've lost more squads to roadside ambushes than I can count and there are reports that those SWAT Teams are involved. It's safe to say that close to 90% of the city is a no-go zone. Since almost all of the starship lines fled for other systems in the wake of the 122nd's departure, the bulk of the urban population is currently stuck in New Palermo. The mobs have been trying to find any and every way off the planet. They've raided practically every government facility as well as the UNSC Army base to the southeast. To put that into perspective, I'm also no longer in charge of my own HQ anymore. They are."
"And you want us to go in there and get our hands dirty with all that?" Gonzo asked in a matter-of-fact way.
"In a manner of speaking." Henderson insisted. "That's why Gage is here. He'll be the one leading you to your current objective along the safest routes he knows."
Stewards stopped him short of explaining further by pointing at the holograph. "How many people lived in New Palermo before this?"
"More than half the planet's population. Close to 8-million."
Stewards' eyes narrowed in concentration on the projection. "I don't think I'd be wrong in assuming you had a decent sized armory in that HQ of yours?"
Gage drew in a guilty breath. "No, you wouldn't."
"And that UNSC Army base?" Gonzo asked.
"We believe the 122nd didn't remove all their equipment in their withdrawal. It would explain the rocket attacks we've seen lately."
Gonzo's right eye twitched. "Rockets? You mean to tell me that New Palermo's suburbia got its hands on launchers?"
"Hence why they called you here for back-up." Gage said, finishing the deeply distressing thought for the two captains.
Seeing that neither had anything else to ask, Henderson went on. Everyone watched him zoom out of the close view of New Palermo's metropolitan center to show more of the outer suburbs. Beyond those suburbs were a smaller encirclement of barren plains leading up to the plateaus. On one such plain to the north was a square section blinking green. "We're here." Another square area to the far west of the city was also highlighted. "This is where we need to go. This is AMG's private starport. Though I wish my superiors had seen fit to construct it just a bit closer, there's now no getting around it."
A red line appeared that streaked, curved and segmented itself on its path through New Palermo's northwestern suburbs. "We need to transport our assets here at Coliseum-1 to the starport. We have enough freighters to ship all of this off-world, including our facility staff. We would have had the ships meet us outside our perimeter were it not for the crowds or even land inside if we had the docks. We don't, and we cannot risk civilian additions. At this stage that's too much of a linchpin due to the organized criminality on the part of the rioters."
"They're more like militia now." Gage corrected. "Anything less would be a costly understatement."
"Right. As of the moment, there are crowds gathering in these areas where the route passes through as well as outside the starport on the western outskirts. They've been anticipating when we might be leaving this place. Considering what you saw on your way here I'm sure you can't doubt that they'll be waiting for us along these highways. That probability is why we'll need you. You'll station your AMADDS along key overwatch positions on the route that we've identified as having the greatest chances of encountering hostility."
Four distinct spots of green flashed into place at different points beside the route.
"We need you to provide our convoys with support should any issues arise. These convoys have to reach that starport. Under no circumstance can you allow them to be stopped or prevented from getting there. Too much stock is invested in what they're carrying to so much as risk a delay. Is anything unclear, gentlemen?"
Gonzo shook his head. "Seems straightforward. I've got enough sharpshooters to cover two of those positions at ranges of 400 meters. That should do the trick of spotting anyone suspicious before they get too close. What about you, Stew?"
Stewards didn't react to the personal jab. He looked too preoccupied with something worrying. It showed as he stared at the downtown area. "I'm also assuming when you say 'militia' you mean that they're armed. That's been made abundantly clear judging by what you've said they've done to your officers. Have you experienced any level of highly organized resistance?"
"We have." Gage grimly admitted. "I've got enough casualty lists to prove it. They're desperate. To add to the chaos, there've been reports of members of the rogue NPPD SWAT teams leading raids on shopping malls and the more affluent neighborhoods. There's a serious probability that they'll see this as their final chance to get a ride off Kroedis before..."
"Before the Covenant show up." Stewards concluded with a sigh. "That's a dilemma if ever there was one. I would be pretty desperate too if I knew this was my last chance to escape a glassing. What do you think, Gon?"
Gonzo quietly caught on to what he was actually saying and, despite the simmered enmity between the two, seamlessly joined in. "Yeah, that definitely is a problem. I'd bet 500 cred on us facing insurgency conditions right off the bat. Roadside IEDs, car bombs, hidden machine gun nests, the works."
"Depending on how organized they are we might not make it out of this in one piece." Stewards' sharp eyes locked predatorily onto Henderson. "Which is why we'll need an additional incentive."
Henderson stiffened. "You mean extra assurance of your pay? I assure you we have no intention of disenfranchising a long-standing business partner such as yourselves-"
Steward's intense glare narrowed on the manager. "You know that's not what I meant."
Henderson swallowed hard. Taking in deeper breaths than before, he looked to the floor, the ceiling, at the other AMADDS and to the confused Chief of Police, anywhere except the captain's expectant gaze. Finishing his bout of nerves, he settled into a resigned answer. "It's not exactly been easy to pay you since your Molnar account was frozen indefinitely. However, we do have our means. How much more payment do you need?"
Stewards smirked victoriously. "I want 50 of your fusion cores."
Not only did Henderson and Gage wince at his reply but also Gonzo. The other captain gradually slipped into a state of silent, disappointed understanding.
"W-, we don't..."
"You don't?"
"We don't have access to them at the moment."
Stewards' smirk fell to a displeased smile bordering on a frown. "What do you mean?"
Henderson took another deep breath to summon the courage he needed to reach out to the holograph. He zoomed it in to a different part of the city; the southern outskirts. He zoomed in again to show an area in the plateau barrier where there were multiple cracks. These cracks were chasms that snaked from the outer plains of New Palermo well into the rocky terrain. A road led across the incline of the dusty plains there into the mouth of one of the chasms. He highlighted it in green then did the same to a point someways into the selected chasm.
"Our deuterium is always kept at a safe off-site storage facility here. The only problem is that we lost contact with it last week. The location was overrun by civilians looking to loot it for resources. We presume they've either kidnapped or murdered the staff there. We lost communications with them shortly after they laid siege to it. If you go there...there's no solid guarantee you'll find anything other than an empty station. Can I ask you why you even want these cores?"
"Private reasons. Let's just say we need resources of our own. In that regard we're not so different from the looters, except more organized."
"Militia." Gage corrected from the sidelines. "They've earned the designation in my most honest opinion."
"And I do value honesty." Stewards turned to the Chief of Police. "Which is why I want your personal opinion on this. Do you think we can get there without getting torn up?"
Gage briefly considered it. He pointed to an area of the southwestern suburbs that converged with the skyscrapers of the downtown. "Depends. I don't know for sure but your best bet would be to avoid that area there. Its official name is Cascade but we at the NPPD call it Selumbria, fancy talk for the slum that it is. It was a hotbed for crime well ahead of the situation we're facing now. I don't doubt it'd be even worse if you went there today."
"What would you recommend?" Gonzo asked.
Gage reached over and traced a gentle path from Coliseum-1 that, at its midpoint, arced outward into the urban jungle of the southeastern downtown area. "The safer bet would be to avoid it completely by heading south over Ancona, this northern suburb region here, then dipping into downtown. Notice I didn't say it's the 'safest' option. Not by any means. Next to Selumbria, the militia are nearly as concentrated there since that's where all the major supermarkets and stores are. You'll only want to stay in there for as long as it takes to get around that nastier place. Then you'll continue on to Trapani, that suburb there to the south, then on to the road that leads to that facility."
"Not the safest option." Stewards surmised. "But the fastest one, right?"
Gage nodded. "You can use a couple of the highways there to get through. It's easier than having to use the other boulevards but it'll put you in a number of vulnerable positions. To be frank, I can't guarantee you'll make it back in one piece, or at all."
Listening in on the conversation, some of the AMADDS were getting quietly unsettled by the things being said. There were a few nervous glances, uncomfortable fidgeting and uncertain whispers. Weeks of running with this particular crowd taught Duncan that the best way to measure the tension was to start at the high-end of the spectrum. He peeked over at Al. The kid had a tendency of betraying how he felt more openly than anyone else, which gave a good idea of what the rest of the platoon was thinking. His eyes were pinned to the floor, jaw clenched in a look that couldn't be described as anything other than pure dread. That settled it. The best Duncan could hope for was that he didn't look the same way.
Stewards' face didn't betray anything other than an unhealthy amount of amusement at the prospect of facing complete annihilation. "You really think they're that capable?"
"Of the 500 officers I started off with in the station I personally oversee, I'm only able to account for 32 who haven't been killed, wounded, missing or executed outside these walls by thugs demanding we grant them entry." Gage replied. "My department was the luckiest by the way. Take that as you will."
Stewards exhaled. "Note taken. Point made." He reexamined the city. "We can't risk having either of our dropships running support for us. That'll be too much collateral. Same thing applies to flying there. We'll have to be conservative with our fuel. We'll only call in for exfil once we've confirmed the cores are there. It'll have to be fast."
Gonzo stepped in. "Are you really concerned about collateral when we're facing 8-million dead men walking?"
The air of the conversation shifted the moment he'd said it. Incidentally, the heaviest dilemma that had hung over the meeting was laid down on the tactical planner right beside the city. Henderson glanced away in private shame and Gage's eyes narrowed reproachfully. Neither said anything.
"What? We'd only be starting what the Covenant are coming to finish. I don't see the harm at this point."
Stewards turned to give him a knowing look.
Gonzo shrugged it off. "To us anyway."
"We're not going to kill any more than we need to." Stewards said as if reminding himself of another's words. He leaned on the planner to look it over once more, thinking hard on it. Then he looked to Gage. "Do you think we can get your assistance on this? I doubt we'll be able to pilot ourselves around these neighborhoods while taking flak like you say. You know this place like the back of your hand, don't you?"
"...I do."
"Care to offer your services to ours?" Stewards held a mild grin. "You can name a price and we'll split it for you."
Gage shook his head. "No. No bribes. Except...I want to find someone who might be in that area before we go...to see if I can bring them with us. That's my price."
Stewards raised a brow. No questions came of the topic. "I'll gladly pay it if you can be our tour guide."
Gage nodded. "It's a deal." He offered his hand and the captain shook it welcomingly.
A disgruntled cough returned their attention to the individual who was their uniting reason for being there. Having been left out of the conversation, Henderson seemed troubled by the agreement that had been struck without his personal input. "Aren't you forgetting something? I still need you to protect the company's assets. That's what I'm paying you for. How do you plan to get this extra payment when you're dealing with a separate matter already?"
"We'll split up." Stewards replied without skipping a beat. "Since I was the one who asked, I'll be taking my platoon to the storage facility. Gonzo, I'll need you to handle the main mission."
"I'm not following any orders from you, captain." Gonzo proudly declared. "That said, I'm deciding to have Gator take care of the ride to the starport. But I'll need two of your shooters."
Stewards smiled at his comrade's attempt to remain in authority before his men. "Deal. How about you, Gage?"
"My officers can provide the supplementary support you need to get to the starport. I'll leave them under the supervision of one of my lieutenants who can lead Captain Gonzo to where he needs to be. Meanwhile, I'll take 6 of my guys to help lead you to the chasm."
"Sounds good. How about it, Henderson?"
Henderson marveled at the suddenness with which the captain of Gypsy platoon could make deals and hammer a solid plan together. "Fine." He conceded. "That's fine. We'll be commencing the departure of our assets at 1520 Hours. By 1720, we'll be leaving Kroedis II en masse. Do you think you can make that time-frame?"
Stewards looked over his shoulder at the range of expressions on the faces of Gypsy personnel. "It's no issue for us. We have our own means of getting out of here. I'm sure we'll be fine. Oh, and one more thing."
"Yes?"
"We're going to need Hogs, some of your trailers and some body bags."
"Body bags? Are you certain you're planning on surviving this, captain?"
"Don't worry." Stewards assured as he turned to face the strategic manager with his infamously casual smile. "It's not for us."
Praeparatio - Preparation