"Guys, we got a corvette assaulting the base, it's broken through the inner defences!" The radio buzzed as we dropped into a war-torn courtyard, I looked pointedly at Katya who, who nodded and poked her head over the small barrier, spying covenant and UNSC dead litter the yard.
Ollie lifted off, the Winter's engines spooling as my feet hit the deck and I rolled into a crouch.
"I'll block the lane, Maddie. Nothing else will get through, I swear." He said, moving away.
"You better, Ollie." I said, killing the connection. "Sword-actual, I need a sitrep."
The base Sword Control connected to my uplink. "Ma'am, Sword Base is in disarray. SPARTAN team Noble are returning to the base, having secured the outer perimeter. Due to the sensitive nature of this facility, use of orbital support is a definite no-go. Current defences are sufficient, at ONI's request Noble team's intervention and the deployment of marines from the UNSC Grafton are helping to secure Sword Base. I understand that you are on an asset recovery op but Sword cannot provide you its resources if it is not held. While the covenant has overrun the outer defences and is funnelling troops into the base, our forces have re-established communications with HIGHCOM and retaken the AA gun to the south. I have a memorandum from ATLAS if you wish to see it?"
I glanced at Katya, who frowned.
"Tuk, parse this file for me, we need to get moving. Control, where are we needed?"
"Noble team are currently regrouping at the atrium but the way from your location is blocked by a hunter pair."
I swallowed. Hunters sent shivers up my spine as I thought back to that night in Constantium. I tried to shake the memory loose but it wouldn't budge, even as my breathing began to quicken.
"The atrium it is, then. We need to head there. What do we have in the area, armour, troop numbers, anything we could use to tip the fight in our favour?" Katya said, looking at me with understanding.
Tuk's voice echoed in my head, "nothing, Madeleine, although Noble Six and Noble Two are en route."
"That'll have to do." I croaked, finding my words again.
"The memorandum is vague, Harper, it essentially says to only recruit candidates for ARC DREAM from the science staff here at Sword. Apparently, all materials classified, valuable or incarcerated are to remain with Sword Base until they can be extracted by ONI recovery units."
Parangosky was meddling again, it was her not-so-subtle reminder that I was wrong to keep myself attached to the past. She had to have known that I might take a look in the cells for something of value and she was more than right to worry. I learned from her not to throw an asset away before it had expended its total value.
"Alright, Viper, let's move." I said, directing them forward with a swift swipe of my hand.
Jack took the lead, followed by me and Katya. There had clearly been a fight recently, fresh blood, human and alien, coated the walls and railings that we passed by.
"Head up the middle, I'll take the walkway."
"Aye, Ma'am" Jack said, pausing as I jogged up the ramp and checked ahead of us.
I rested the barrel of the SMG on the side railing and sighed. "Spotted two squads, mostly Jackals."
"Status?"
"Engaged, let's get closer, we can take 'em by surprise."
"WILCO"
I crouched and shuffled forward until I was reasonably close to the far end of the courtyard. From here, I could see a pair of SPARTANs blasting their way uphill, taking on several elites that were clearly survivors of a couple squads they'd wiped out.
"That's Noble Six and Two, I'm in position. Ready when you are."
Katya whispered: "on you, Captain"
I sighted a grunt and slotted a bullet home, the body fell limply as Viper joined the fray. Jack and Kat erupted from cover, suppressing the Jackals and slicing several apart before they could react.
"Be advised Noble, friendlies on your nine" I said, targeting an Elite minor, its shields struggling to cope as I slammed round after round into its back.
"Confirmed, Viper, is that you?" Bee asked, charging into an elite foolish enough to turn its back on him. Bee tackled him, drawing and slamming a knife into its neck in one incredible move.
"It's me, keep up the pressure!"
"Captain, move up, we'll cover you!" Jack said, spinning out of cover and spattering
I didn't argue, moving forward at a crouch I ran along the walkway. Two grunts tried running from the battle in my direction. They panicked when they saw me, crouched and poised to strike. With venomous accuracy I let two decisive bursts fly from my weapon, felling them both like weeds before moving to reload. By the time I'd repositioned, the fight was over. I unleashed another salvo into the back of the last surviving elite, destroying its shields so that Cat could finish off the last elite with a single shot from her magnum.
"Hunter's inside" she noted, looking at Katya and Jack, "can you two handle that?"
Katya was unimpressed and took the comment as a gibe. I could almost imagine the narrowing of her eyes under her helmet and I chuckled to myself as I walked down to them, reloading my SMG as I descended the ramp.
"They can handle themselves just fine. What's the situation?"
"We need to clear the base and regroup with the rest of the team," Bee said, looking down the drive and into the garage. "Better deal with those hunter's first, though."
I nodded.
"Let's go," Cat said, taking off at a jog.
Bee and Cat jumped right into the fray but I paused, forcing myself to remember that I wasn't a SPARTAN. "Okay Viper, skirt the edges, take out the support. When the covvie's are dead, pick at them and distract them. Give Noble an opening."
"Be advised, friendlies on our right!" Said a trooper, noticing our support.
Jack nodded, following me as I moved to the left, taking a knee and launching a grenade into a room filled with grunts. The explosion flushed several out, making them easy prey for the troopers who were boxed in on the far side of the garage, their AR's sawing through them as they scrambled around like pigs slipping in the mud. Needles clattered into the concrete pillars that we were hiding behind, the pink shards burning my exposed hands as the grunts began to realise where the threat truly lay. A trooper slid beside me and knocked a shot off target. I cursed and scoped in, the second slamming home with a satisfying blast.
"Troopers, this is Viper. Let's hold the line." Katya said, her AR rattling as it picked at the shields of the last surviving Elite. I tracked her fire, using my SMG to take out the Elite as it was made vulnerable.
The hunters wailed as the platoon of troopers, the two SPARTANs, and Viper picked at them from all sides. We watched in awe as Cat and Bee charged them, Bee slid under the blow of the nearest hunter and spun around onto one knee. Raising his shotgun, he put two slugs in the creature's exposed legs and rolled to duck the blow of the second hunter, who swung its armoured fist violently at him. This pattern continued for what felt like hours as we slowly skirted the small motor pool and reached cover to the left of a Gauss hog, its cannon drooping sadly as it leaked hydraulic fluid over the floor.
While grounded, Cat pounced, jamming her magnum into its mouth and firing until it lay dead. The other hunter stopped mid swing to scream out for its fallen pair, its rage saved Bee, who threw himself backwards. Cat rolled off of the hunter and levelled the magnum at the exposed hunter's back, firing a single round straight through the creature's spinal cord, killing it dead before its hulking frame could slump to the floor with a thunk in front of Bee.
"We clear?" asked a young corporal as she tentatively emerged from beyond the husk of a destroyed warthog.
"We're clear," Cat said, helping Bee to his feet. "Well done, Lieutenant."
He simply nodded as the troopers cantered over.
"Jesus." one of them muttered, looking at the work of the SPARTANs.
I smiled beneath my helmet, it really had been something to see. I'd barely broken a sweat and had barely reacted at the sight of these monsters again. The Corporal removed her helmet and grinned at us as she approached.
"Sorry, Ma'am." She said, panting, "Lance Corporal Brackett."
"Are you in charge?" I asked, checking my pouches for ammunition.
"Yeah, we're about a platoon in strength. We're all that's left of the 50th. Do you know why the orbital cannons aren't firing? Seems like that corvette is moving off to me."
"It's an ONI facility, lots of stuff here we don't wanna damage" Jack said, shrugging.
"It's a bit late for that, don't you think?" Brackett chuckled, "We lost a lot of guys trying to hold position near the AA guns. Retaking the defences was hardly the problem with the SPARTANs, but we took a precision strike to the fibre optic cabling that links the arrays at SWORD to HIGHCOM. We don't have the numbers or training to man the old positions and hold off this kind of assault."
"Tell me you have something we can do to fix it?"
"Well Noble team retook it, unless you can bring in reinforcements, we're kinda stuck here."
"And with HIGHCOM out of contact…"
"we're not gonna be able to reinforce," Jack said, finishing the sentence. "Need to sort that corvette out, ASAP."
I nodded.
"We can hold this position, Ma'am. We can keep the covenant from getting in behind you. Thanks for the assist." Brackett said, saluting.
I nodded and bid them good luck, joining Viper and Noble by the elevator. I looked up and saw the ONI insignia emblazoned above the lift entrance and found it a little funny that a secret base had a sign on the front door. Katya stood by me and removed her helmet, adjusting her hair before shooting me a look that said she needed to ask me something. I nodded and she donned the helmet again as the lift slowed to a halt. The doors to the security office slid open and plasma streaked into the lift cabin.
"Take cover!" Jack yelled, firing a burst from his AR.
Cat and Bee ran inside and engaged, their precision was terrifying as they swept through the room in what felt like seconds. We stepped into the security screening area after them, looking at the smashed glass and destroyed furniture. It was strange to see it this way, I remembered Sword Base well from my extreme cold training here. It had been pristine, then. Now it was in ruins: the white walls were charred black, the security glass shattered over the floor, partially melted into puddles by stray plasma.
Sword Base's Automated PA was still active, though and it initiated its standard greeting to us as we walked forward down the hall. "WELCOME TO THE OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE. AN ONI REPRESENTATIVE WILL MEET YOU SHORTLY."
"I doubt that very much." Cat said, looking at myself and Katya.
"THANK YOU, LIEUTENANT. YOU HAVE BEEN CLEARED FOR ACCESS."
"Someone has special access" Cat noted, her helmet turning to Bee as they took point, separating from us slightly.
We followed at a distance, the gap growing until we were out of earshot.
"What was it, Katya?"
She paused, probably eyeing the SPARTANs.
"I had an idea…" she seemed a little unsure, "if we go to the roof, we can splice Tukmen'tukhan directly into the Base's SATLINK. We would have complete access to the Base's inventory, mission reports, personnel… inmates."
I considered it for a moment. It was very illegal but it didn't explicitly disobey the memorandum served to me by Parangosky. I bit my lip and nodded, "We stick with noble, then. If they're defending the base, they'll need to go up there to clear out those banshee's warding off our broadswords."
Kat and Bee soon moved into a multi-level room, where Noble One, Three, and Five were engaging Covenant troops.
"Hold it! Everybody, move up!" Jorge yelled, his gatling gun clattering as it burned through the covenant.
Carter, crouched behind a statue, looked up at us as we entered the atrium. I kept us back, away from the fighting where necessary, "Six, head upstairs and assist Emile. Jorge, make sure he gets there."
"Depend on it."
From behind cover, we watched as they began to push. We aided them, providing g covering fire as they moved right, towards the bases administration centre. Katya followed, waiting behind the wall until we could get close, then unleash hell, her rounds giving an Elite pause enough for us to take advantage and dash to her position, feet pounding against the once beautiful marble white flooring.
Noble team carved the covenant apart to the point that we felt surplus to requirement. I'd seen SPARTANs in action before but they'd always been fighting insurmountable odds. From the slopes of Mt Sundial to the plains of Ballast, I'd never seen SPARTANs like this.
"Jesus, it's like the covenant isn't even here" Jack said, stepping over a jackal with a chunk missing from its neck.
Once, that might have affected me, stuck itself in my head. I'd now seen enough violence to fill the lifetimes of ten thousand humans living just one hundred years ago and I'd only been fighting for six years.
"The SPARTANs are husks" Katya noted, kicking an Elite to check it was dead, "every time I see one… I just see a child that ONI hollowed out."
"They're victims too, Kat" I replied, watching as Noble team began to support each other across the exposed bridge.
Jorge waved us over. "Your turn, spooks." He said, stepping out with the gatling gun and laying down a blanket of fire.
Crossing the bridge was as simple as a mad dash to the other side, moving from SPARTAN to SPARTAN as though they were portable shields.
The far side of the building lay facing the covenant assault. It showed. The power was out here and the place was dark and filled with sparking power outlets and disassembled wall panelling smashed and scattered over the floors.
Again, Jorge and Bee took point, making their way upstairs, engaging Covenant forces as they went, with us left behind to mop up any stragglers.
Sword Control echoed over the microphone: "Corvette's gonna eat this base apart. What's the situation, Noble?"
I heard a grunt followed by Emile's slightly anguished voice, "Can't do this on my own! Need another Spartan up here!"
"Six, get to the top floor and assist Emile"
Bee broke into a run and we had to pick up the pace, the three of us were kept at the back, jogging beyond the layers of fresh dead that covered the ground. Nothing could stop Noble as they broke through a final set of defences, held by an Elite and two grunts. The top floor was in ruins from an explosion, blackened walls lurched and groaned from structural damage and fires burned in the electrical junction boxes that once powered the light scattered about the floor.
"Commander, this base won't survive another salvo from that corvette. Kill those Banshees!" Control yelled, their voice growing noticeably desperate.
"Upstairs, Lieutenant. We need those Longswords in the air." Carter replied, his tone as cool as running water.
Bee dashed through a doorway to the top floor, where there a massive hole in the building explained the sheer enormity of the damage done to the upper floors. As we thundered out behind them, Bee and the rest of Noble Team were butchering a group of spec ops elites who had dared to emerge from cover. High above us, the Covenant corvette held its position just outside of gun battery range, hanging there like a monkey in a zoo, taunting us.
"About time." Emile huffed, "The spooks hold you up?"
Nobles Four, Five, Six, and what remained of the 50th Army Engineer's, engaged several Banshees, and a Phantom, which drops off a pair of Sangheili.
Emile called it before I could: "Noble Six, watch down low."
Jack tapped my shoulder, "look, up there."
I looked up and spotted the comms relay, "good find Jack. Katya, go with him, I'll keep you covered."
The pair nodded and began the slow climb onto the roof as I found myself a rocket launcher and took a knee, grinning as Bee sliced the Sangheili pair apart with his knife.
"Are you havin' fun yet?" Emile said, firing a rocket, unguided into a banshee from a click and a half.
"Hell yeah!" I yelled, watching as my own shoulder jumped and a rocket careened out into the sky, tracking a banshee that tried to escape until it ran out of space to manoeuvre. The rocket slammed home and a trooper whooped nearby.
"Viper style!"
I winced.
Am I that recognizable?
The Covenant air and ground troops were soon eliminated, their fuselage's splashing into the lake and crunching onto the tarmac at the airstrip.
Emile was grinning through his helmet as he spoke, "Yeah, clear. That's the way we get it done, Spartan! Clear."
I stood up, handing the tube to the nearby trooper, "Can't believe you're the actual Viper" he said, grinning at me like a panting dog.
"That's me" I sighed, "you part of the 50th?"
"Yeah! Just wished all you Harper's were the same, ma'am, woulda saved us a hella load of trouble."
I blinked, "excuse me?"
He was about to open his mouth when Sword Control sounded in my helmet feed, "Noble Team, Longswords are inbound and ready to push. Orbital defence is standing by to take the shot."
I turned instinctively and watched in awe as two Longswords and the Winter flew towards the corvette, which was attempting to flee. Noble Six, and I watched as the trio tracked the corvette for a distance, before soon breaking off as a MAC round suddenly slammed into the corvette from above. Its engines flickered, and its hull groaned as it lost altitude. Slowly it sank in the sky until it began to creak and crash into the lake below. I turned when, in the corner of my vision, Jorge emerged from the shadows, approaching Bee.
"Beautiful, ain't it? Someone should take a picture." he said, chuckling to himself.
The corvette began to sink slowly into the lake, the bough already grinding against the lakebed as the aft followed it to its doom.
"Nice work, by the way." Jorge added.
Bee looked to me, and I gave him a 'this is your chance to ingratiate yourself' kind of a stare.
"I aim to please." he said, nodding at me.
I tried to return my attention to the Engineer but he was halfway out of sight when Carter radioed in.
"Five, Six... Get down to the science wing. Doctor Halsey wants a debrief, and Command's saying we're all hers." he said, a hint of trepidation in his voice.
Jorge recoiled, as if to frown with his shoulders, "Repeat? Sounded like you said 'Halsey'."
"I did."
"Copy that, on our way. Don't need Command to tell me... Been all hers half me life."
Jorge, Emile and Bee began to walk away. The corvette is shown in the background sinking into the lake.
"Sounds like a party." Jack said over the radio. "You wanna join them? Might keep people out of our hair, Kid."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna pass up an opportunity to meet Catherine Halsey, either." I replied, turning to follow them.
"Keep in touch," Katya said, her voice harsh and her tone short as she focused on splicing into the relay.
I soon arrived at the science wing, where Carter was already engaged in a frigid conversation with Dr. Halsey, who stood brazenly behind a glass screen, squaring up to the SPARTAN as though he was a child in need of discipline.
"I requested your assistance, Commander, and do not need a report on events that occur on my own doorstep. What I do require is a detailed account of your previous engagement—"
She paused mid-sentence, noticing Jorge as he entered the room. I had thought it was because the man was hard to miss, he was a giant tank of a man, clad in armour so large I couldn't believe he was carrying it on his body's strength alone. The way Halsey regarded him, though… It gave me enough reason to pause. She seemed taken in by him, as though he was a long lost relative that she'd reunited with.
"Jorge. It's been too long." she said, dropping her line of thought.
"Ma'am." He said, his tone soft and respectful.
"What have you done with my armour?" She replied, her eyes narrowing like a slighted mother.
I wasn't expecting this… I wonder what it is that makes her hate the SPARTAN IIIs so much.
Jorge looked at his armour, his face turned red as he did so and Bee looked at him as if he couldn't understand what was going on.
"Just some... additions I've made" he squirmed like a child before her.
What on earth is going on?
"Indeed. Visegrád Relay. Its data centre was home to one of my xeno-archaeologists, Professor Laszlo Sorvad. Perhaps you could shed some light on his death."
Now my attention was really piqued. Forget SPARTANs with mummy issues, the Professors research was far more intriguing. Perhaps the wayward lost daughter was known to Halsey, or maybe she'd had her scratched off, whatever she knew was as valuable as gold dust to me at that moment.
"If he was a civilian male in his mid-sixties, he died with a Covenant Energy Sword through his abdomen."
"Elites, then."
Jorge jumped at the chance to elaborate, "They engaged us as well. It was just, uh... just after we found your scientist's daughter, ma'am. She was hiding in the, uh-"
"Irrelevant. The Elites. Tell me more about them."
"Three. Zealot class. One got by us. The leader, from the looks of him."
"Zealots? You're certain?"
"Their armour configuration matched."
"Shield strength, too." Bee said with a disinterested shrug. I liked seeing him here, he seemed relaxed in a way that I had never seen before.
"I gave the order not to pursue. Our primary objective was to get the station's relay back online." Carter said, seeing the stony look on Halsey's face.
"Your primary objective? Commander, are you a puppet or a Spartan?"
Emile and Jun looked up at Dr. Halsey and I felt the air in the room become a little bit tense.
"Ma'am?"
"There are those at ONI, myself included, who believe the Covenant dispatch Elite advance teams to hunt down artifacts of value to their religion. Survivor accounts suggest such teams are small, nimble, and almost always Zealot-class. No doubt they came to the station for the abundance of ONI excavation data stored there... And you let them get away." she glared at them, letting the words hang in the air like poison gas.
Carter bit his lip, then stepped forward a little. " Data retrieval was not a command directive. Even had we known, we had other, more urgent matters to attend to."
"Like warning the planet." Cat couldn't quite seem to believe what she was hearing. I knew better, though. In ONI, it was this kind of attitude that sent your career into the stratosphere.
"Professor Sorvad's final entry in his field notes made reference to 'a latchkey discovery'. Latchkey... Not a word he would use lightly. So, let's hope that the data module your Lieutenant Commander stole... contains it."
"Kat?" Carter asked, turning sharply to face his FO. His expression was murderous and I grinned slightly as Emile's faceplate met my eyes.
"Before you ask, I was alerted the moment you attempted to access its contents, as I am with any unauthorised tap."
Kat sheepishly walked over to the door and placed the module in a container in the shield door.
"That data is classified Tier One... I could send you to the brig for interfering with my work."
She said this as she pulled the container towards her side of the shield door and retrieved the module, her eyes narrowing as Carter squared up to her.
"Maybe you'd like to join her."
"...I'm sorry?"
"We're currently under emergency planetary directive, WINTER CONTINGENCY. I'm sure you're familiar with the punishment for civilian interference with a Spartan deployment."
"Are you threatening me, Commander?"
"Just making a reading suggestion, ma'am."
Carter and Kat started to leave, while Halsey begins to examine the module. I watched curiously as Jorge looked between Carter and Halsey like a kid looked at each of their parents after the divorce proceedings, his eyes soft and his posture torn between the two of them as they both ignored him.
"Ma'am?" he asked, at last.
"That... will be all, Jorge."
I waited until they left, watching as Halsey turned the module over in her hands.
"I heard that you were here." She said, slipping it into her pocket, "I must say that I'm surprised that it took us so long to meet."
I blinked, "You know who I am?"
She looked at me as though she did, her eyes seemed to pick out the irregularities of my features like a hypercritical painter.
"There was supposed to be a second generation of SPARTANs. Well, my SPARTANs. I had selected you personally. Each new SPARTAN was to come from somewhere specific, somewhere I needed influence. For you, it was your lineage, your access, and your grandfather."
"I…" I swallowed, "You tore families apart. I've seen what that does to people, your SPARTANs are stunted child soldiers."
"My SPARTANs are useful. My SPARTANs can operate on their own, can redefine mission parameters at will, and have been nurtured to perform the most dangerous tasks a human can be asked to do. You would have made a fine SPARTAN but Parangosky and ONI said my work was barbaric. Only… only to greenlight a third generation of SPARTANs designed to die. Tell me, as her little attack dog, do you think about that when you angrily rage about the way the two's were deprived of their choice? Emile's parents were killed in front of him by a brute, Parangosky then offered the boy a 'choice' to join her program and get revenge or live as an orphan refugee. What kind of choice is that?"
I couldn't answer. She wasn't wrong.
"I see through you like this shield wall" she said, tapping the door. It rippled with energy in the dull glow of the room, washing over the walls like water on a beach. "I suppose that you might have many things to say to me."
"I did, once." I confessed, "I saw the death of my friend Nicola and I saw Naomi and I felt awful, seeing their lives cut short. Having had them denied their chance to make a choice. I thought that you were a monster."
"I am a monster, Madeleine. You're a monster, too. You're just Parangosky's monster."
"She was good to me" I said, sharply, "she empowered me when no one else was left to help."
"She isolated and manipulated you" she snorted, "you have and always will be a stupid little girl in her eyes. You danced to every song she played, wandered into every web she spun for you and let you blame everyone and everything but her for your problems."
I glared at her, my fists bunched.
"She's not like that, she-"
"Oh, don't be so naive, Madeleine!" she laughed, "honestly… had you been raised as part of my second class of SPARTAN you would have retained the independence you so desperately crave. You've been moulded into a follower and a sheep. It's a shame…" she said, turning away from me.
"Hey, get back here!" I said, growling into the shield wall.
"For what it's worth… you could have been so much more."
