Location: Unknown. May 15, 2525.
The room was dark with only five lights shining on 5 shadowy people who sat on wooden chairs. A sixth character light up the room with her own light. Both her and the chair she sat in were holograms. A suitable fit for an Ai. The room itself was like a faraday cage, much a room on ONI's stealth cruisers. Nothing outside could get in, and nothing could get out, other than the AI sitting in the room.
No one had any identifying markings other then the numbers in front of them. Numbered from 1 to 6, with 6 being for the AI.
"So, now that we are all aware of the current crisis, I think this would be a good time to prepare for our plans," one said, his voice hidden by an electronic cadence. It made it hard to see if the speaker was male or female.
"Which plan is this?" the AI asked. "We have many plans in place,"
"Takeover," one said earthing a sharp intake of breath from the others. "To be specific the Human Empire project,"
Heads didn't move, but people's eyes did. "That is an ambitious project," two said as they leaned back. "It would require a lot of resources,"
"Which we can take from the UNSC during this war," three said as they leaned forward with chin on hand. "We can also 'lose' people during the war," the implied implication was hard to miss.
The others nodded as they considered the proposal. "That will take time, people and resources. But I think we can make it happen," four said. "There are colonies on the outer fringes where we can get things started. They are lightly defended and we can place loyal people there,"
Over the next hour, plans and projects were made before the lights turned off and no one saw the people leave. At that moment, the Empire was created. The Empire of Humanity.
OOOOO Present day.
"MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" Parisa yelled as she, Cortana and her bodyguards entered the main hive base and targeted the Empire troopers.
Quick bursts of fire ended them allowing the team to move forward, letting more Federation troopers inside. Cortana then took one of the bodyguards with her while Parisa and her other bodyguards followed her in clearing out the HIVE base. The former AI made her way to the control room and broke down the door. As she entered, she fired two rounds at the wall frightening the civilians inside the room.
"Wall, now," she said.
The two followed her orders as quickly as possible and were covered by the bodyguard. After placing their hands on the wall, Cortana sat down at the terminal and began to work as quickly as possible. Parisa moved up several floors keeping her eyes open for any targets or people getting up. That was her worst fear at the moment. Hitting someone who came out of one of the pods would be very problematic, especially if it was someone like Miranda Keyes.
As she, and the other ODST's, moved up each floor clearing it. The HIVE only seemed to have a basic guard force. Likely because the Empire didn't see in expending resources in placing an elite force in one of their most secure instillations in their territory. Why use an elite force to guard a highly secure base when they could be used elsewhere?
Keeping her battle rifle up, Parisa moved up to the 10th floor and looked around. It seemed that this floor was clear of Imperial troops. Lowering her rifle, but still at the ready, she walked along the section, she noticed that a few of the pods were open. That made her pause. As she and the others moved up the levels, they didn't see any pods open. So, either this level was special or something else was going on. Moving to one of the pods, she looked inside them to see of there was any indication of who was inside.
Other than some kind of gel, there was little indication. But there was a trail that led to the edge of the level. A large central pillar dominated the inside of HIVE with a large gap between the level floors and the pillar itself. Parisa looked down the gap before pulling back and looking around.
"Is anyone here?" she called out.
No one answered her, but she did see some movement at the other side of the platform. Keeping her rifle at the ready she moved over to the other side. Keeping her ears open, she moved slowly until a nude woman stepped out and pointed a pistol at her. Inwardly Parisa smiled as she had found her target. Slowly she moved her rifle from her trigger finger and held it out to the side in her left hand.
"Easy, I'm not your enemy," she said.
"Who are you? Where am I? what the fuck is going on?" the woman asked.
"I am Parisa, President of the Martain Federation. We are here to get you out," Parisa replied, keeping her voice clam, level and reassuring.
Another woman, also nude and lacking hair, appeared behind the one holding the pistol. Parisa blinked at the woman's face before realising that this was the person Cortana was talking about.
"Miranda, it's ok," the other nude woman said. "She's here to help. After all, she's here with my sister,"
OOOOO
Kelly walked into the demonstration room trying to make herself vanish by taking a seat. The room was populated with three types of people. Board members, Generals and shareholders all mingled with each other. Talks echoed in Kelly's ears about dinner parties, current operations marriages, births and more. She tuned it all out as a waitress walked up and offered her a glass of wine. Refusing the alcoholic beverage, she took a glass of water that was there instead.
She took a sip waiting for the demonstration and meeting to start. Despite dealing with the bigwigs of the military and corporate world she enjoyed the RnD department of Misriah. The chats, the ideas, developments, testing everything provided her with what she wanted now. The world of fieldwork was far behind her, now she could use her time being as creative as she wanted to be.
Leaning back, she waited for the head of RnD, Walter Beck, walk in followed by a group of guards pushing in two large boxes covered by a sheet.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if you will take your seats, please," he said as Kelly stood.
The guests quickly took their seats. While doing so a man in a white coat came from the other side of the room. He gave Kelly an unimpressed look, but smiled when looking to the crowd. While Misriah didn't like competition between its members, when they were working for a contract then they were monitored for any kind of sabotage on the other's work. Even if the failure didn't get the contract, there would always be a use for them. PMC's and civilian sectors could always make use of them.
Kelly adjusted her suit and stood at attention letting her training kick in. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Today we are here to demonstrate two of our armour systems that our fine fellows at RnD have been working on. While we did plan to have more, unfortunately these two were the only ones to finish prototypes on time," Beck said with a charming smile. "To my right we have Alen Farr, Chief materials specialist and to my left, Kelly Spartan. Former Spartan, member of Master Chief's Blue team, and a rising star in RnD,"
There was some murmuring as Kelly bowed. But Alen shot her a nasty look. He didn't like her, but she couldn't nail the main reason why down.
"For starters, Alen will show his new armour system first," Beck said as he and Kelly stepped to the side letting Alen take centre stage.
"Ladies, Gentlemen and generals," he smiled. "Thank you for coming today and I hope to impress all of you with the V7 BDU marine combat armour," as he spoke, he pulled the sheet off of the box to show a uniform in a stand.
The uniform itself was multi-cam while the armour was black. The chest armour was segmented to look like a six pack on the wearer while a set of punches ran around the waist with a set of pouches wrapped around the thighs. Other than that, the BDU was mostly similar to the current generation of armour. The only differences were the chest armour and sections on the leg and arm armour.
"This may look like the current system in use, but is an upgraded version. The armour, for example, is made out of composite fibres and metals that can dissipate the shot of a plasma blast. The same also applies to the fatigues, but less of the metals. The armour is also equipped with new sensor equipment and produces a zero thermal signature of the wearer,"
As he spoke, the screen behind him moved tough each topic he talked about. But while there were some nods, most people weren't impressed by him. Alen was effectively offering the same produced but with upgrades. Something that could be added onto current equipment. He spent some more time talking about the materials, sound dampening, smaller radar signature that the uniform produced.
"I hope you enjoyed the presentation; I will now pass you onto my college," he smiled.
Kelly stepped forward. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think you for attending. I hope today will be informative," she smiled as she pulled off the sheet of her prototype.
Unlike Alen's, hers was a set of ODST armour minus the thigh and bicep armour. The armour was more rounded than the current standard. Small lights were dotted around the armour blinking every now and again.
"Much like my college's armour, we have the standard upgraded packages in sensor, programs, thermal dampening and other features, mine has a particular feature," she nodded to the door.
One of the guards opened up and a soldier wearing the armour stepped in.
"This is sergeant Grier of the local garrison who has volunteered for a for practical test," she said as she turned to Beck. "Sir, if you would,"
Beck nodded and activated a bulletproof shield that raised up in front of the stands. Kelly then walked over to one of the guards and took his pistol.
"Ready Sargent?" she asked and he nodded.
Raising the weapon, she fired. To the surprise of the crowd and Alen a shield popped up and deflected the bullet into a wall. After handing the weapon back to the guard she walked up to the Sargent and turned him around indicating to a glowing line at the back.
"This, is a shield generator. Similar to that which Spartans use but weaker. Protection is needed for every soldier and shields will help with this matter. But a shield is not only what this armour offers," as she spoke, she clicked a few catches on the back of the armour and removed the shield generator. "For ease of repair and replacement, the generator housing is designed to be modular. Which allows me to move to the next feature of the armour,"
She fitted the piece back into the armour before bringing a trolly out with three pieces on it. The first was similar to the shield generator, with it being curved and has several blinking lights. The second had a similar shape, but an arm on the side that looked like it could move up and down. The final item was a jump-pack. Kelly indicated to the items.
"These before you are optional modular packs that allow the wearer to outfit their armour for their mission. The shield generator is standard, but we also have an active camo generator," she indicated to the first item before moving to the second. "Auxiliary weapons mount, the standard being a three-shot grenade launcher, and a jump-pack," looking up she could see the interest with everyone. "However, due to the cost and materials in use, this would only be effective with ODST operatives. Further study is needed to see if we can get a shield generator to fit marine armour,"
There was more muttering, but that's when Beck stepped forward. "We do not expect you to take our word for it which is why we have prepared a video demonisation of both armours in a stun fire exercise," he said as she lights dimmed and the screen behind them turned to drone camera footage of a war game.
OOOOO
Kelly sat in her office typing up a report. After the presentation and demonstration, the Generals, Board members and shareholders needed to decided who should get the contracts. It was going to take a while, so she needed occupy her time with doing something. While she typed up the report her mind turned back to her old Spartan days. In way she missed and didn't miss them. Each day as a Spartan was different, exciting and blood pumping. But she liked the regularity of her new job.
It was stable, safe and provided her with a way of using her Spartan technical knowledge. Spartans, as a general rule, were a jack-of-all-trades for anything military. That included being engineers. But outside of a few, they weren't experts at it. Specialisation among the Spartans was largely individual. Kelly was an expert in hit and run thanks to her speed, Fed was the knife expert and Linda was the sniper. John, well… he was an expert in all things combat.
But now she was making new friends, learning new things and more. She enjoyed her job and it allowed her to help the Federation as a whole. Her mind was buzzing with new designs for weapon systems and other projects but she needed to clam down and focus. Taking deep breath, she pulled back and looked at her screen. Reaching round to rub the back of her neck, she moved back in to add some final words before sending it off.
With that done she moved to a file of future plans when a message came up telling to her head to Beck's office. Locking her terminal, she stood and made her way to his office which was down the hall. Alen joined her giving her a nasty look.
"Look her freak, don't be upset when they pick out my armour over yours," he said but Kelly kept it to herself.
Alen wasn't well liked in the RnD department. He had arrogance, pride and ego to match a planet. He didn't listen to be people and just focused on his own projects. The reason why he wasn't fired was because he did produce good equipment that the military and private sector could use. So, he stayed on.
Kelly, on the other hand, didn't have the same qualifications as Alen so she relied on her team. She listened to them, took their guidance and information in while adding her own feedback. She and her team worked well together and that was how they managed to get the ODST module shield armour ready.
The two entered Becks office and were told to sit. "The meeting just ended and everyone has made a decision," he said picking up a folder with a smile and looked to Kelly before handing it to her. "Congratulations,"
Kelly blinked. "M…me?" she asked as she took the folder, opening it and read the contracts.
"Her?" Alen sputtered confused.
"Her Modular ODST armour out performed your armour by 110% percent," Beck shrugged. "Granted it's the more expensive of the two, but it's the best option out of the two,"
Alen sputtered a bit more before getting up and walking out. He made his way back to his office before sending a message. A highly encrypted and vindictive message that arrived at the other side of the planet.