An Operator Named "Sierra" (Halo AU/Arknights Crossover)

[FastConcentrate8]

Captain Murai Sakamaki smiled in her chair in the New Moon's situation room.

The Spartans had completed their mission and Target Ouroboros was now in ONI custody. Right now was a simple intelligence operation down there as they were scanning the panic room for any of the information command was looking for from this guy. Going off of what SILVER-1 had just reported, it sounded like he found something. "Ma'am, are you looking at my helmet cam?"

"No, Petty Officer." She answered before giving a wordless order to one of the Ensigns in the room who opened up a live feed of the Spartan's helmet camera on the main screen. She was shocked by what she and he were looking at.

"Ma'am, this guy has schematics for two local mobile cities. Chernobog and Lungmen according to 4 and 5." Alex reported to the Prowler Captain in orbit as he looked at the schematics for the two giant machines on the desk in front of him. From her veteran experience in military intelligence, she could tell that the notes and annotations for the Chernobog diagram gave special emphasis for the city's reactor and final drives like he was planning to move the city however the Lungmen diagram seemed to be identifying routes into the city that would attract a lot less attention. This was not good, "Ma'am, found something else down here. This one's bad." Alex continued as he looked up and was handed something by SILVER-3 Clyde. Once the optic got a good view of the documents, the Captain gasped.

"Petty Officer,..." She began while regaining control of herself, "Those are schematics for a Shiva Class Strategic Nuclear Weapon and the other is the designs of Charon Class Frigate."

"Yes ma'am, I hear you." Alex said as he folded up the diagrams and placed them in his armor before turning his helmet cam off, "Me and the team are extracting as much as we can and are making for exfil."

"Copy that." The Captain confirmed as the line went cold and she sat up from the situation room to head to the bridge. Infiltration plans for a major city and a UNSC warship, nuclear schematics, research into the driving mechanism of another major city. What the hell was happening? Walking down the hallway to the bridge, she brooded on this information and hoped that today wouldn't bring about any more strange surprises. However, all hopes of that were dashed when her personal communications system beeped on and her ship's AI informed her that she had a message waiting on her secure uplink to the ONI Internal Network in her quarters.

Diverting from her course to the bridge she informed her XO to fill in for her there as she took the private message. Entering her room, she poured herself a cup of tea from the machine she kept in the room and sat down at the desk she had her secure console on. She almost spat her drink out when she accessed it. It was a personal message addressed to her and classified at the highest level she had clearance for, however it wasn't that that shocked her, it was from who and where it was addressed that did.
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FROM: RADM Parangosky, Margaret O.
UNSC Point of No Return
2 May. 2544

TO: CAPT Sakamaki, Murai
UNSC New Moon

Captain, I thank you for volunteering to be the commanding officer in charge of this mission to Terra. Capture of Target Ouroboros was a dangerous mission that I have nothing but confidence that you and the Spartans of SILVER Team would be able to accomplish. However Captain, it is also a mission that I wish to personally oversee the conclusion of.

UNSC Point of No Return will be jumping to a point in interstellar space near the system (see enclosed datapacket below for coordinates). You will deliver Ouroboros to me personally and I will provide debriefing and further orders myself to you and SILVER Team aboard.
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"Admiral on deck." Captain Sakamaki called out as she and the Spartans of SILVER Team snapped to attention and saluted in their dress whites in the hangar of UNSC Point of No Return.

The Admiral and current CINCONI returned their salutes as she approached with her guard of two ONI Operatives in ODST armor. She gave one final look over the assembled personnel before ordering, "At ease." and going up to shake Captain Sakamaki's hand. "Captain, I presume you have the package."

Captain Sakamaki smiled at that and had a look in her eye that reminded Parangosky of when she wasn't the mild mannered Prowler Captain but when she was the ruthless wetwork specialist Murai "Murder-Crow" Sakamaki. "Yes ma'am." She turned her head back towards SILVER Team. "SILVER-1, your honor."

"Yes ma'am." Alex answered before looking to the other four members of his team and gave them a silent nod. They fell out of line and marched into the back of their Pelican and came out carrying a small armored crate each with a member tending to each corner of it. Placing it down in front of their team leader and taking up position next to him, he looked the Admiral in the eye. "Admiral, presenting Target Ouroboros." He then slid it over to her with a kick.

Stopping it stamping her foot on top of the crate, she looked at the 5 Spartans and then back at the box before finally settling her eyes on them once more. "Excellent work Spartans,..." She gave them a slight smile, "I like your style." She looked to her two guards and ordered them simply, "Open it." Both responded with a simple, "Yes ma'am." One Operative crouched next to the box and undid the clamps on it while the other kept his MA5 trained on the crate. Eventually the crouching agent pushed the lid of the box off and reached in to pull a very disheveled white haired Pythia man in a ruined noble tunic out. He had a very large bruise on his face that happened to correspond to the exact size of Spartan Elizabeth's fist. He had a blindfold on and a strip of duct tape over his mouth. His arms were secured with multiple zip-ties down their entire length to a point behind his back where his hands were secured with a pair of full hand handcuffs. His legs were bound with a leg restraint that while allowing him to walk would limit him to just barely above a mosey in speed and his tail was secured to his left leg with more zip-ties to prevent him from using it.

Smirking at the sight, Parangosky ordered his new handler, "Take that tape off." The handler quickly ripped the tape off and she watched as he winced in pain from the action. "Duke Kashchey, what an honor." She said that last big with more venom than the neurotoxin that had "killed" Alex a few years back in her voice.

He seemed to smile a little before responding in a calm and polite voice, "Admiral Parangosky, to what do I owe the pleasure of an audience before the most powerful woman in the UEG?" There was evident smugness in her voice.

Betraying no emotion other than a tranquil fury, Parangosky maintained a stoic face, "I would like to remind you of the contents of our last correspondence Kashchey. I quote, I politely ask you to stop sending assassins after me. My security teams are getting board of throwing them out of airlocks. If you send one more, I will send a team of my best and will not have to send a second." She crossed her arms in front of her. "Your last one sang when we initiated Advanced Interrogation and we have him sitting in our witness protection program, for now, so I upheld my side of the letter. Your Insurrectionary activity and general obstruction to ONI were also reasons I ordered you to be brought in. Now, take him down to the brig Agent. He'll learn why this ship is called Point of No Return soon."

As he began to be dragged away by the man in ODST armor, Kashchey laughed a little. "I'm sorry Admiral, but you seem to misunderstand, I'm already free of this ship and you won't realize until it is far too late."

The ONI Operative grabbed a Humbler Stun Baton from behind his back and stuck it into the middle of the Duke's. Even on the lowest setting it caused imeasurable pain across his body and him to fall to the ground necessitating the Agent to carry him the rest of the way. "That's what they all say bub."

Looking back to the Captain and Spartans, Parangosky gestured for them to follow. "Follow me, I'll debrief you on the mission and then give you further briefing and orders in a more secure location."
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Spartan Alex-148 sat uncomfortable in the room known as Odin's Eye aboard the Point of No Return.

This room was the most secure conference room in the galaxy. Nothing comes in and nothing leaves without ONI's permission. The Faraday Cage, sound proof materials, magnetic seals, lack of obvious doors, isolated life support system, and recently installed energy shields would ensure that. The lack of any external interference or method of escape combined with the ominous dark lighting, obsidian black table, and the terrifying presence of the woman on the other side of the room put him in a mental self defense mode that while not necessary, would grant him and the other Spartans the caution that would aid them greatly here.

Said Woman, Admiral Parangosky, the Commander in Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, sat at the table in an unnervingly calm demeanor looking over the documents recovered on their last mission. She sighed after looking them over and looked at him and Captain Sakamaki next to him. "Captain, Petty Officer, I do not need to restate that Terra is one of the most volatile planets in Human Space. While nominally under UEG control, the UNSC assets on planet are about all that actually are. This combined with numerous conflicts between its component nations, the danger of the planet's natural Catastrophes, Originium itself, and the conflict between the Infected and Uninfected populations have caused it to become a haven of the Insurrection, terrorism, piracy, and illegal activity. As such, we've had to deploy a disproportionate amount of resources in order to keep a semblance of stability on the planet. And now we have this." She slapped the documents down onto the table. "Considering all we know of Kashchey, this is probably just the tip of the iceberg of an even larger conspiracy that has potential to turn an already volatile situation into an inferno. He has more than enough time on his hands to plan this sort of thing. This is where you come in." She at first looked at the Captain, "Sakamaki."

"Yes, ma'am?" The Captain responded stoically.

Parangosky leaned in on the table and clasped her hands in front of her, "You will now be serving as the local leader of a specialized ONI Task Force. It's job will be to dismantle the Duke's conspiracy here and bring its members to justice, swift military justice." She finished that harshly before continuing, "You will have full access to both your own ship, all ONI and UNSC facilities on the planet, a blank check in terms of equipment, and any personnel in the UEG you may need. Though please Captain, try to keep it reasonable. We don't have the budget to give you a NOVA Bomb every mission." The admiral tried to joke before returning to a stoic look.

"Alright ma'am, I'll start putting together a list of personnel and equipment I'll need for this." Captain Sakamaki reported as she got out her datapad to begin putting it together.

The Admiral then looked over to Alex, "Lieutenant Alex-148." She began.

Alex looked surprised at that, he wasn't a Lieutenant or even an officer. "Ma'am?" he asked.

"You heard me right Lieutenant. You have been promoted by me just now." The Admiral confirmed as she continued. "Terra is a very dangerous planet as your numbers 4 and 5 can attest to." He looked over at them who gave him conformational nods, "Things like that Emperor's Blade you killed are uncomfortably common here so for this mission to have the chance to accomplish its mission its going to need a lot more than generic Agents, its going to need ODSTs and Spartans. You'll be leading the Spartan part of the delegation. We're assembling a Spartan Strike Group at the moment. SILVER Team will form its core and it will be attached to the Captain's Task Force as its muscle."

Alex hid his shock under a stoic face, they were sending this much force for this seemingly simple mission. Wasn't that a little overkill? Well, he guessed that overkill is preferable to underestimating a threat. "Ma'am,..." He asked, "Who's going to make up this Strike Group, who's John going to send?"

Parangosky just smiled ever so slightly, "I know SILVER Team has only recently been recovered from the Slip Space Bubble of that Shield World so you're all probably still getting used to the Time Displacement, well except for you Sierra-150, but this is information that you've been recently authorized to hear by myself. The Group won't have any Spartan IIs in it other than SILVER Team. Kurt has been assigned to the development of a new program, the Spartan IIIs. He's assembling the Group of his best of the most recent class. You'll be given further briefing as information arises." Parangosky leaned back into her seat again. "Now, three final things before you are all dismissed. First, before you take them off the ship Captain, the Spartans are to report to the Point of No Return's sickbay. We have upgrade packages for their SNIs that will be needed for new armor Halsey will be sending in the next few days."

With that, the Admiral grabbed a stack of booklets from under the table and slid one to each Spartan. On their covers were the schematics for a new and very angular armor and the booklets were titled MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor: Mk. V. Alex flipped through the booklet and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Energy shields, full AI integration, modular upgrade and modification packages. It was almost too good to be true. Looking at the rest of the team, he saw they were having much the same reaction.

Parangosky interrupted them, "You can read those later Spartans. Now second, until this Task Force is officially formed in a few months, Captain, the crew of your ship and by extension you Spartans have shore leave on Terra. I suggest you use this time for some much needed R&R and to settle into what will be your new operational environment for the foreseeable future. And last, but not least, I'd like to introduce you to ONI's best informant on the planet who you will be working close with going forward." The Admiral pushed a button on her end of the desk and a red light on the top of the wall lit up before the hidden door slid open to allow the entry of an 8th individual into the meeting. Based on the green hair and lynx like ears, she was Terran like Elizabeth and Yelena and probably a Feline like Elizabeth too. She had a pair of placid emerald eyes on an equally placid face. Walked in with a nonchalant mode of walking very different from the loping walk of most who spend a lot of time aboard spacecraft showing that she most likely only rarely or never had left the planet of her birth before.

She pulled out a chair next to the Admiral and sat down before talking in a very soft and calm voice that had a melodic tone to it, "Apologies Admiral, they had to dig out a uniform in my size. I didn't think that it would be proper to do this in my usual scrubs."

Parangosky nodded at that before looking over to the Spartans and Captain, "I'd like you all to meet Dr. Kal'tsit. Co-founder of Babel and our main informant on Terra." She then looked to the feline and gestured to the party on the other side of the table, "Doctor, I would like you to meet Captain Murai Sakamaki and Spartans Alex-148, Jin-Ae-123, Clyde-150, Elizabeth-151, and Yelena-166. They're going to be making up the command staff of Task Force Templar and will be working with you on the ground."
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AN: Something I would like to add is the armor release schedule for this AU.

2525: Mk. IV
2542: Mk. V prototypes
2544: Mk. V full roll out
2550: Mk. VI prototypes (February) full roll out (September)
2552: Gen. II prototypes and roll out
2554: Gen. III Mk. VII prototypes
2555: Gen. III Mk. VII full roll out

 

[FastConcentrate8]

Spartan Clyde-150 was a man who was many things.

He was a member of the elite Spartan II Commandoes. He was a Chief Petty Officer of the United Nations' Space Command Navy. He was a PHD Engineer with three patents and a bachelor's in Fusion Mechanics. However, there were a few more things that he would prefer to stay quiet about.

And right now, he was a man who was waiting on someone. He was hunched over a standing table in an outdoor bar overlooking the beach in the city of Siesta, the city's lights and the running lights of the orbital tether casting beautiful lights on the ocean ahead of him. He was waiting for someone, someone dear to him and someone who he hadn't seen in far too long.

Coming up from behind him, someone came up to him and placed their hands over his eyes in an affectionate way. "Boo!" She said which made Clyde chuckle, "Guess who?" She also chuckled at that and the man's reaction.

"Oh,..." Clyde responded with his eyes still covered while taking a drag off of his cigar. "You seem to forget something lady."

"Well what would that be big guy?" The woman asked with a teasing tone in her voice.

"I would never be able to mistake that voice, Elvira." Clyde smoothly responded as the woman took her hands down and he turned around to see a red haired Lupo woman. She had a pair of light blue eyes. She stood with a hand on her hip in a blouse and skirt combination that greatly complemented her hair and eye color and had a small dagger sheathed in her belt having left the longsword and new issued magnum at home. She had a very warm look in her eyes and a teasing smile on her face. Her name was Elvira Texas, former Mafioso of the Texas clan of the Siracusian Mafia, current ONI operative, Clyde's flame, and most secretly, the mother of his daughter. "It's been far too long." He said as he pulled her into a deep hug.

Elvira leaned in and kissed her lover on the lips. "You too tinman." They both chuckled a bit at the use of Clyde's old nickname among their family. "It's not just me though. Little Abbigail is back in the room. She's sleeping right now, but she's excited that her Daddy is going to be home for her 10th birthday." They both smiled whole heartedly at that.

"Well,..." Clyde said as he hefted a small travel bag, "I've got the perfect gift for her. She's going to love it." Elvira began reaching across the table for it before Clyde gave her hand a playful slap. "Don't touch, I want it to be a surprise for both of you."

Elvira giggled at that and then leaned into the large Spartan, "We have this problem all the time Clyde. Basically whenever we see each other. We never know exactly what to say during times like this."

Clyde smiled softly at that, "I do. We say nothing." He then brought up two fingers, placed them in front of her face, and then swiped in the air. It was a modified version of what was colloquially dubbed the Spartan Smile. This was normally done over one's own faceplate, but it had an alternative meaning if you did it over another's faceplate. Affection, greeting, respect, and according to Kelly and Elizabeth, love as well.

He had taught Elvira some Spartan Signals and the Spartan Smile and its meanings were one of them. She knew what he meant and beamed at it. What she did next was what surprised the Spartan by practically pouncing on him, wrapping her arms around his neck, and delivered a second very passionate and deep kiss that felt like it lasted for hours (whether it was his Spartan Time, him simply enjoying the moment, or both, Clyde was unsure) while her wolf tail wagged a mile a minute.

After the kiss ended, Clyde had to help his much shorter lover to the ground and they both smiled to each other. "Yeah,..." Elvira said with glee and a certain other thing in her voice, "That does it." She smiled as she moved over to the area of the table across from Clyde before flagging down a server to order her own drink. "So Clyde, where's the rest of your team?" She asked.

"The rest of SILVER." Clyde pointed up, parallel to the orbital tether, "They're up in orbit right now. They're staying on the ship for a while. They're getting fitted with their new armor and are probably going to land at Fort Accords to take their new armor for a test drive."

"Wait,..." Elvira held up her hands for him to pause, "New armor. When did this happen?"

Clyde reached into his pocket and pulled out the booklet he was given on the Point of No Return. "I'm not sure, but according to this, the new armor the Mk. V, entered development in almost 10 years ago and the first prototypes were issued and tested two years ago." He then looked over to Elvira who was trying to lean over and look at the small document. "Hey, no looking. This stuff is classified."

Elvira laughed at that, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"What?" Clyde asked while shrugging.

Elvira pointed to herself and pumped her chest, "I'm ONI now, I'm allowed to look at classified things."

Clyde did laugh at that, "Yeah, you have a point but this is explicitly us Spartans and the technicians who maintain out armor." Clyde did lean in though, "And yes, I remember that. I was wondering where your Recon armor or Uniform were. You look great in both."

"Those aren't exactly what one should wear during... romantic rendezvous like this." Elvira said, trying to find a good word for how to describe this meeting between her and her lover.

"And..." Clyde asked while shrugging, "I was in my MJOLNIR when we first met."

She just looked at him with an amused glare, "Clyde, that was different. You Spartans have no sense of fashion even now, but don't worry." That made Clyde nervous upon hearing it. "I'll make sure your team is looking perfect by the end of this shore leave." She smiled smugly at her spot as the waiter brought out her drink.

"Ok..." Clyde wasn't sure how to respond to that and just kept staring. "I'm sure you can..."

"Oh, Clyde..." Elvira gave him that longing look, "You always know how to flatter me. Now, let's have fun on your first night of shore leave. I've got something special for when we get back to the room."
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Spartan Alex-148 sat in one of the chairs in the media room of Fort Accords watching the many viewscreens that displayed the footage of SILVER Team (minus Clyde though he had personally cleared him for this) testing their new suits of Mk. V.

He had one thing to say, Halsey had really outdone herself on this one. Looking at a screen, he saw the footage of Jin use her mobility enhancements granted by the new armor to cross a mock urban environment in a handful of seconds without touching the ground. Another screen had Elizabeth pulling a similar stunt by HALO jumping out of a Pelican from 20,000 feet without a chute and landing safely using the enhanced shock absorption and the ablative protection of the shields. One other screen showed Yelena stress testing the armor for directed energy, physical, and arts damages which it succeeded at all three with flying colors. It even managed to safely protect his teammate from a glancing hit from a Scorpion Anti-Tank Missile.

All this defensive capabilities pared with increased strength enhancement that he had tested that allowed himself to send a Warthog flying with a good kick made for one thing. A seriously impressive suit of powered assault armor.

Satisfied by his review of the results, Alex turned the screens off and recovered the datachip the recordings were on before leaving the room.

Walking down the hallways of the base, he received some salutes due to his new officer status that he returned. His destination was the locker room where he found his teammates packing up their new armor and getting ready for their shore leave. Their plan would be to link up with Clyde at the Space Port in Siesta. He had a "friend" who they would be their guide and help them adjust to civilian style living during their leave. Of course, as his teammates and oldest friends, they knew the truth of just who this friend of his was and also the potential issues that might arise from it such as her being a Spook.

"Officer on deck." Elizabeth called out causing the other two to snap to attention from where they were dressing.

Alex sighed a little at that, "At ease." He called out before going over to the locker he had been temporarily given. He began taking his BDU off and looked at the others over the lockers. "You guys really don't need to do that. We're still a team and I'm still me. You guys don't need to pretend that I'm some new new CO fresh out of OCS or ROTC." He said as he removed his shirt while Jin and Yelena never cared about that, he always noticed that Elizabeth would look away whenever he was changing.

"What are you talking about Alex?" Yelena asked him as she finished drying the fur on her rabbit ears, "You got promoted from E-7 all the way to 0-3 in the span of a sentence from one of the most feared and respected people in the galaxy." She shrugged and had a face of surprise on, "You don't think that's a big deal?"

Alex stood there, considered it, then shook his head. "Not particularly. I mean, we're still often defaulted to to lead units we're attached to anyway so we all have experience as quote-unquote officers." He looked back down as he continued changing, "Still, we're all Spartans. We were all raised together to fight together. No need to consider me different now that I have Lt. in my title rather than CPO."

Jin chuckled a bit at that, "Yep, that's definitely still out Alex." She continued to chuckle a bit before reattaching her arm after removing it for her shower. "I swear Alex, they could promote you to Admiral like they when they promoted John to Captain and you would just shrug it off, sit in the chair and carry on as normal."

"Well,..." Alex said as he closed his locker and finished tying his boots, "There's a reason John still goes by Master Chief despite being a Captain."

All together they repeated what John had said when questioned on it, "The Captain doesn't have the same ring to it." Before cracking up a bit.

Eventually though, they all walked out wearing what were the standard civies for Spartans, a black t-shirt with their number over the left side of the chest tucked into a set of white pants and combat boots. Walking in lockstep over to the Pelican that would bring them to their final destination. Sitting down in its troop bay, Elizabeth looked around the compartment at her teammates. "So, wonder if they have any good places to drink there?"

Alex just sighed at that, "Take it easy this time Liz. Remember last shore leave?"

She sighed at that comment, sure it did lead to them being banned from half the bars in Australia, but that fight wasn't her fault. "Oh come on, plus I very distinctly remember that it was Daisy who started that fight."

Yelena leaned forward, "About how much of that was the alcohol talking?"

All four of them bust out laughing at that. Tough crowd.

 

[kelgar04]

John : Sam, Fred, Kelly, Linda, Doctor Halsey and Cortana have brought to me a major situation to my attention.

Worried Sam: What is it John? Are the Banishes back or has another Former Covenant Warlord gathered together a large fleet?

John: No this involves one of our own.

Linda: SILVER, BLACK or GREY teams?

John: Silver.

*John slides over a photo*

John: This is Abigail Walker Texas 10 years old today.

*John slides over a familiar photo, Kelly and Fred choke on their water and Sam and Linda do a spit take*

Fred: Clyde is her dad?!?

Cortana *appears*: Yes I've taken a look at Clyde's shore leave and they line up with a particular ONI agent quite nicely.

Kelly: shit.

*Everyone looks at kelly*

Kelly: You all know that we've got a backlog of like 10 years worth of birthday and Christmas right?

Linda: Damn Kelly your right

John: Ok we need to get with the others we have 10 years worth of cake a presents to make up for. Sam call Kurt and get him in on this along with grey and black teams in on this. Let's make our niece's year people!

 

[FastConcentrate8]

Of all places on Terra, the independent city state of Siesta was by far the most natural location for the planet's main link to orbit and the UEG beyond.

Located on the planet's equator and having bedrock practically all the way down to the planet's mantle, it was the optimum location for a Space Elevator and the low likelihood of Catastrophes, especially after the Geo-Engineering Corps neutralized the threat from the volcano for the next few centuries, made it one of the safest locations on the planet for the critical piece of orbital infrastructure. The city also owing to it being the travel destination on Terra also possessed a very well developed airport that was pretty easy for UEG engineers to convert over to a Space Port.

All of this meant a few things. First, it was one of the most metropolitan places on Terra with heavy cultural and economic influences from other planets. Second, it was the de facto stopping off point for UNSC assets landing and leaving the planet. And lastly, if you had shore leave or R&R rotation on Terra, you were more than likely stopping off and staying in the tropical city.

SILVER Team's pelican was just one of the many air and spacecraft flying into the space port at the moment and was directed to the Air Force's connected base to one of its primary landing pads. As the VTOL craft swung its way over the landing platform and dropped its skids, its four passengers prepared for the landing. Alex placed a pair of polarized smart glasses on and synched the HUD up to his SNI and TAC Pad. Jin turned her Datapad off and returned it to her bag before standing up and stabalizing herself using the handholds above them. Elizabeth simply stretched in her seat and Yelena was applying her sunscreen, she burned extremely easily in the sun so she always did this when they would go out without their armor, and then placed one of the many pieces of hard candy she always carried in her mouth to suck on for a while.

Landing gently and dropping the rear door, the Spartans grabbed their bags and filed out of the Pelican as they saw a large group of Marines and Army move out towards the craft to ferry them back to Fort Accords, the UNSC's main ground facility on the planet.

Stretching her back out until she heard it crack, Elizabeth looked to the others with a pleasant smile on her face, "Well, we're here..." She sad while turning around and walking backwards to continue talking, "Now, let's find Clyde and get started on this excursion and enjoy this leave."

Everyone nodded at that and Alex brought up his message from the other Spartan up onto the HUD of his smart glasses, "He said he would meet up at the pickup area of the main terminal so we should probably get a move on." Alex waved for the rest to follow him which they dutifully did though were distracted by the vista of the seaside city and the thick civilian and military aerospace traffic over the city.

Eventually reaching one of the commuter trains that would deliver them to the other side of the massive complex. The other military and civilians aboard giving plenty of space for the seemingly uniform and quiet giants who boarded. The rest of the team began doing something, Alex just looked up at one of the media screens on either end of the cabin that were playing local news broadcasts. The anchor with a lock of bright red and blue feathers hanging from his hair was currently doing a segment on the ongoing Kazdel Civil War. "Yesterday, our correspondents embedded with the UNSC Army confirmed that a major engagement between Loyalist Forces with the UNSC in support and Rebel Forces over the major city of Gadiff. While General Hans Falkenberg and the UNSC's other command staff have refused to comment yet, our cameras were able to capture this footage." The camera shifted to show two soldiers wearing the Air Assault helmets of the UNSC Army Airborne laying prone on a rooftop and firing their M392 DMR and MA5K into a building across the street to suppress a target inside. The screen shifted again to show a squad of Sarkaz wearing surplus UNSC BDUs painted in the colors of Queen Theresa's Recognized Government breeching a door with a shotgun before drawing swords and running in. One last video showed an M808 Scorpion roll down a roadway firing its main gun at a rooftop enemy hardpoint before several Warthogs rolled up behind it and disgorged several squads of infantry. "According to our sources among the Loyalist Government and Babel,..." The anchor said as he checked his notes, "Rebel Forces were discovered with several squads of wanted Insurrectionists among their numbers and were discovered to have been using civilian hostages to deter the air, artillery, and orbital strikes that the have allowed Loyalist Forces to be so dominant in the field..."

Alex was jolted from his focus on the broadcast when he felt something metallic touch him. Turning he saw that Jin had placed her prosthetic hand on his shoulder and was pointing towards the open door, "Hey, train ride's over." She said while partially dragging him out of there.

"Sorry,..." Alex began, "Watching that report on the conflict here." He said while pointing back at the train as he walked off. It was something that all Spartans suffered from that they were hyper focused on conflict or potential conflict they hear about and the Kazdel Civil War was no exception.

"Hey, that's ok." Jin said while leading him out, "I was reading about it on our flight in. But that's work and we're not here for work. We'll be worried about that soon enough." With that they finally caught up with the other two who were waiting with varying degrees of patience near the set of doors leading to the pick up area where they would meet with Clyde.

Walking out with the rest of them, they began to scan the area for where their teammate and his companion would be waiting for them. Looking around, they saw large crowds of all sorts of figures, Terrans leaving the planet, other civilians arriving, large numbers of Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen arriving for and returning from leave, and while she may have just been seeing things Yelena swore she saw at least one Sangheili in the crowd. However they didn't see their fellow Spartan in the crowd.

That was until Alex got a message that displayed on his smart glasses, "Hey, over here." It said before a waypoint was pinged. "Hey guys, I just got a waypoint pinged and a message from Clyde." He gestured for them to follow as he lead them away from the area and towards a large parking complex on its second deck.

Rounding a corner, they saw Clyde and the woman they recognized as Elvira as they sat on the hood of a large car sipping some sort of fruity non-alcoholic beverage. As they prepared to say something to get their attention, the Spartans caught a glimpse of a red and black blur rapidly moving towards them and Alex and Elizabeth felt something small hit them at just under the muzzle velocity of a Super MAC. "Mommy, Daddy, they're here." The entire group smiled as they looked down to the small Lupo hugging the legs of the two Spartans.

All the members of SILVER Team formed a semi-circle around the young girl and took knees to get closer to her eye level. Yelena began rubbing her on the head between her two wolf ears as Jin rubbed her back and Alex looked her in the pair of soft brown eyes she got from his teammate. "How's my favorite niece doing?" Alex asked her while placing a hand on her shoulder.

Abbigail, Clyde's secret daughter and the collective niece of SILVER Team, giggled at the affection and attention she was getting before looking her uncle and aunts. "Great!" She said before the Spartans began standing back up, though Aunt Elizabeth let her climb up on her back as they all walked over towards Abbigail's parents.

"Clyde." Jin greeted him with a handshake and fraternal hug before making way for the rest of the team to go up to and greet their teammate and his unofficial wife.

"So guys,..." Clyde started while gesturing to the excited young girl hanging onto Elizabeth's back, "I see you've met the welcoming party and the young lady of the hour." He said as he went up to his daughter on SILVER-4's back. "I've got her." Clyde said as he began reaching for her.

"Nah,.." Elizabeth waved him off, "She's fine right there and I think she like it up there." Elizabeth turned her head to see Abbigail beaming from ear to ear from her perch on the Feline Spartan's back.

"Alright then." Clyde responded while taking another sip of his drink. "Abbigail, what do you say to your Aunt for that?" He asked the soon to be 10 year old with a smile on her face.

She beamed more in her position and looked Elizabeth in the eyes, "Thanks Aunt Liz." Elizabeth guessed from what she did next that it was to show further her joy at the moment as she brought up two fingers and preformed the Spartan Smile in front of her own face. Elizabeth responded by preforming the same gesture over her own face as she smiled at her niece.

While they did that, Yelena walked up to Clyde's other Plus 1. "So Elvira,..." She asked, "Clyde said you would be out guide today. What's the plan?"

Elvira smiled as she looked at the Cautus Spartan, "Well, I've got the whole day planned out, though I want it all to be a surprise. But first though, I can't let you and your teammates be caught outside in that." She pointed at their civies, "I'm taking you all down to the commercial district and we are not leaving until you all look spectacular."

All the Spartans began to look nervous at that.
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It was a bright and sunny day at Camp Currahee on planet Onyx.

Another day in paradise would be what Chief Mendez would say about days like this, though the humidity and the heat in the deep jungles was something that Spartan Irina-B332 had found uncomfortable from Day 1 of training. She had been raised on a temperate planet and was descendent from Russian stock so extreme heat was something she was not used to unlike her partner Maxwell-B312.

Speaking of these two Spartans, they were currently lying down on the long distance section of the firing range in their SPI armor with Irina on an SRS99C-2 and Max on the spotter scope.

Waving her off hand in the air next to her, Irina talked to her partner, "I'm serious Max. You can't tell me that Tom and Lucy don't have something for each other. Why else would they have sat next to each other in the cafeteria together every meal for the past 5 years, volunteered together for anything that requires two people, and have you seen the way they look at each other?"

Max just shook his head at his partner's antics, "Irina, I think you think too hard about things like this. I mean, they're both 12."

"So,..." Irina responded, "We're all 12. Also, you can't tell me that you and Kat have something between you two."

"Irina,..." Max addressed her and looked her in the visor with an annoyed tone in his voice, "I think you talk too much and shoot too little."

Irina just shrugged at that. "Fair." She then returned to looking down her ORACLE optic, sighted the target, adjusted her aim, and then slowly squeezed the trigger. The 14.5x114mm round thundered down range and landed squarely in the head section of the target at around 2.1 km down range and knocked the humanoid steel plate to the ground. Removing the now empty magazine from the rifle and sitting up on the mat, she called out, "Clear." Before looking back at her old friend and partner.

"Nice shot Irina." Max complemented, "Though I think I could have done that too."

Irina could tell he was smirking under his visor as she gently nudged his shoulder and began packing up her rifle, "Keep telling yourself that buddy." She smugly said as she placed the longarm on the magnetic strip on the back of her SPI armor and removed her helmet letting her brown hair blow a bit in the wind.

Max laughed at that and picked up the spotter gear before removing his own helmet as he smiled at his partner. "Well you should probably keep practicing then or I'll have you spot as the best sniper in Beta Company before you know it." They both laughed as they began their walk towards the main camp.

As they walked down the dirt path through the jungle though, the camp's PA system began a broadcast that they caught on their coms. "Fireteams VICTOR, WHISKEY, X-RAY, YANKEE, and ZULU , please report to the auditorium. Bring your equipment."

Max looked over to Irina, "That's us, lets double time. Don't want to leave any of the instructors waiting."
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Spartans Irina, Maxwell, and the third member of Fireteam VICTOR, Spartan Raymond-B181, walked into Camp Currahee's main auditorium and took a seat on one of the many benches.

Around them, they could see their peers and other Spartan IIIs of the other 4 teams called down waiting for whoever was going to address them to come on stage and were chatting among themselves in the meantime.

As they sat down, Ray was the first to talk. "So you two, what do you think this is all about?" He asked as he ran an armored hand through his short blonde hair.

"No clue." Max simple stated.

Irina simply leaned back where she sat and placed her hands under her head as she reclined, "Well, they finished our augmentations last month. According to Alpha Company, they first shipped out just days after they finished their augmentations. If anything, they've been delaying our deployment." Irina noted from her knowledge of the timeline for the Spartan-III program.

Ray waved that off, "Well, Alpha was finished during wartime. They were needed to fight. They've probably been delaying us due to lack of a target."

Irina shrugged, "Still, I have a feeling that we're about to have our first deployment." She said with barely contained excitement in her voice.

"Officer on Deck." One of the other IIIs present called out and everyone shot out of their seats to attention as they saw their main trainer and the closest thing they had to a father figure walk up on stage.

Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose, Sierra-051, looked at his assembled Spartans before ordering, "At ease. Everyone take a seat." Kurt walked over to the center of the stage as the holographic projector activated and showed the camp's AI, Deep Winter, was projected in the room. "Good evening Spartans and congratulations on your graduation from the Spartan-III program."

That got everyone's attention. It meant their training was over, and now it was time to get to work as soldiers as they had been preparing to do for years at this point. Kurt smiled when he saw the small celebratory actions of the assembled Spartan-IIIs, "That's correct, you have completed your training and are now ready for war. Fireteams, you will be the first elements of Beta Company to see combat deployment." He looked at them with a proud look, "I expect great things from you Spartans, and I know I will not be disappointed. Now, Deep Winter, give them their briefing."

"Yes sir." The AI responded before bringing up a holographic representation of a planet, "Spartans, this is the planet Terra. It's a UEG member planet, though its situation is highly unstable. The Office of Naval Intelligence has recently founded a task force with to goal of stabilizing the world through military and political means. You will help form the military wing of Task Force Templar and will be operating beside and under Spartan-II SILVER Team. You will be shipping out in 12 days when Onyx is resupplied by frigate UNSC Forward Unto Dawn and will be delivered to the planet on the frigate after the long flight."

 

[FastConcentrate8]

While technically on shore leave herself, Captain Murai Sakamaki had decided to stay bunked aboard the New Moon for the time being as she finished her personnel roster for the newly burgeoning ONI Task Force Templar and going over a bit of Recent Terran History.

According to Admiral Parangosky, she was advised to take a field level unit of either ODSTs or Army Airborne to augment their security force further beyond her ship's small complement of ONI Security Operatives and the Spartans and it was going to be a tough choice.

In the mean time, she take some time to review the recent history of Terra as a way to try to get some more information on the situation on the ground.

"Aquilla,..." She addressed the ship's AI who materialized his avatar in her room's holotank, "Flag me as do not disturb. I'm going to be reading up on our operational environment for the next bit of time."

The holographic Griffon nodded its Eagle head, "Yes Ma'am. Enjoy the reading, I'll handle anything that may come up."

The Captain simply nodded as a gesture of dismissal as the AI's hologram winked out. Aquilla was a new AI and had only been installed on this ship for just under a month now so he was still learning a lot of the ropes. She was still going to miss Fenrir though. He was a great AI, shame he was part of the last generation of AIs to have a 7 year lifespan. New AIs of Aquilla's generation were predicted to have lifespans of 10-15 years and his successor generation was predicted to have lifespans comparable to human lives.

Anyway, the Captain pulled up the file on the history of the relationship between Terra and the UEG before pushing her chair back and opening a drawer near the bottom of the desk. She pulled out a crystal glass from the cushioned box to protect fragile items from hard maneuvers of the ship and placed a large ice cube in it from the small freezer behind her and poured herself a glass of Hibiki before rolling back over to the computer while taking a sip of the whisky from her distant home.
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Terra and Earth
A Treatise on the recent history of Terra and its interactions with the wider galaxy.
By: Balazs Patrik, Professor of History and Anthropology New Alexandria University Reach, and Elena Butler, Historian Victorian Imperial University Terra.


A Confusing Beginning

The year 2499 of the UEG Calendar and 1041 Terran proved to be a very strange year for both sets of calendar keepers.

On Terra, countless individuals panicked when one night all the stars in the night sky vanished without a trace and were replaced by what astronomers soon realized appeared to be a massive storm surrounding their entire solar system all the way out to its 5 large gas giants. Many feared that it was a sign of the end, that a Catastrophe the likes of which had never been seen before had arrived to crush all life once and for all. Religious groups took it as a sign of their various end times with a famous incident being the nonstop and mandatory prayer vigils preformed by the Laterano Government. However, what this event actually was was something mundane for the other branch of humanity Terra would soon meet though on a scale never seen before.

A Slip Space Rupture.

On January 1, 2499 0122 Local Time aboard the Sagan Ort Cloud Observatory, Subspace detection equipment registered deep space Slip Space activity on a level never before seen or thought possible.

From preliminary research done on the the contact's Reconciliation Debt placed it as having a mass of literal astronautical scale as if an entire large star system had somehow fallen into the extra dimensional space and remained in stable orbital periods of each other. The scientific community was baffled at this and the UNSC was terrified at what at what such a massive slip space contact could mean. The potential for massive destruction caused by a solar system sized mass entering real space lead to all parties in the UEG to begin preparing for the worst especially once scouting probes identified the rupture's event horizon just 6.2 light years from Epsilon Eridani and the Colony of Reach. Eventually though, the Rupture closed on February 2, 2499/1041 and the Milky Way Galaxy gained a new star.

On Terra, it was a time of great celebration as their planet and civilization wasn't destroyed during the odd month and few listened to the countless star gazers who said that all of the stars were out of position and only those with Astrological Arts realized that these weren't their stars at all.

Meanwhile, UEG scientists working closely with the Office of Naval Intelligence dispatched a deep space probe to the system for preliminary scouting where it charted the system and identified the planets. The UNSC Navy, a few days later, dispatched a wing of Frigates under the orders of Admiral Preston Cole. Their job was to serve as a forward line of defense and vanguard force in the event that the new system contained hostile forces.

While Terra failed to detect the scientific probe, the appearance of 4 500 meter ships that were soon discovered to be heavily armed quickly caused further rounds of panic across the planet due to apparent fears of an alien invasion. However, at the same time, the crews of Frigate Wing-288 were shocked to discover the staggering amount or radio noise in the system that was radiating outward from its fourth planet and what that meant, civilization. They were more shocked when they discovered that the vast majority of the intercepted signals were in a language so similar to UEG Standard English that they could understand every single word said.

Understanding the implications of this, the ships were ordered to move in and used their Electronic Warfare packages to broadcast the first contact package carried by all UEG registered ships on every channel of communications they had detected along with a written address from the commanding officers of each ship in the wing. To say this caused waves across Terra would be an understatement as would it be an understatement to say that it was of great shock for the UEG that Terrans were technically human as well and is a topic of essay all on its own and can be read in our first collaboration First Contact Blues readable in the link.

After the initial shock of first contact, the frigates sent word back to the UEG who quickly began assembling an envoy to establish diplomatic relations with the planet and potentially secure UEG Membership. Arriving in system aboard Admiral Cole's own flagship UNSC Everest and making planetfall after their attached team from ONI's science team clear them for any biological or chemical hazards they might bring to the planet, inoculated them to local diseases, and gave them the infamous Hazard Omega Black speech familiar all travelers who have been to Terra in the last 40 years about the potential dangers of Originium.

The envoy group toured most of the nations of Terra and made great diplomatic success in establishing UEG embassies in all visited nations and generating overall positive public reactions for Terra's sister civilization. In fact, mere weeks into their tour when Queen Theresa of Kazdel made a behind closed door plea to them during their tour of the Sarkaz homeland about securing Kazdel membership in the UEG to hopefully provide her country with the stability and prosperity it had lagged behind in for centuries. In 2501, the Kazdelian flag was added to the Walk of Nations leading up to the UEG Congressional Hall in New York as the reception ceremony for the nation's first elected senators and representatives was held by the President of the UEG in Perth and Queen Theresa signed the United Earth Constitution in Geneva, officially making Kazdel the first Terran nation to gain UEG member status. According to some rumors, the then regent Theresis held a meeting with UNSC HIGHCOM and CINCONI aboard the UNSC Athens at the same time, though this is unconfirmed. All that is known is that the Regent was sporting a black left eye and Fleet Admiral Lord Terrance Hood had a broken right hand when they were both next seen.

With the seeming embarrassment of the small backwater nation of Kazdel beating them out, the rest of the Terra's Major Powers quickly applied for UEG membership with all major Terran Powers being UEG members by 2503 and all Terran nations with the exception of Iberia being member states by 2506. As UEG members, the UNSC quickly moved in to establish their planetary garrison and UEG engineers were brought in to begin establishing to needed orbital and groundside infrastructure for the planet to for each member country to form an effective part of the UEG's government and economy as at the same time, other groups across human space quickly began moving in to establish themselves on Terra and Terran groups tried to establish themselves among the greater whole of humanity as well.
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An End to the Halcyon Days?

Despite many of the early difficulties that came with UEG membership due to off world and on world politicking, backroom deals, and the unfortunate timing of joining the UEG during the height of the Insurrection, Civil War, and then immediately being followed by the Covenant War, the decades of membership in the UEG has generally been considered a bit of a golden age by basically all on Terra.

Off world business and technology has lead to a period of exponential economic growth and rising standards of living for all. UEG planetary engineering via terraforming has allowed for a vast reduction of the frequency of Catastrophes and orbital infrastructure has allowed for far more accurate and earlier warning of them. The introduction and enforcement of the UEG's Constitution had lead to a golden age of civil rights both for the Infected and the countless minority groups in each of Terra's nations. The political, economic, and military pressure from the UEG has kept the nations of Terra in line and prevented numerous internal and international conflicts and ensured the longest period of peace in recorded Terran history.

However, some say that these golden days may be over on Terra. The rapid growth of inter-colonial conflicts in both the Inner and Outer Colonies and the return of the Insurrection has caused the pressure that has kept many of the UEG's member states on Terra in line to ease which has allowed many of them (mainly the Empire of Ursus) to relapse into their former poor treatment of the Infected and Minorities and their hawkish attitude towards their neighbors. Specifically, with Ursus's military now having been trained and equipped by the UNSC, the other nations of Terra worry what may happen if it turns its oversized "Colonial Militia" on them.

Besides the above issues, one other major issue looms over the UEG's involvement on Terra that is impossible to ignore. The Kazdel Civil War.

Despite the Sarkaz homeland being the first Terran Nation to join the UEG, the nation being one of the largest beneficiaries of UEG and UNSC support, and their queen being an outspoken proponent for the benefits the UEG has brought to all Terrans, the country has always had rather significant anti-UEG faction in its government primarily lead by the Queen's twin brother and Regent to the throne Theresis. In 2541, Theresis gathered an extremely large force of Sarkaz clans who agreed with him and ousted his sister and the loyalists of her government and forced them into exile.

Theresa, however, didn't take this sitting down and quickly rallied her loyal clans, government officials, and officers and soldiers of the Royal Kazdel Army before making a short excursion to Earth to plead her case before the legislature of the UEG. Giving the now famous "My home, my people, my blood" speech, the Senate and House voted unanimously to send the UNSC in to destroy the nations Insurrectionist government.

Within weeks, a massive fleet of UNSC Navy warships loaded full of Marines set sail for Terra, UNSC Army assets across the planet were readied for immediate deployment, and the UNSC Air Force began an extensive Air Superiority and Tactical Bombing campaign as the opening shots to Operation: GALLOWGLASS and the campaign to retake Kazdel.

On August 3rd, GALLOWGLASS began in full as the first UNSC and Loyalist units moved into the country. Befitting their motto of "Dropping feet first into Hell." ODSTs of the 105th Orbital Drop Division's Archer, Boxer, and Claymore Companies were the first UNSC units to touch Kazdelian soil, securing advanced positions and infrastructure ahead of the general advance alongside the Army Airborne who followed soon after...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Sakamaki stopped reading right there.

She was familiar with the leader of one of those ODST Units and would need to check something.

Accessing UNSC deployment records. She input her ONI credentials and selected the Marine Corp's 105th Orbital Drop Division. "Alright, now let's see should be under M, then A." The Captain mumbled to herself as she scrolled down the long page of Helljumpers before she spotted her man.

He was on Terra still and was in fact on leave. This was perfect for what she needed.

The Captain went over to the small closet she had in her quarters and grabbed her civilian Com Pad from the pocket of one of her sets of civie pants. Dialing the number she still had, she placed the devise to her ear for a standard phone call.

Eventually she was finally greeted by the very familiar Scottish Accent she was hoping for, "Ahh, Murai. It's been a while." She heard the ODST Major on the other end of the line say though it was a little difficult to hear as there was quite a bit of background noise.

Smiling, she responded. "That it has Angus. Just a question, where are you? Is this a bad time?"
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Major Angus McDonnel, veteran ODST and commanding officer of Claymore Company, was currently attending the Obsidian Festival while on leave and being carried by hundreds of Metal Heads, Helljumpers, and Helljumper Metal Heads after diving off the stage. "Oh, nowhere too important." He responded to to familiar woman on the other end of the call.

"Good, get some place secure. I have important things to tell you." She said to him.

"Alright, give me a second." The Major muted his Com Pad before pointing towards the beach and shouting to the crowd, "Take me that way!" The crowd dutifully did as he said and brought him to the back of the crowd before someone who must have been one of his men tongue-in-cheekly told him, "Feet first, sir!" before dropping him back down on the sand on his feet.

Walking a good ways away from the crowd to a spot just in front of the ocean where there were no people, the Major unmuted the devise and brought it up to his ear. "Alright Murai, I'm all ears."

"Good." The Japanese woman on the other end of the line said, "Major, I'll be frank. ONI needs Claymore Company to form the military backbone of a Task Force. We need military support to accomplish our goals and you're the only ODST officer and unit to be able to work well with the other part of our military element."

The Major took in what she had just said and nodded to himself. "Alright, when do we start and who are we working with?"

The devise spit out, "Not for another month and a half so tell your men their leave got extended and for who you'll be working with, they're going to love it. Spartan SILVER Team."

McDonnel smiled at that. While there had always been a famous animosity between the Spartans and ODSTs, SILVER and Claymore were one of the few exceptions. It stemmed from an incident during the Installation-03 Campaign the Spartans had saved most of the Company from being whipped out by the Flood. "Alright then ma'am, dually noted."

"You know Major,..." She started, "They still wonder how you survived detonating the NOVA Bomb. Mind saying."

The Major smiled and laughed a little, "Oh, I know you know how Captain, but that's classified."

"Alright Angus, I won't tell them. I'll see you soon." She bid goodbye before hanging up.

Major McDonnel just kept smiling though before bringing his Com Pad up to call and old buddy who was also deployed here. "Hey Johnson." He said into the devise.

On the other end he heard the gruff voice of his old friend from way back in the Orion days answer back, "McDonnel, it's been a while."

He sighed a little at that, "That it has Avery, now just something but you now owe me 150 cR."

He could hear the astounded Marine NCO on the other end gasp at that, "No way, she didn't."

Looking up at the night sky, McDonnel focused on a moving point of light in the night sky that he knew was a ship in orbit. "She did Avery. She finally called back."

 

[FastConcentrate8]

Spartan Irina-B332 reclined in the cargo net she had set for herself in the cargo hold of the Forward Unto Dawn that her and her fellow Spartan-IIIs had been berthed in for the duration of their voyage to Terra and their first combat deployment.

Due to the need to preserve the secrecy of the Spartan-III program, which was even more classified than the Spartan-II program at its height, they couldn't be placed in the ship's accommodations bloc or cryotrays in order to prevent interactions with the crew. Even during meal times, they had theirs ran down to them by their temporary ONI handlers. Well, at least it was better than the food back on Onyx. Still though, Irina hoped that things would improve when they finally got to the battlefield.

Looking down at her teammates, she could tell that they were thinking much the same. Max and Ray were both playing cards with each other at the moment with some of VICTOR's loot from their unsanctioned exploration of the ship as the betting material. Further below them on the roof of a standard cargo container were X-RAY and YANKEE Teams trying to do everything in their power to stave off boredom and she knew that wherever WHISKEY and ZULU were, they were doing the same.

They were only about 2 days into their flight and with all the stops the Dawn would have to make to refuel, drop off cargo, embark troops, disembark troops, and do everything else the workhorses of the fleet did, it would take them almost a month to reach their destination. All this long and boring space travel made Irina think one thing that she said to herself out loud. "And I thought it wouldn't be like this in the Army."

Like most Spartan-IIIs, Irina despite having been trained and developed by the Office of Naval Intelligence, was property and a member of the UNSC Army. When she was told that, she thought it would mean she wouldn't have to spend such long protracted periods inside of the cramped metal corridors of ships on long distance voyages and when she would they would have priority for cryo. Well she guessed she was wrong.

Looking over at their teammate, Max and Ray thought on what she meant before Max responded. "Could be a lot worse Irina,..." He said as he placed his cards down, "I spent most of my childhood on ships. Remember how I told you that the SAR team found me in a life pod before I got taken to Onyx?"

Irina huffed a little at that. Max was a Navy Brat before his parents were killed in battle. His mother's body was never recovered when an plasma torpedo tore through the compartment she was on and his father died still in the command chair of his ship. Max himself was on a civilian evacuation ship taking people off the colony when it was attacked by Covenant pirates. "Well Max,..." She began, "Not all of us had as much experience with this sort of thing before." Irina thought back on thing like this from her past, the flight to Onyx was the first time in her life she had ever left her home planet and the Prowler ride to the Hopeful for their augmentations was literally the second time she had ever been on a spacecraft. Hell, even Ray had more experience with this sort of thing just by sheer nature of being a first generation colonist and having been born on a colony ship.

"I mean,..." Ray said while raising a hand and pointing at both of them, "She has a point. This is going to be a long flight so we're going to need to find ways to kill time for a while." Both of the other Spartans in the team nodded at that. This was probably going to get boring for a long while.

Eventually, VICTOR's area returned to near silence with only the stretching noises of Irina's net and the scraping of hard paper on hard paper from the boys' card game being the only significant noise in the hold other than the ship's running noise. Eventually though, Irina got an idea and smiled to herself before looking at her two teammates, "You two want to go check out the rest of the ship again? We may find some more things to do."

The other two looked at each other then smiled at each other before looking back to Irina and going over to the bags that held their SPI armor, both saying "Yeah."
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Spartan Alex-148 or just Uncle Alex to his niece who was sitting across the table, smiled at her reaction at the almost comically large cake and set of gifts that sat on the table in front of her.

They knew what that meant, time to get this birthday celebration underway.

Calling out, "Happy birthday!" For the now 10 year old, Yelena captured the moment forever with that antique camera she had. She would have to develop the film later, now it was time to celebrate. Their niece would only turn 10 once.

Walking up next to and kneeling next to his daughter, Clyde placed a hand on her back before giving her a steady smile. "Happy birthday Abbigail." He said as she looked at him and gave him one of her own, "Sorry that I wasn't there for a lot of them though I do hope that I'll be able to get to them from now on."

Abbigail leaned in and hugged her father, "It's ok Daddy, Mommy always talks about how your job in the UNSC always keeps you busy." She looked down at the table before back up at Clyde, "Daddy, is it true what they say about you Spartans, about how you've been everywhere, fought everything, and won every time?"

Clyde stood back up and rubbed his much shorter daughter right in the middle of her head, ruffling her hair and ears, "Of course my little Rose, every word."

She looked back up at her father after sighing at her affectionate nickname. "Dad, I'm not that little any more." Shifting her pouting face back to a smile though she looked over at SILVER Team "That must mean though that you guys must have a lot of stories from out there. Mommy doesn't tell me much about what she does at ONI so what's it like out there?" Abbigail practically begged the team to hear some of their stories.

Elizabeth beamed at that, "Sure, we'd be happy to..."

She was cut off when someone rather aggressively placed a hand on her shoulder. Elvira took her hand off of the Spartan with a rather exaggerated smile, "After presents and cake." She finished for the Spartan before giving her the "get in line, my way or the high way" spook glare that ONI seems to train all its members in.

Elizabeth just looked over to Alex and saw him shrug, "Well we aren't going anywhere so sure, we can wait."

With that, Elvira walked over to Abbigail's side opposite to Clyde and everyone sat down. They then progressed through the presents for the 10 year old. It was mostly the usual stuff or what the Spartans assumed to be the usual stuff. It wasn't like they were very familiar with the way birthdays were usually celebrated. However, for them Clyde was family and that meant Abbigail was too so they would be there for her. One thing that they could tell though from the toys and some of the clothing was that Abbigail must have been a bit of a tomboy.

Looking at the assorted remnants of the opened gifts, Clyde looked over to Alex and gave the brief Spartan signal for thank you before looking back to Abbigail. "Hey Abby,..." He addressed her as he stood up, "We've got one more gift for you. This one's special and it's our gift as a Team for you." He walked over to the door to the side room him and Elvira were bunked together in and disappeared through the door.

As his partner was grabbing the package, Alex looked over to Abbigail, "You know Abby, your Mom and Dad told me about how you're so interested in and fascinated by us Spartans. Is that right?"

"Yeah!" Abbigail said excitedly, "You guys are awesome and I'd love to be one of you!"

Alex sighed extremely quietly to the point he was pretty sure that he was the only one who heard it, if only she knew. "Great to hear. You're going to love this then."

Clyde then walked out of the room carrying a very amateurly wrapped box. Elvira had offered to wrap it for him, but he had refused. He wanted the surprise to be assured no matter what. "Alright Abbigail, I need you to promise me something before I can let you have it."

"Yes Dad, what is it?" Abbigail practically jumped out of her seat saying.

"Well,..." Clyde began as he placed the box down on the table with a slight thud that betrayed its weight. "If you show anyone this or tell anyone about this, I will get in a lot of trouble. So do you, Abbigail Walker Texas promise to keep this secret between family."

Standing up in her chair to get closer to her father's eye level, "Yes Dad." She said with excitement and nervousness in her voice.

"Alright then." He smiled ear to ear, "You may open." Clyde walked over and fist bumped Alex before getting handshakes and hi fives from the rest of SILVER as they watched their niece and his daughter undo the wrapping and be greeted by a composite shipping box that she opened with some help from her mother. They both looked with awe and surprise at what greeted them inside and it was another moment Yelena would preserve forever with her antique camera.

It was a helmet, large and heavy, made out of composite titanium plates and with a one way bulletproof visor. The body of the helmet was dark gray with black, silver, and white detailing and the visor was a reflective silver that the two Lupo could see their reflections in. As the Spartans silently congratulated themselves for the perfect gift, Abbigail recognized what it was in an instant, "A Spartan helmet."

"Not just any one though." Clyde told his daughter, "Check the side."

With some help from Elvira, Abbigail pulled the helmet from the box. She was always strong for her age. She placed it down on the table and rotated it so that the side would face her and she saw what her father meant. It had a very specific number in titanium white block characters. 150. "Dad,..." Abbigail looked up with shock in her eyes, "This is your helmet."

"That it is my Little Rose." Clyde confirmed while leaning back in his chair.

"How..." Elvira tried to get out in her shock, "How did you get this here?" She asked as she looked at her lover.

Clyde smirked and patted Alex's shoulder, "For that, I'm going to have to defer to my Team Leader and oldest friend."

"Thanks for the mention Clyde." Alex said as he leaned forward. "Well, we recently got new armor so we were having to send our old suits back." He put a hand to his chest. "I happen to know and be in regular communications with a Rear Admiral David Routan so I called in a favor with him to have a logistician get the paperwork fudged and Clyde's helmet be earmarked as lost in transit."

"Wait, that's it? Are you sure that that's it?" Elvira tried to ask him not buying that things were that simple.

"Yeah, that's about it." Alex shrugged. "The UNSC is a very big organization. We have such complicated logistics that we often lose things as big and expensive as entire vehicles and other expensive equipment. Just get some paperwork filed and get an armorer or engineer to remove the trackers and you're golden."

Elvira looked on shocked that something as expensive as a piece of MJOLNIR armor could just be lost, but at the same time Abbigail kept staring at her own reflection in the helmet's visor. To make it a better gift, Clyde had shined the visor well beyond what would normally be acceptable for combat and made it almost mirror like in its finish. Eventually though, she shot out of her seat and ran straight over to her father and embraced him. "Thanks Daddy, it's perfect."

Clyde just looked down at his daughter and smiled, "You're welcome. Anything for my big girl." After the hug concluded a few minutes later, Clyde looked around at everyone and smiled, "Alright, who wants cake?"
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Moral of the story, if you make a bunch of 12 year old child soldiers with advanced biochemical augmentations and a lifetime of special operations training, don't give them sound dampening invisibility armor. It will end poorly as soon as they get bored.

 

[FastConcentrate8]

It was another one of Kazdel's normal dreary and drizzly day that were often the stereotype for the nation's weather. However, it was still not that bad weather for flying and this not deterring the countless pilots of the UNSC Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy from making their sorties in support of Loyalist ground forces. From the small scouting drones used by the Army and Marines all the way up to the Navy's frigates holding position in the stratosphere ready to drop down to provide devastating fire support with their missiles and coil guns or rapidly drop off massive units of Marines, the aircraft being used today were a very diverse assortment of aerospace frames. However, there was one that dominated that number. Flown by all four branches of the UNSC and designed to fulfill every mission between cargo transport of close air support, the UNSC's famous workhorse, the D77 Pelican had become a very familiar sight in the skies over Terra and Kazdel in particular.

One such Pelican, painted in the livery of the UNSC Marine Corps, was currently inbound on a large encampment that was mostly made up of prefab structures and tents. The UNSC had decided that with the presence of Catastrophes, if a base can't be loaded onto aircraft within two hours, it shouldn't be deployed in the field and was relying on its air mobility to avoid the natural disasters. Anyway, the Pelican was rapidly descending on the camp's improvised air field to deliver fresh men and supplies.

Landing on the metal grids laid over the sandy mud of the riverbank, a small team of Marine Corps Aviation Technicians ran up to the Pelican to begin unloading the craft and prepping it for its return flight. As the technicians worked, the pilots dropped and troop bay ramp for the passengers. In addition to the Marines, there were two additional passengers. One was a Pythia man wearing some heavy duty body armor on. He was tall with slicked back hair with a short and well kept beard and a pair of sunglasses. He grabbed a large ballistic shield from next to him as he stood up and a large war hammer. He already had an M6G magnum holstered on his side. The other was a tall and thin Sarkaz man. He kept his facial features hidden under a camo bandana and a pair of sunglasses. He had a recon boonie on his head that he had cut holes into for his horns. He almost completely had forsaken body armor with the exception of a chest rig for carrying his gear. As he stood up, he grabbed a bolt action sniper rifle and stood next to his partner. Both were wearing the blue camo pattern and triangular tower logo of one of the UNSC's primary allies in the Civil War, Babel.

Walking down the ramp and beginning their walk into base, they were stopped by a female Marine with the rank markings of a Staff Sergeant right at the edge of the air field. "You two those Babel Operators, Ace and Scout?"

The Sarkaz replied, "Yep." He pointed to himself, "I'm Scout, big guy next to me is Ace." He held out a hand for the Sergeant to shake, "Great to be working with you guys. I've heard some great things about you guys from my fellow operators and both of my brothers in the Kazdel Army."

The Sergeant reached out to shake the offered hand and smiled, "Our pleasure Operators and glad to see our reputation proceeds us." She withdrew from the handshake before shaking Ace's hand as well. "I'm Staff Sergeant Wuying Tang. Now gentlemen, we don't want to keep the Lieutenant waiting." With that she gestured for them to follow.

"Thanks for having us Sergeant, Babel lost contact with a team of our contractors out here so they sent us to search for them attached to one of your patrols." Ace said as they walked through the camp. As they walked they passed Marines doing the standard activities of life on a field base. They took time to enjoy actual hot meals from the field kitchen, did everything in their power to keep themselves dry during Kazdel's damp season and keep their weapons clean of the never ending mud, some worked on their vehicles to make sure that their Warthogs, one of the few vehicles good at handling the underdeveloped and muddy roads this far from the cities, in full working order. They saw a fireteam practicing on the firing range with live ammo and they all took a few moments to watch a Marine Artillery Team send a few howitzer rounds down range from their Kodiak SPG.

Sergeant Tang scratched her chin at that and accidentally got a speck of mud on her face from the action, "Three strong team of Sarkaz mercenaries?" She asked while looking back at them.

Scout nodded, "Yeah,..." He said in a confused tone, "How did you know them?"

"Oh,..." Tang said while stopping in front of a large tent, "They shared a tent with Platoon HQ a few weeks ago. I like that Hoederer guy but those Ines and W girls gave me weird vibes. Their arguments during the middle of the night didn't help my opinions of those two." She then placed a hand on the tent flap, "Give me a second. I'll grab the Lieutenant." She then disappeared into the tent and left the two Babel Elite Operators alone in the field base.

Using the time they then had to themselves, Scout looked over to Ace. "Hey, did you hear the rumors?" He asked the larger man.

Looking over to his teammate and taking some time to wipe his sunglasses off and looked at Scout with his now revealed to be brown eyes, "Yeah, that we got a new Operator. I think they said she's a Caster."

"No, no, no, not that." Scout said while waving, "Well, technically about it, but there's another rumor about her. Apparently she's some sort of prodigy with incendiary arts so they're thinking of fast tracking her to Elite Operator."

"Really?" Ace said surprised while placing her glasses back on and tracking a pair of Marines that walked past them, "Rookie to EO that fast. She's either A, absurdly powerful. B, has parents in high places. Or, if she's old enough, C..."

He was cut off by the noise of the heavy composite fabric folding behind them as the tent opened and revealed two figures walking out. One was Staff Sergeant Tang now carrying her Shotgun and the other was a tall and lanky man in a set of officer BUDs. He had Lieutenant markings on the armor and was carrying his helmet which allowed them to see "Jenkins" written on the back. "Sorry to keep you two waiting. Command was briefing me. Now..." He placed a hand out for both Operators to shake, "I'm Second Lieutenant Wallace Jenkins. Glad to be working besides you two, Ace and Scout."

Both Operators shook his hand before Ace replied, "Likewise Lt. Jenkins."

"Alright,..." The Lieutenant said as he placed his helmet on and used his now free hand to grab a Tac Pad and hold it up so the two Operators and his Platoon Sergeant could see. "I've been briefed on your mission by the Doctor, by the way, does he have any actual other thing to call him by, its awkward just calling him Doctor?" He asked while Sergeant Tang gave him a nudge with his shoulder to get him back on track, "Sorry, anyway, we'll be patrolling these sectors highlighted in red on foot. The area is heavily wooded so we're going to have to do things the old fashioned way. Those three mercenaries were last contacted here,..." He pointed at a spot near their insertion point, "Then they were deployed into the area. You guys are going to be joining with my platoon in our Search and Destroy mission on the Insurgents in these woods and along the way we'll keep an eye out for your lost team and provide medical support if needed. Understand?"

Both Operators looked back up at the Lieutenant before Scout answered this time, "Yes sir."

Jenkins smiled at that, "Good. I suggest you go load up on some supplies. It's going to be a long patrol so expect to be out there for at least 2 weeks."
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In his long time as an Operator, long time as a mercenary, and long time as a member of the Columbian Army, Ace had never thought he could get this tired of huffing it on foot.

They were told to prepare for a 2 week patrol, that was 4 weeks ago. In that time, they had had to deal with the worst mud he had ever seen, attacks by animals, IEDs, traps, occasional small ambushes, each other, oh and dysentery. It was great, oh well, better than that mission in Sargon he supposed. However, it was in times like this he regretted using such heavy equipment as the platoon had been forced to march for three days straight due to not being able to find a good location to set up camp though luckily they were coming up on a clearing where they would receive resupply via Pelican.

Still though, something was bugging him, just where were Hoederer, Ines, and W. They had found plenty of traces of them,... and bodies left by them, and some of them were even just hours old when they were found it was odd, almost like they had gone to ground and were waiting either in hiding or ambush. Maybe they were close to where ever the Rebel Bunker the Marines were looking for was and were waiting to engage that.

While he was thinking about these sorts of things, Scout was off to his right and walking with one of the Marines' Marksmen. A man by the name of Lance Corporal Adams. The two had hit things off on patrol and could often be seen marching together and often talking to each other. "So Scout,..." Adams asked, "I've been wondering something. We've often found both allied and rebel troops carry the helmets and weapons of both their own and the other's dead. It's always the Sarkaz ones who are both examples. I was wondering if since you're one of them, you would know why they seem like they do it all the time. "

Scout sling his rifle and used his free hand to wipe some sweat mixed with rain off of his brow. "Well, there's one thing I can think of."

Adams shrugged while still holding his Battle Rifle, "Shoot."

Scout unslung his rifle and gestured down at it, "Among us Sarkaz, since we were mostly nomadic or well more nomadic than most people, for most of our history, we developed a cultural tradition that what someone carries on them is as much a part of their identity as their bodies and names. This meant that we considered it a passing of identities from one to another when you pass on things like weapons, armor, and clothing." He gestured down at his weapon again, "For example, while Scout is both my real name and callsign, I was not born as Scout and am not the original Scout. That would be my Great Grandfather who was. In fact, this is his rifle, pulled it off a dead Lateranian Crusader during the last Great Invasion. This rifle was then passed to my Grandfather who became Scout, and then to my Father who became Scout."

"Ahh..." Adams said while somewhat confused, "I think I see. So they collect helmets because the standard helmet has its wearer's name written on it and thus is a very close part to their material identity."

Scout snapped his fingers and pointed at him, "Exactly. They want to preserve their fallen buddies' identities and steal those of their enemies."

Adams nodded at that, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. " He then put a hand on Scout's shoulders, "Well if I can't carry it then, you have full permission to take my Battle Rifle and be the new Lance Corporal James Adams."

Scout laughed a little at that one, "Sorry, doesn't work that way. I'd just be Scout Adams then. Material identities are cumulative not absolute unless it's your first one."

"Ahh,..." Adams said as he took his hand off of the Sarkaz's shoulder. "You still have permission to take my Battle Rifle if I go down though. You know though, I bet that makes things complicated in the Kazdel Army when gear gets reissued."

"Yeah, probably does." Scout said before taking note of the rain being over, "Hmm... the rain stopped. Normally doesn't do that this suddenly." However, as he looked down he noticed something through his Arts. Scout, like most members of his family and what made them such renown well... scouts, had a familial art to sense killing intent. While it varied from family member to family member, his version allowed him to see an attacker just before they made an attack and keep them highlighted until they were neutralized and right now, he saw several hundred such highlighted marks fill his vision and one in particular was aiming at either him or Adams with a very large, anti-material rifle. "Oh Hell, get down!" Scout yelled just before he tried yanking Adams to the ground and succeeded just in time to save his new friend from being blown in half by the 14.5mm round, at least mostly.

"AMBUSH!" They heard Lt. Jenkins yell as the clearing soon became filled with the noise of gunfire and explosions and the Marines scrambled for cover.

Clutching his right arm, Adams looked and was horrified to see that his entire right hand was obliterated and removed by the round about 4 inches above the wrist. Scout ignored his grunts in pain for a second as he rolled over to the other side of their log cover and took aim with the antique rifle before squeezing the trigger and blowing the sniper's brains out. Ace sprinted over and crouched next to where Scout was. Ace grabbed one side of Adams's body armor with one hand and braced his shield with the other and told Scout, "Get his other side, we've got to move!"

Doing as Ace had ordered, Scout helped carry with both hands as they both sprinted quickly, or about as quckly as they could while carrying the wounded Marine, over to the earthen bank that the Lieutenant was and the Platoon's Corpsman was tending to other wounded. Being covered by Ace's shield, they heard many rounds ping off the ballistic shield as it held it held against the onslaught of everything being thrown at them. Placing the wounded Marine on the ground with the other wounded Marines, both Elite Operators got to work aiding in the defense with Ace propping up his shield on the ground as cover and shooting around it with his new Magnum and Scout laid prone on the ground and sent rounds down range as fast as he could work the bolt, scoring headshots every time.

Ace didn't like this, they were outnumbered almost 10 to 1 now and they had a lot of wounded. Lt. Jenkins was yelling into his field radio at the moment so hopefully that would mean support or extraction. Still though, where were those mercenaries? Did they run into this ambush too or were they still out there. Everyone, Operator and Marine soon braced themselves though when they saw a massive number of enemies brake from cover and begin charging them. This was going to suck...

Or at least it would have if Ace hadn't have spotted a familiar set of landmines and explosive charges dividing the field out of the corner of his eye and had his question of what happened to the mercenaries answered.

As soon as the massive formation trying to rush them had completely entered the kill zone, it exploded into a massive ball of dust and flame that sent enemies flying and many were reduced to a pink mist. This was then immediately followed by a very familiar manic laughter and a salvo of 40mm grenades, Arts, bullets, and crossbow bolts struct the hillside they were being ambushed from as three familiar figures dropped out of cover on the the side of the clearing and began a fighting retreat. They were a large Sarkaz male with dark hair, a white haired Sarkaz woman, and a dark haired "Sarkaz" woman. The male quickly mantled the earthen bank they were using as cover and looked over to the two Operators. "Ahh, Ace and Scout. Odd seeing you two out here, who are your friends?" Hoederer asked as Ines and W did the same and took positions on either side of him.

Scout smiled under his bandana at the Mercenary, "Oh, these guys. Just some Marines we were looking for you guys with." He then pointed as Hoederer, "What happened by the way."

"Well,..." Hoederer said as he peaked over the bern, drew his crossbow and took a pot shot at an enemy who was out of cover. While UEG firearms had been common on Terra for a while, many refused to give up the old ways for various reasons. "Soon into our patrol we identified that there was a rather large number of enemies in the area. We were laying a careful ambush plan involving that large amount of W's explosives, but then you guys showed up and got in trouble."

Ines looked annoyedly at them, "We would have had a radio to signal you with if it wasn't for someone not knowing the blast radius of her own frag grenades."

W just shrugged where she was as she scrambled to reload her grenade launcher, "Ehh, mistakes were made."

It was around then that Jenkins got off of his radio and turned to the rest of the group. "Well guys, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that I was just on the horn with command and they're sending in reinforcements and extraction."

Ace and Hoederer looked over to the Lieutenant before looking at each other and both asking at once, "What's the bad news?"

"Well,..." Jenkins pointed down the hill. "Extraction is going to be on the riverbank at the bottom of the hill. We're going to have to book it 2 and a half klicks under fire. Here's the plan, the platoon is going to divide into its 4 squads, two squads will move back under covering fire of the other two and then set up at their position to cover the other two. We'll leapfrog our way to extraction and you guys will be folded into my HQ till we get out of here."

Ace just nodded and gave Jenkins a thumbs up while Hoederer answered, "Sounds like a plan, let's move."

At that moment, a rocket launcher obliterated a bit of the bank and the LMG team that was firing over it and Jenkins ordered, "Alright people, let's move!"
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Sergeant Avery Johnson looked out of the front window of Pelican Echo-419 as Foehammer brought the bird in to pick up Jenkins's platoon, or at least what was left of it.

When he had heard that his old trainee from Harvest had not just became and officer, but was now in trouble and needing extraction, he had volunteered away from Major Malissa McKay's main formation as the squad to pull them out. However, he soon noticed something odd when the river bank entered visual range of the Pelican. "Foehammer, is it just me, or is that group a few squads short of a platoon?"

The veteran Pelican pilot checked her craft's FLIR and saw just what the Sergeant meant, "Yeah, it looks a lot like that to me Johnson. Want me to put you down there?"

Johnson nodded to the Pelican pilot and told her, "Sounds good Foehammer, remain on station near me though. I have a feeling that our attaché back there is going to make herself pretty useful right now."

Johnson then walked out of the cockpit and into the troop bay of the Pelican as Foehammer hovered the craft a few feet off the ground allowing him and a few of his squad to jump down from the craft onto the ground and he got a close look at Jenkins's platoon. It was a sorry sight, everyone was hit and wounded at some level and there were only about three people in any condition to fight. Must have been a hell of a battle and he was glad that Jenkins had been able to get at least most of his men out alive.

Speaking of Jenkins, "Sergeant Tang, where the hell is your commanding officer?" Johnson yelled out his question to Jenkins's Platoon Sergeant. With him missing, she was next in command.

The wounded woman hobbled over to him and tried to stand at attention, saluting was very much against battlefield protocol. "Unknown sir, his squad and those Sarkaz mercenaries were giving us cover when we lost contact. He may be dead though."

Johnson took that in, he might be dead, not that he was. He was also missing with the Mercenary squad who was their platoon's secondary objective and not just any secondary objective, but an ONI secondary objective. Apparently they had recently recovered some sort of information the intelligence folks wanted. Because of that, he knew that there was no way he would be allowed to get these men out without them. He sighed to himself before looking at the Staff Sergeant, "Alright, I hear you Sergeant. You have new orders Sergeant."

She did her best to remain steady on her feet, "Let me hear them sir."

He smiled at her enthusiasm, she was bleeding and had bandages covering most of her face yet she was still receptive to orders and the needs of her men, the Corps could always use more men and women like that, "Sergeant, you are to take control of my squad and command their efforts to stabilize the wounded and secure this position. I, on the other hand, have another mission. I will be going back there and finding the Lieutenant and those Mercenaries. The Corps does not leave its own behind whether they are our fellow Leathernecks or just our allies, we're getting them out dead or alive." He drew his MA5C and walked past her before looking back at her over his shoulder, "Am I understood Marine?"

"Sir,..." She began while smiling and bending down to pick up a discarded rifle, "Yes sir."

"Good,..." Johnson said before pointing over two the two Babel Operators, they were still in a very much combat ready state with only superficial injuries, "You two, I know your mission were those Mercenaries. Are you up to cover me on this?" One nodded and the other gave him a thumbs up. The one with the rifle had some problems when he realized that he was out of ammo for it, but it was solved when the wounded Marine next to him handed him his battle rifle. He was missing his hand so it wasn't like he could use it.

Ace walked up to Johnson, "Alright Sergeant, I'm right behind you though this is going to be difficult."

Johnson chuckled at that before looking back up at Foehammer's pelican, "Don't worry, we'll have some help from above."

With that, he gestured for them to follow as he ran into the trees.

Ace was going to ask what he meant by that, the Pelican was facing the wrong way for it to provide them with support even as it moved to hover above them it remained with the troopbay facing towards them rather than with the front mounted weaponry forward. However, he soon learned not to question what the Sergeant had said though when they encountered an enemy patrol only for it to be obliterated by a massive fireball detonating right in the middle of their formation.
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The recovery operation was actually pretty simple with Johnson's air support blasting enemy patrols to ash before they could engage them.

The main difficulty was finding them though that was soon solved when they were quite literally ran into the two female mercenaries Ines and W and they had told them where Hoederer and Jenkins were making their last stand to give them time to retreat and the team had given them directions and orders to get to the riverbank. Right now, the team was a approaching to site and the aftermath of the fight and from the looks of it, it looked like the Marine and Mercenary had ended up winning against the odds.

Looking at Ace and Scout, Johnson ordered, "Go take care of Hoederer, I'll handle Jenkins." Johnson walked over to where the wounded Marine was before he could get a response.

"Sarge?..." the heavily wounded Jenkins asked as he saw a blurry version of a very familiar silhouette approach him.

Johnson sighed as he spotted the wounded Leatherneck and got a good look at his injuries. They weren't good but they were survivable thanks to the MEDEVAC hovering above them. "Yes Jenkins, its me and no, you're not dead yet." He told his former trainee as he crouched next to him and got the med kit out to put some field dressing on the wounds.

"I... guess I'm lucky then... sir." Jenkins managed to croak out as he was tended to by the man who had trained him all those decades ago on Harvest.

"That, I will give to you." Johnson said while spraying biofoam into the first bullet hole, "But on everything else, well if I was still your CO, you'd still be a Private First Class."

Jenkins weakly laughed at that, "I... think... I'd prefer that sir,... I'm not too cut out for leadership."

Johnson just shook his head at the young officer as he finished stabilizing him and looked over to see Ace and Scout having done the same for the Sarkaz mercenary. That man must have been made out of some tough stuff because he was already back on his feet. Walking over to him, Johnson asked, "You're Hoederer I presume."

He weakly smirked at the Sergeants questions, "In the flesh, Sarkaz Mercenary."

Johnson nodded at that, "Good, I had a couple very powerful people breathing down my neck on this mission. Apparently you found some intel that our higher ups want. I don't much care if its God's own plan for world peace or the enemy's shopping list, but please tell me you have it."

Hoederer began reaching into one of the bags on his plate carrier as Ace supported him, "Oh, I've got it alright. Found it in that bunker I heard you guys were going after." he then pulled out a computer hard drive and handed it to the Sergeant.

"Thank you." Johnson said before placing a hand to the radio in his ear, "Foehammer, send down your load master, we have two casualties we need to evacuate from here."

"Alright Sergeant, he's hooking in her harness right now." Foehammer answered and a few moments later, her craft's technician descended through the trees on the cargo line and carrying a stretcher. He took Jenkins up on his first trip before Hoederer on the second and Scout on the third.

With just the two of them on the ground, Ace looked to Johnson. "So Sergeant,..." He addressed the Marine NCO, "Where were those air strikes coming from?"

"Those weren't air strikes." Johnson answered as he began lighting a cigar, "Well, they technically were, but they weren't coming from any aircraft. Those explosions were courtesey of Foehammer's current passenger. You can talk to her when we get up there."

With that, the load master descended again and walked over to Ace before clipping him into the cargo line with his harness and pulled him up into the hovering air craft. Upon being helped in by the load master, he turned around in the craft and scanned the back of the aircraft. Jenkins was laying out cold in a stretcher on the wall and was being tended to by a medical specialist and Hoederer was being tended to by another medic. Walking back a bit he saw Scout sitting in one of the chairs and talking with someone he got a good look at as he rounded the corner. She was a black haired Feline with a pair of brilliant electric blue eyes behind a pair of glasses that had a tired but enthusiastic look in them. Judging by the staff next to her, she looked like a Caster which made sense due to her extremely frail looking body.

Sitting down next to Scout, the Sarkaz looked over to him, "Hey Ace, meet our new Operator."

The Feline beamed, "You're Ace, Elite Defender?"

Ace smiled a bit at the recognition, "The one and only."

"That's awesome!" She said enthusiastically before pointing to herself, "I'm the new Caster Operator, call me Blaze."
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Yes, the long teased Flashclone Blaze has finally arrived.

Also, man that was a long one.