This is the Command Center for the whole Arctic Base. The Generals and other high ranking officials make and receive their orders here. This room also houses the 2nd most advance set of computers and tech in the facility (Second only to the scientific area). This area also houses the briefing and Debriefing room which is the first and last place a Spartan sees while officially on a mission.

---

About three weeks have passed since the discovery of a new hostile alien race by the Spartan team. The Labs have been off limits to any and all personnel except the Scientists and Medical staff, due to the frantic and fierce studying and experiments that were being undertaken. Many breakthroughs were made and at the same time questions were raised, but the Lead Scientist was sure they were ready to present their findings. The intercomms crackled to life through-out the entire compound. "Will Spartans - 283, 313, 314, 369, 372, 402 please report to Command immediately."

"313 reporting sir." Spook said entering the command deck. She'd been in the armory and hadn't bothered checking in her weapons. When the Admiral said "Immediately." he meant immediately.

The Admiral pointed her towards the debriefing room. "Take a seat, gonna have to wait for everyone to get here."

Spook did as he told her and sat in her usual seat, neglecting the urge to prop her feet up on his nice fancy briefing table.

"Three six nine present and accounted for" Tavish said, moving in and giving the Commander a small salute; he'd been in the hangar a lot recently, avoiding people, barely talking to anyone. He just hadn't felt like talking...

The Admiral gave Tavish a look that seemed as if he was evaluating his mental state based on how he looked. "Go ahead and have a seat Spartan." He said pointing after Spook into the briefing room.

Aaron entered the command center and saluted the Admiral. "Reporting sir. Problems?"

"No, just an educational seminar on our new enemies." The Admiral said as he gestured to the briefing room.

Tavish stepped forward into the command briefing room, he barely took a glance at Spook as he found a seat a little way away from her. He stayed silent, which is a bit of a strange thing for him to do really...

"Admiral, 402 is here" Stitch saluted quickly. He was surprised he'd manage to find the room as fast as he had. In the three weeks, his main priority was to get his bearings, but he'd dare not enter the command room uninvited. He noticed the three Spartans already there, and acknowledged them with a small nod each.

"Go ahead and have a seat Spartan, just waiting on one more." The Admiral said to Stitch.

Aaron took a moment to look Stitch over. He saw him around the base these past few weeks, but didn't really know him. From what he had heard, he was one of the two survivors that Spook and Scorch had been sent to retrieve. He then turned and went into the briefing room, spotting the others that were there.

Tavish looked up as the new guy appeared, he'd seen him around a bit but he hadn't been feeling too friendly, so he'd avoided talking to him. He'd only just learned his number. Would he be coming out with them? What was his specialty?

"Spartan 372, reporting in Sir." Scorch said as he looked around. Gods! He was the last to arrive. He was supposed to be the punctual one.

"Gald you could join us Scorch." The Admiral said as he gestured Scorch into the briefing room and then followed. "Now that you are all here we can begin with the presentation. The past several weeks has been filled with furious research and study in the labs. Luckily they have come up with some results. Here is Lead Scientist Liddia Shafford."

Liddia Shafford hopped up from her seat and took the Admiral's place at the front. She keyed a few buttons that activated the holoprojector in the middle of the table, but produced no image. "We have done a thorough investigation of the creatures encountered by you during your last missions and have some satisfying results."

Spook propped her head on her hand and leaned back in her chair as if she didn't care very much. These aliens exploded as easily as any other and she'd been sure to order some new fancy ammo from the armory officer. Unless these things were planning a full scale invasion of... everything, she wasn't prone to worry. In reality, Shaft's recent behavior worried her more than the prospect of a new alien invasion.

Tavish sat there, staring at the not-working screen and wondering if they were now going to point out the obvious, that these goo puddles seemed to be man-made and that the armour meant they were quite vulnerable to shocks. That was what half the armoury they'd stolen was, shocking weapons...

"First, we will start with some simple information." Liddia started, "From the recorder data and what we found from the remains of the Ortega site, there are more then one and they seem to all have some sort of purpose or a caste system. The armor types are as follows from lowest to highest." As she readied to list them off, the holoprojector displayed something similar to a police line up with all the aliens next to each other in a line. "Rock is the lowest, moving up from there you have Emeralds, Diamonds, Rubies, and then finally the Ammolites. The Rocks seem to be general labor while the Emeralds are ranged weaponry and the Diamonds prefer melee combat where they can take advantage of their brute stength. The Rubies are pretty much field commanders and are incharge of any troops in the field. The ones we need to worry about seem to be the Ammolites, which have so far been the religious leaders of that base and maybe the planet."

Spook made a sort of a scoffing sound. She was agreeing with the lady about the ammolites though. Her sad strange little life had nearly flashed before her eyes when that Uber Pope charged after her.

Not knowing how he'd had a little starring role in a series of Spook's flashbacks when facing down one of these Ammolite thingies, Tavish was just blandly nodding along, taking in the words but not paying too much attention. Social structure, ok, interesting, but there had been five rubies for every diamond when Tavish had seen the base, so taking down the commanders wouldn't be much use if the other one had ripped you in half... He just wondered if this was going to be more than a lesson in the habits of these goo things.

"Grunt, Jackal, Hunter, Elite, and then Prophet again? Only judging by Shaft and Spook's reports, the Prophets are formidable fighters rather than a bunch of old dudes in floating chairs." Scorch asked the scientist curiously

"Right, It does seem like we are going to be fighting a different version of the Covenant, and we think we know why, but I will get to that later in the presentation." Liddia said with a nod to Scorch, "There armors are made out of precious stones, which is one of the most amazing things about them. The fact that they have so much of it in use makes us wonder where they are getting it. We don't have many planets similar to Ortega and no other precious stone mines have reported missing product. And their presence on planets that don't have any precious stones on them like Gret IV means that they are shipping them around the galaxy unnoticed." She pressed a button and the display switched from the armors to a pile of goo. "Also, our research shows that these samples, brought to us by Stitch and Scorch/Spook*, are not blood, but actually the alien itself. This is backed heavily by several sightings of it on your helmet logs."

"But things like these don't evolve" Tavish said slowly "If they did they wouldn't have been able to make the suits." he was speeding this along a little bit, though he didn't use a droll bored voice, just one of polite interest and pointing out the obvious. Now was going to be the "man-made aliens" bit and the "where do the suits come from?" talk.

Liddia gave Tavish an aggravated look as he tried to rush the talk along. "They are not like most invertebrates with low intelligence. They are very intelligent creatures with a complex physiology that we haven't began to understand. What little we gleamed is that, outside of the suits, they communicate using radio waves and frequencies and much of their technology seems to function in the same way. That is why, Shaft, you were able to disrupt their cloaking with the communication system." She clicked the button again and a picture of the aerial craft that hijacked the convoy appeared, before clicking it again to show the alien weapons that were brought in. "Another thing we learned is that they are nearly impervious to ballistic weaponry, but have a severe weakness against most energy based weapons such as fire, electricity, or the energy emitted from their own weapons."

"Plazzies to the crotch seem to work pretty well too." Spook said, taking her chance to comment out of turn.

Stitch held up his shock stick. "This thing is supposed to stun, but it...well it burnt." He shook his head. If honest, he wanted to stun it, Scorch could handle the rest, he was mainly there to pick up the pieces, not break others into them.

"My sword worked pretty well against the Ruby's armor, then again, he did do himself in rather than surrender." Scorch shrugged and sighed. "He knew where to slice himself...knew his own weak spot, I suppose."

"Correct, any form of energy works on the alien itself. However, the armor has no such immunity to ballistic weapons and, as we see here in this shot here, suffers from weapons damage as the base gem itself would." The shot Liddia was referring to was Aaron chewing the lower half of the Ammolite on Ortega off with a removed Pelican mini-gun. "So while we can remove the threat of the armor from the fight, the only way to actually kill the alien is with energy weapons. This may lead to a new order for every soldier to carry at least some form of energy weapons, just in case they need to dispatch one of the oozes." She clicked the button to change the display on the holoprojector to a technical schematic of a Ruby armor as well as the. "What we were able to figure out from the armors brought to us by Scorch and Shaft was that the ooze resides in all parts of the armor, inside a small tube that runs like a very simple skeleton. In the head and the chest are small boxes, what we are referring to as Command Boxes which we believe is where the ooze gets all its information concerning its surroundings as well as providing aid in controlling the armor. One problem presented is that the ooze can bring itself into tight confines. This allows it to function even if the armor looses an arm or leg, the only way to take one out of commission is to either take out one of the command boxes or hit it with enough energy to kill the ooze itself."

"I'd like to download the dimensions of the command boxes and their locations." Spook told her. "Being a one shot kinda girl and all."

"We don't currently have that data in a downloadable format, but it is located in the heart and brain region for easy reference. The brain one is slightly off to their left side." Liddia explained to Spook. "Now we get to the interesting part. The A.I. or Goddess that was returned to us seems to have had more then a small hand in these creatures. That is why they have a Covenant style caste system with Spartan like armors for their bodies. The only thing that isn't explained is how they were able to make the armors assuming they had no gems on the Gret IV. We believe that they actually created spaceships first and then used them to gather the gems required for the armor production."

"I would like to make a quick note before we get into all this... religion stuff" tavish quickly cut in "If you damage the suit or they feel a threat the goo creatures tend to escape through a valve in the back of the armour. They're much faster this way, while we might be able to pick them off it might be difficult for others. Having something to seal that valve shut would be a good idea."

"Like the gasket sealant used in our suits." Spook said, taking Shaft's idea as a good one. "If it keeps air escaping while we're in space, it should keep them from getting out... But about the gem types of their armor. Humans have been cultivating man made gems for centuries now. All you need is the right materials and the right amount of pressure. What's to disprove that these things don't just have the proper machinery to cultivate their own stones? Seems pretty likely considering how these things are constructed, almost factory made and Miss A.I. nut-job could have easily have had that information."

"That could be the case now, but there was no way they could have created their own gem stones in the beginning due to the fact that the Unyielding Valor did not have the appropriate equipment." Liddia said as she started pacing a bit, still keeping her eyes on the Spartans. "Do we have any other questions?"

"I've got one." Scorch said, holding up his hand. "How much longer do we have to listen to all this mumbo jumbo before someone gives us the go ahead to go and hunt them all down?"

Tavish shrugged and sank down into the seat, though he smiled slightly as Scorch asked his question. Nice question; he liked to know the facts, but it was a nice question. Showed a willing to not just sit there and do as he was told.

Liddia glared at Scorch. "This isn't mumbo jumbo. This is stuff you need to know when going against them in combat. I'm not boring you with Ph balance and molecular structure or anything." she pointed at him aggresively. "Keep up the heckling and I think we may need to keep the head for a few more weeks instead of you getting it back today."

Tavish carefully raised his hand, as if he was in a class and the teacher was annoyed. "Just so we know... what is the PH balance? Are these normal calcium based life form? Would acid work against these things? Because a small acid vial pumped into the open vent would be an effective silent weapon. The acid would eat through the creature inside and leave the armour in tact, and not give it any escape or time to alert others."

Spook couldn't help but smirk when Liddia rounded on Scorch.

Stitch almost burst out laughing when Shaft opened his mouth with that question. It seemed that these Spartans weren't much for obedience, or patience. Although, he almost applauded Shaft, he asked in a way that took some skill, Stitch almost wanted to know the answer himself now.

"They seem to be affected by acidity more then most substances, and this may be a very effective method to taking them out. Which is good as R&D has just found a successful method of delivery, I believe Scorch already has some rounds." Liddia said.

Scorch looked at her curiously now. "My new shotgun rounds that I've never even used yet?" He asked her, tilting his head to the side. The armory guy said they were special from the tech-heads.

"Correct." Liddia said to Scorch's near repeat of what she had said. "They came in special, but were part of a project that had been in the works for some time."

"Where can we pick up these rounds? And am I able to carry them? My gun heats up the rounds to cause extra damage, surely that would result in the acid rounds over heating and blowing the canisters." Tavish said; since he had the oppotunity to talk about this all before hand then he would.

"Right now I know only of the shotgun rounds and possibly sniper rifle as those are the easiest to use with their current delivery method. It may take awhile before they release anything for non-Earth weaponry." Liddia answered.

Tavish ignored the fact that his weapons were earth based, just smaller versions of shotguns that needed souping up, so the heat aspect was put in. "I would also like to ask, if it isn't too much, if we've managed to track down the method which makes these slime creatures. If they are manufactured then anything with that much power must have been noticed going missing. Have we tracked the items used to create them?"

"No, they don't seem to be the work of some sort of machine. They are just highly evolved invertebrates." Liddia explained, bringing up a picture of one of the oozes. "We don't know much about them other then the way their body looks since we have not been brought a living one."

"Other than a... very slow speech speed and behaviour that goes back almost to the japanese traditions of honour and death... I've got nothing on that subject" Tavish said, leaning back and letting out a small sniff "I tried to have a little chat..."

"Yes, they communicate, presumably, via frequencies when out of their armor. While inside their armor, they use a special device which takes that frequency and puts into a vocalization. That is why they do not speak English very well. The device isn't well suited for it." Liddia continued.


"Is there any way to decode what they're natural speech?" Spook asked.

"None that we have found. If we can get recordings of their frequencies we may be able to understand a bit more, but I do not think it will be any time soon." Liddia said, with a hint of regret in her voice.

"If you get me a microphone I'll try and get some stuff down for you next mission" Tavish said with a small shrug "Pin an emerald against a wall or something, make it talk."

"Like that'll work." Spook said sarcastically. "Scorch's decapitated it's self rather than yield. I seriously doubt you can make one talk so easily. What we need is a mike planted somewhere close to them, where they're comfortable enough to talk to one another."

"We get audio recordings from your helmet recorders that allow us to analyze their speech, we just don't have all the required information to translate it yet." Liddia said, "We have several missions lined up that will hopefully gather more information, we just have to get them approved. We doubt any of them will require the need of Spartans, but a few may."

"It took two of us to take out a diamond" Tavish pointed out "So these guys had better be prepared with the new weapons. I can see a team of ODSTs taking out a base or two though..."

"We are working on replicating these weapons and training our troops in their use." The Admiral chimed in on this question. "They are also going to be briefed on all this the same as you are now."

Stitch gulped heavily hearing about teams of ODST going after the aliens. He knew they'd have these new weapons and intel, he knew they'd signed up for this, but he still thought of what happened to most of the ODST in his team who got close to the aliens. He hoped his single survivor would continue to do just that, survive.

---

"If there are no more questions then we can go ahead and dismiss you all." The Admiral said to them.

"Have we got anything useful out of the rescued AI? If not... I don't suppose I can have a go talking to it?" Tavish said; if he'd managed to talk a girl into getting herself killed then he might be able to talk an AI into giving up something useful.

"You won't get anything from her but religious rhetoric." Spook said kicking back in her chair. "She's corrupted... Did you guys ever figure out why?" she asked the lady.

"We have gotten absolutely nothing from her, except threats and demands." Liddia said, rubbing her temples as if just thinking about dealing with that A.I. was giving her a headache. "The strangest part is that her programing hasn't been tampered with at all, and there was only a small amount of corrosion in her system which isn't enough to cause this kind of mental detachment. The only thing we can still cling to is that she is an old A.I. and is close to the end of her lifespan."

"Would you be adversed to me giving this AI a shot?" Tavish said, raising his hands in a small half shrug 'why not' position. "Its not like we have a chance of losing anything. Worst comes to worst and she'll just be insulting again" he wanted this chance... he knew he could talk, knew he could cut close to the bone... he knew what he could do just by talking. Maybe it could be put to use.

"If you want, I don't see any problem with it." Liddia said, looking to the Admiral to make sure he didn't have any objections. "She is hooked up in an isolated terminal here in the command center."

"Alright. Where is she?" Tavish asked, looking around as if he expected a little panel to just slide out "I'd like to talk with her... alone." For someone that they were suggesting might be off his rocker, Tavish was actually trying to help quite a bit.

"Well, we can give you the best we can. The console is in the command center." Liddia said as she gestured vaugely out into the command room.

"Right so... if we're dismissed?" Tavish said, calling back to what the commander had said earlier. The others didn't seem to have any questions and he wanted to get cracking at the AI.

"Yes, you are all dismissed." The Admiral said, standing from his seat. Liddia shut off the holoprojector and the lights in the room came back up.

"Here he comes, here comes Speed racer..." Tavish hummed under his breath as he stood up. He cast a small salute to the commander then, not looking at the others, moved away towards the area that he had been waved off to. This should be interesting.

Aaron stood from the table and grabbed his helmet. He watched Tavish walk over to the A.I.'s terminal and begin talking to it. He didn't like the idea of someone mentally unstable talking to a program that was unstable.

Since they were dismissed Spook saw no reason in sticking around any more. Baby needed cleaning after her round in the armory.

Scorch got to his feet and walked over to Aaron. "Is he alright, Scorp? He seems a bit off today."

Feeling out of place, Stitch went over to talk to Scorch and the other Spartan with him. "So, I take it, Tavish, was it? I take it he's not usually like this?" Turning to the Spartan with Scorch, he extended a hand. "Oh yes, 402, Stitch, nice to meet you."

Aaron took Stitch's hand and shook it, "283, Lil' Scorp or just Scorp and he wasn't normally like this, he has been getting worse." He watched as Spook made a quick exit from the room. "Everything seems to make him worse."

"Is there something he hasn't been tellin us?" Scorch wondered out loud. Shaft had seemed to be perfectly fine before they went on shore-leave. It looked to him that he started slipping after that trip

"No, he hasn't been hiding anything and has been pretty straight forward with me." Aaron said with a sigh. "Next time you go on a mission with him, you will probably hear all of it."

Scorch sighed, "I hate talking on missions. It's a distraction..."

Aaron gave Scorch a disbelieving look, "Right, next thing you'll be telling us is that you hate fire."

"Hardy har har. There's a difference between discussing strategy and exchanging intel on the enemy, and talking." Scorch clarified

Aaron just shook his head and smiled, "Whatever you say Scorch."

Suddenly, the fire alarms began to blare all over the facility. A calm feminine voice came over the speakers in between appropriately space alarm screams, "Please make for the nearest exit and follow evacuation plan Foxtrot and proceed to the hangar."

Stitch was enjoying the friendly banter, which also served to quench his thirst for knowledge. With the alarm call piercing his ears, he covered them, trying to time his shouts between the alarms. "I TAKE IT I CAN JUST FOLLOW YOU?!!"

Scorch nodded to Stitch and headed for the hangar. Evacuation plan Foxtrot, that was one that he needed to delve into the memory files for that.

Aaron looked up at the speakers as they blared and the voice told everyone what to do. "Hope this is a fire drill. Don't know how long a fire would last in the arctic though."

Stitch just blindly followed Scorch, wondering what the hell the reason for such a noise was. He hoped it wasn't something too serious, a fire drill, like Scorp's muffled suggestion had implied.

Aaron turned to leave the room with the rest of them when he noticed Tavish still messing with the A.I. terminal, he let out a sigh before hollering, "Shaft! Come on, leave the little glitch and let's go!" With that he turned and left for the Spartan Hangar.

"Just making sure we're covering our assets!" Tavish said, hurrying out of there as well, clutching the little device in his hand. No way in hell he was letting this slip away... an alarm going off like this after they've had this AI here? Too much coincidence for him. Maybe if someone less paranoid had been talking to her she could have gotten away with it... but not with tavish around.

---

The group arrived at the command center about 25 minutes later, having met plenty of opposition on the way. They had done their best to conserve ammo considering they still had the main baddie to take on and didn't know exactly what to expect. They all stood huddle near the corner in the hallway leading towards their main objective. "Hold on." Aaron said as he took a quick peek around the corner before jerking back. "Ok, looks like five anti-personnel turrets and three of the training drones with grenade launchers. Also the door has an energy shield covering it, so we can't just blow it open."

Tavish checked his weapons with a frown. Grenade launchers were not good, neither were anti-personal turrets but they could be blocked easier. The drones were just one shot however, so he could probably pick them off with a single shot from his pistol. One down however would draw the attention of the other grenades, so he would have to be AWAY from the others if he wanted to try that.

"If I can sling it right I can take out the turrets with two or three shots." Spook told Scorp. "But the grenade launchers are a little different matter."

"Well the drones are, oddly enough, the biggest threat. With those grenade launchers they can easily drop our shields with a single round." Aaron rationalized out loud. "The turrets won't do as much damage and we can't even mess with that door's shield till after we clear out the opposition." he thought for a second. "Scorch. Did you grab an EMP when we were in the armory or at all today?"

Scorch couldn't help but grin inside his helmet. Finally, someone asks the important question. He reached behind his back to the compartment where he kept his equipment and retrieved the small bluish metal orb. He held it up before him and nodded. "Always be prepared."

"Sometimes I think your conspiracy theory and paranoia pays off. Shaft, you could take a lesson from him." Aaron said as he took another peek around the corner, "Ok, give it a go Scorch. Try and get 'em all at least."

Scorch chuckled inside his helmet as he stepped forward, measuring the distance. He had to time it just right after all. The EMP only had a small coverage area, but it was potent enough to drain a Covenant Wraith in a single shot, a few drones should be a cake walk for the little machine.

"I got you covered if anything goes wrong" Tavish said, ignoring Aaron's comments and carefully slipping two full clips into his pistols. Many things could go wrong. One bot could just blow the machine up with a stray grenade before it reached it's targets, or it could even be sent back at them with a stray blast near it. Tavish was ready for whatever happened, but he hoped it went down well.

"Good, once the EMP activates, Shaft, you pop around and take the bots down before taking down the turrets which should all be vulnerable." Aaron said, making sure he got that out before Scorch threw it.

Scorch activated the EMP, set the minuet timer and took a breath before tossing the equipment underhand towards the drones. He knew someone was bound to say something about the underhanded toss, but he didn't give a shit. The equipment was sensitive enough without him throwing it like a football and having it bust instead of activating.

As the bots turned to target the flying orb, which was moving very slowly and predictably thanks to Scorch's choice of underarm throwing, Tavish popped out from around his cover. Two bots were hit in the head before they could do anything but stare at the ball. Tavish brought the gun around as the grenade was shot out of the third's barrel; he didn't need to worry about the bot, he could see the EMP would deal with it. If the EMP stayed were it was. This meant that the grenade, half way through it's trajectory towards the EMP, was smacked sideways by a hail of gun fire from Tavish's twitching fingers. It rolled away as the bot went down, and the resulting explosion took out two turrets by itself. The others Tavish began to pump round after round into, pausing only to reload his guns as quickly as possible.

The EMP, once activated, prevented the remaining turrets from firing as Tavish quickly destroyed them. Once the EMP ran out of energy, the shield over the door reappeared, preventing their entrance.

"Now for that shield." Aaron said as he looked behind him at Stitch.

"Just call me the skeleton key." It seemed like a lot of Stitch's job recently was opening doors. Not that he minded. In fact, he liked to think outside the box, and find new ways. And he had. "Hey Scorch, you weren't thinking of just throwing that EMP away, right?" He hadn't seen the door's shield go down when the EMP went up, but he saw it reactivate, and that's all he needed to know. He knew that it could be dangerous to go near the EMP when it was live, it could cut out their own shields, but if he only gave it a little juice, maybe it could take down the door safely. As a technician, he felt he had to find out. Carefully approaching the EMP, he took out his shock stick, putting it onto a low setting. "If anyone has any objections, well...screw it." With that, he pushed the button of the shock stick down hard, and slightly to the left, temporarily jamming the button, before kicking the EMP over, with the idea of being able to hopefully grab the shock stick afterwards. He then dropped the now live shock stick next to the EMP, and got back, just in case.

Scorch had honestly never even thought of picking up the EMP anyway. He wasn't very big on using equipment in the first place, but retrieving the dead equipment? The thought hadn't crossed his mind whatsoever.

The EMP lit back up, but it was not enough energy getting in and out of the device to put the shield down.

"Huh, worth a shot..." Stitch frowned a little under his helmet, before grabbing his shock stick again, unjamming the stick's button, so as to be safe. "So, I guess I'll try the usual? What was that password again?" Proceeding to the door control, he got to the password screen, searching his memory for any hints on the password. "...Arc...oh yes ARC, then 79, then 1 from 4 is 3, doubled is 6...and Kill Zone." With his little memory game, he typed in 'ARC791436KZ'. "It worked once folks!"

The screen flashed the typed in password before clearing and displaying the words "Security Override. Password Terminal Locked." Looked like the armor inside the room has the terminal blocked to prevent or slow someone from getting in. If he could just get the shield down then they could deal with the door separately.

"Dammit...That ooze is smart, I'll give him that." Stitch almost had to give the ooze some credit, he could lock a system well with software. Fortunately, without going there himself, he could change the hardware. "Guess I'll do the other choice. What's behind door number 3?" Opening the terminal physical, he came to a slightly familiar scene. He'd opened one of them earlier to get into the armory, so he didn't even have to assume the setup would be much the same. "Wait wait wait, extra wires. I'm guessing that's the shield then?" Stitch was quickly losing patience. "Wait. SIR! As bad as this may sound, if every wire got cut, then there would be no power to the shields, but the door mechanism would also lock. However, I believe a high powered barrage to suffice to open it. Permission to cut the red wire, and all the other ones too?"

Aaron sized the door up before nodding, "You have permission Stitch."

"You don't realise how happy those words have made me." Stitch's somewhat monotone voice didn't give just to that statement, or the huge grin on his face as he wrenched the wires out from the console, putting them in his empty arm compartment, just in case he could use them later.

The shield immediately collapsed, flickering out like a bad light bulb on its last leg. However, the door, as was expected, stayed put. It almost seemed as if it suck a bit lower, as a result of the gears failing.

"Alright Stitch! Now get back so I can blow the damn thing off its hinges." Aaron said as he pulled his DHS-5 around and readied it.

"Woah-kay!" Stitch smiled as the shield fell, and got behind Scorp. He was ready to use his Spartan Laser if necessary, but would rather not risk it yet.

"Everyone back around the corner." Aaron said before he aimed at the door. There was a whirring sound before the rocket launched. When it impacted the door it burrowed in with the help of the drill bit over the warhead, then it detonated with a sharp crack accented with the sound of reinforced metal door ricocheting off the walls.

Considering there hadn't been much warning, Tavish had moved as best he could, and had tried to put himself between Spook and the explosion. Might as well, she'd promised him a chat.

The clanking, skidding noise of metal slowly came to an end and the smoke started to clear. Aaron peeked around the corner and into the command center and didn't see anything moving inside. "Alright, everyone on me. Enter the door and spread out next to me and find this bastard." as he finished he switched to his minigun and moved quickly into the room.

Scorch wasted no time. The boss had spoken, enough talk, time for action. He made sure the flamethrower was safely harnessed on his back before pulling the shotgun down and double checking the new shells. He hoped he'd get another chance to fight the alien one-on-one. The last one was only a ruby, this one apparently came from the amethyst that Shaft had brought back, ammolites were higher on the latter than the ruby.

Following shortly after Aaron, Stitch breathed a sigh of relief. "No more doors to open then?"

Tavish sighed softly and pulled out the small Thresher guns he had with him, twisting the clips out and then in again to double check. He decided to remain quiet and near the back, like they wanted. Maybe he wouldn't try and protect someone if they got shot.

"Not in the immediate vicinity." Spook answered Stitch, being able to see the floor plans on her VISR hud. Locked doors showed up as red dashes, unlocked as green. "We're green for a-... wait..." They saw Spook turn her head as if something was wrong. "Something's..." She tapped the side of her helmet. "The signal... I think it's corrupted... I've lost audio and visuals are... Ack!" Spook's visor just became transparent, which she never, ever did on her own. "My VISR's corrupt." She told Aaron. "I've got no eyes."

"No time now Spook." Aaron said as they all moved into the command center proper. A quick sweep of the room allowed them to spot the armor standing across the room with a standard issue LMG trained on them while it continued to type on the console. It stopped a few seconds later and turned to face them, it was the ruby armor that Scorch had brought back but the head was that of the Ammolite that Shaft had taken down. "I impressed." it said simply.

"That would be 'I am impressed.' And yeah, we get that a lot." Scorch said in response to the Ammolite's praise of them.

Tavish gaze a shrug to the robot, carefully spinning on of his guns on a finger. He didn't bother to speak, people would just get annoyed at him again. He just waited to kill the damn armor.

"Sir," Spook said at the back of the group. "Permission to blow this thing to kingdom-come?" She had a plazzy in her hand but hadn't yet ignited it.

"You want to end me." the armor said as he took a step forward, closer to a different console. "Understandable. I ended many of you fellow heathens today." It placed its hand over a scanner and there was a sudden dimming of the lights as if there was a great drain on the bases electricity. "Now you may try to end me. My brothers are on way." with that he began unloading rounds in the Spartan's direction.

With his first sight being the ruby-ammolite hybrid creature, there was only one word on Stitch's mind. “Bollocks!” Hiding behind whatever was nearest was his first priority, his second being to charge a shot of his Spartan Laser, despite the range.

"Cover!" Aaron shouted as the first rounds hit their shields. It was delayed as he had already spotted Stitch ducking behind cover. He hoped everyone else was fast to respond.

Spook ducked for cover but she didn't stay visible for long. The others could see the glimmer of her movement, but it would help save her from direct fire. Her shields were always in danger of draining her power-cell... then again so was her cloaking.

Scorch didn't like the idea of hiding from this thing, but he ducked for cover as ordered. It was too bad he had to use the EMP earlier. It surely would have come in handy at the moment, that was if it would even have an effect on the alien armor.

Tavish saw the twinkle of Spook vanishing out of the corner of his eye. Great, but he couldn't rely just on that. These things didn't have eyes after all, Spook might get spotted even if she was invisible. Unless the armour was distracted that was. "BOO!" Tavish yelled as he rolled from the cover he had taken, moving in a quick ark away from the direction that he guessed Spook was coming from, aiming his guns at the armour and shooting one or two rounds to draw his attention as Tavish continued moving around, trying to avoid the shots in return.

It was easy to see the armor following Tavish with the gun as the consoles he was ducking behind all let out a shower of sparks and flames as they were destroyed.

"Dammit Shaft! I said cover, not run and try to get shot!" Aaron cursed as his barrels spun up. "Everyone get moving!" He said as he popped up from behind cover and returned fire on the armor.

Stitch shook his head at Tavish's mad dash, and, despite Scorp's command, stayed in cover, thinking it unsafe to be run around with a charging laser. He let off a charge at the armour however, aimed at the guns in its hands.

A flash of blue came from seemingly nowhere as Spook advanced. She was relying on her pistol for the time being, but knowing that these things didn't like grenades, she'd stocked up on plassys. The grenade arched over the obstacles in the room, hopefully about to find it's home stuck to the helmet of a pile of goo.

This goo wasn't going to be taken down so easily. It ducked down as soon as it came under Aaron and Stitch's combined fire and rolled out of the way, avoiding and clearing the plasma grenade. The goo did not resurface to return fire, but instead remained hidden, doing God knows what.

When the armor vanished, Scorch couldn't help but grin beneath his helmet. "I think all this excitement's got him fappin!" He exclaimed as he moved from hiding as well. His shotgun was ready, but it wasn't exactly the kind of weapon one would use to draw someone out. He holstered it and unhooked the flamethrower from his back. Bringing it to bear before him he squeezed the trigger and let loose a spout of flame where the armor had been standing. "Hope the admiral doesn't mind a slightly smoky scent in here."

Tavish was glad he'd got a clue of what Spook was doing, but Aaron had rather messed this up by deciding everyone should shoot at this guy. Two of them, running in different directions, that could scissor the armour and that grenade might have hit. He paused behind a counter himself, starting to load a few more shells into his guns. "Someone get the bastard before he brings out some turrets in here or escapes out of the armour!" he yelled, starting to move again when he realised the armour had vanished behind the desk.

"If you'd stop being an idiot and jumping in everyone's way!" Spook shouted at him. He was going to get himself killed acting like that.

"Right now I think the Admiral will be lucky if there is anything left of the Command Center." Aaron muttered to himself as he continued through the consoles to close in on the armor.

Suddenly the fire suppression system kicked on and everything, including the Spartans, were coated in a thick fireproof foam. It continued to fall even after everything was coated, making the floor slick and visibility low. This tactic also nullified Spook's camouflage and put out the flame on Scorch's flamethrower.

"He doesn't have eyes Spook, I ran out there before you got shot in the face!" Tavish yelled into the microphone, running to flank the desk that the Armour was hiding behind. This was not the best situation ever.

Running was a difficult thing for Tavish to do with all the slick foam on the ground impeding his movement. Luckily for him, any reply Spook would have given him was cut off as he foamed form was suddenly tackled to the ground by the suddenly emerging armor. The momentum it had alongside the slick floor made them slide across the room to impact into another computer terminal. "Death time, little one." it hissed as it brandished a knife and tried to stab her in the weak neck spot of her armor.

"SONOFA-" Spook managed to squawk as the thing tackled her. With the floor so slick and being nearly half the size of the others in the room she went down immediately and almost didn't see the knife in time. The foam streaked across the large bubble of her helmet, obstructing her view. Had she not seen the blade come down she would have been done for. Her shields weren't design to stop something as slow moving as a knife blade. She managed to get her forearm up in time to brace and block the blow. With the foam and the slippery floor she couldn't rely on the boys to save her. She pushed her knee up as much as she could and with her left free hand groped for a plassy. Engaging the explosive she smacked it against the armor's helmet and pushed away with her knee, hoping to dislodge the thing without splattering herself all over the floor. Thankfully she heard the electronic vrrrrr of her shields already powering up, bracing for the impact of the explosive.

As Spook slid away she was able to see the Armor take its knife and jab at its head quickly, breaking off a chunk that took the grenade with it. Now free of the deadly explosive it took off after Spook again, but was propelled forward suddenly by the grenades explosion.

Spook brought down Lil Buddy and proceeded to empty the magazine into the oncoming armor.

This was a bad move on the armour's part. Because now that the armour had specifically aimed straight at Spook, Tavish was mad. It was difficult to find traction, sure, but Tavish slid up against the side of a wall slowly, then pushed off hard straight towards the armour. He raised his guns, pushing with his feet hard whenever he felt himself slow, and starting to fire rapidly straight at the armour. He was either going to distract it, shoot it or tackle it.

Point blank with an auto-mag has never been a good idea, but one of Spook's rounds found purchase and removed it's left arm at the shoulder. The resulting explosive force sent the armor back and to the right, putting him through the compound's radar station. It probably would have burst into flames from the resulting sparks, but the foam put any possibility of that right out. As it traveled it caught several rounds from Tavish's guns, but didn't appear to have done much damage.

Aaron slide over to Spook after the armor took its hit. "You still functioning Spook?" He asked as he kept an eye out for another attack from the goo.

(auto mag, not sniper rifle, I fixed)
"Pissed sir." Spook said ejecting Lil Buddy's empty mag and loading another as she attempted to stand.

Scorch was pissed as well. His flamethrower was coated in flame-retardant foam. He resisted the urge to simply toss it aside as useless. Instead, he holstered it and drew his sword. Clearly, the guns weren't having much effect at all. With his katana in hand, he made his way carefully but awkwardly across the floor to the creature's position. With a slash of the diamond-edged blade, he hoped to render the goo's armor in two.

As Scorch rounded the corner, the armor was gone. The only thing to signify its presence, other then the smashed up terminals and chairs, was bits of ruby armor. There was a sudden scritching scratching noise before the armor popped back up with its LMG and started unloading on Scorch who was the closest.

"Bloody hell!" Scorch shouted as the LMG rounds hammered into his back. He pitched forward and tried to roll for cover. How did the friggin thing get around him so quick???

Aaron heard the gun fire pick back up and spotted the armor firing on Scorch. "Damn he's fast." He muttered has he stood and opened fire on the armor, hoping to give Scorch plenty of time to get to cover. "Come on you slimy pile of shit!"

Tavish, who had been skidding past the fighting from his self-propelling earlier, slapped into the wall beside Spook gently. He turned around at once, kneeling down beside her and saying "You alright Spook?" He didn't like how close that damn thing had gotten to her, though she would probably be insulted by him treating her like this, he wanted to make sure she didn't get cut up.

"Oh come on? How the hell are we supposed to hit that thing?" Stitch shook his head. "With all this slippery crap, it's hard to tell what's goo and what's...other goo." Sheathing his laser, he removed his shock stick from its holster, before trying what the others had already tried, a full on charge. "Fuck this!"

"Fine." Spook growled, wiping foam from her helmet. In order to stand in this foamy mess she had wedged herself against a console. She'd lost eyes on the goo in this hail of white and her VISR mode was still not functioning properly. She saw the electricity arc from Stitch's stick and lifted her rifle towards the gelatinous thing. In these close quarters using her scope wasn't at all effective. Her VISR adjusted, raised the redicle on her hud and highlighted red to indicate the goo. She fired four shots in rapid secession.

Scorch fell behind an overturned filing cabinet as Aaron provided him with some cover fire. He hissed as he leaned back against the metal, glad he wasn't a marine with just basic body armor. That LMG would have shredded one of them. Even with his shields though, he took a lot of damage from the shots. It would take him a while to get the dents out of the metal plating and then he had to repair the paint job as well.

The armor barely managed to get out of the way as the large rounds whizzed past him. This concentrated fire seemed to be making him a little more cautious, especially since he was being pushed further back into the command center itself. He popped up everyonce in awhile to take shots at anyone getting near him or who were above cover. He was also popping up and out at different locations to minimize his chance of Spook getting a killing blow as he popped out.

Tavish began to try and track his movements, watching the ripples in the foam as he popped down and up. He began to shoot in front of the armor as he darted away, trying to hit him once or twice, or drive him in another direction. He wondered if it would work.

Tavish's tactic worked to a point, as the armor found itself having to duck prematurely or change directions suddenly. It was getting harder for the armor to find an opening to take shots.

"Keep on 'em Spartans." Aaron said as he moved forward, putting plenty of holes through the armor's cover and hopefully the armor itself. "Scorch, do you think you could pin this bastard to a wall if you get a chance?"

Spook seethed when she saw her rounds miss completely. She did not appreciate missing anything, ever. A straight forward attack was obviously not going to work. She ducked down where the thing wouldn't so easily make out her position and attempted to move into position where she could sling a shot without risk of hitting anyone else. If she could ricochet it just right she might be able to shoot the thing without it knowing from which angle it was coming from.

"What do you think I've been trying to do, sir?" Scorch replied rather harshly. With the foam all over everything now, it was even more difficult to get close enough to the cursed thing for him to do anything. The last thing he wanted right now was to try and shoot it with his shotgun, everyone else was missing, why waste his specialized ammo?

"You ain't going to be doin' any good this far away." Aaron said, "Everyone keep him pinned down so Scorch can get closer. Stitch, get ready. The second we get this thing pinned you need to hit it with your laser."

Tavish growled and continued to shoot at the target, trying to stop it's movements by hailing fire in front of the moving goop. He would willingly rush in, but the amount of fire on that spot and the slippery floor made it so difficult.

Scorch groaned, his back was killing him, shields and armor aside, shots from an LMG still hurt while that close. He got up and stared at the armored creature. His grip tightened on his katana and he slid himself forward, he wished the place hadn't filled with the fire suppressant foam.

Spook saw Scorch sliding towards the armor. For some reason this thing seemed to move more adeptly than they could in this environment. Scorch's attack would be for naught unless someone did something to subdue the thing. The explosive rounds from her sniper ammo were probably not enough to kill the thing outright, but a few shots from odd angles might confuse it enough that Scorch could pin it down. She fired a shot, aiming at the ceiling, hopefully angling the shot enough that when it ricocheted it came in behind the armor where she was "aiming." She hadn't found much use for trick shots since Academy Competition, but with her competitive nature and the fact that it was all like riding a bike, she was rather confident that her shot would hit home.

If it hit the armor then there wasn't much evidence towards the fact. As Scorch slid around the side of one row of terminals he could see the armor peeking around the corner at the far end. He could see the damage the thing had sustained by the holes and misses pieces.

Scorch surged across the floor and using the slickness of the fire-retardant foam as a boost, slammed right into the armor, his diamond-bladed katana held out before him. If it went according to plan, the cursed alien would be stuck to the wall behind it by the end of the slide

The armor turned and saw Scorch coming at him and raised its gun to fire on him, but wasn't able to react quickly enough. The sword popped through him and stuck out his back. The momentum carried the two of them the rest of the way across the room and smacking into the wall hard. Now that they had stopped moving, the armor began striking Scorch with fist, foot, and gun butt.

"GOOD JOB!" Tavish yelled from his cover, glad that someone else was charging forward for once. He checked his ammo. He was good to go. Scorch was a little close though, he didn't trust anyone to make this shot but Spook.

Since the one shot didn't do anything at all Spook fired and continued firing, aiming for the damnable thing's head. Each explosive round in her 13 round mag should do SOMETHING.

Scorch groaned as the thing started beating him. It didn't matter though, he had the thing pinned. There was no way it was getting away from them this time.

Scorp's command of "Shoot it when it's pinned" was met with a rousing "Hoorah!" from Stitch, and when Scorch's katana seemed to do just that, he began charging, knowing well the time it took to fire. "Run like hell Scorch, blowing in 3,2,1..."

Scorch waited until the last possible moment and then yanked the katana out of the armor as he dropped to the ground to avoid the crimson blast of laser. His back screamed at him for such an abrupt move, but there was no way in hell he was going to leave his sword behind. He just hoped the bloody thing wouldn't be able to dodge because of it

The thing was in no position to try and dodge anything as Spook's rounds completely erased its head and a decent portion of it shoulder area. Stitch's laser blast finished it off the rest of the way. The remnants of the body fell to the ground and twitched for a bit before ceasing all movement. Wth an odd slurpung sound, a charred and badly damaged ooze slopped out of one of the gaping holes.

"Someone stomp on it's face!" Tavish yelled out, completely aware that it had no face to stomp on right now. He moved quickly over to the consoles, trying to find one that wasn't too damaged to find out what had happened.

Aaron moved over to the ooze and what was left of the armor. The ooze was thoroughly burnt up and damaged and showed no signs of life anymore. He then looked over at Scorch, "You all good?" he asked, knowing he was awfully close to that blast.

Luckily, for Tavish, the console the armor was at was still partially operational. From what the screen was saying it looked like the Armor had sent out a pulse message alerting something to his location along with some sort of long message that wasn't any Earth language or known Covenant language.

"Well, it sent a little message" Tavish said, starting to quickly slam in instructions. Now, what would work? Ah yeah, the signal couldn't just be shut off.... "I'm gonna try to make the signal seem as if it was coming from a different planet. Whatever that guy summoned, it might just go right past us."

Spook stepped and half slid forward to confirm that the thing was dead for herself. Seeing that it was she glanced at Tavish and figured he should probably let Stitch, the computer expert, handle the job of rerouting the signal.

"Oh yeah...Just peachy." Scorch replied, groaning as he got back up to his feet. He pulled a cleaning cloth from a compartment in his armor and cleaned the goo/blood from his blade before sliding it back into the scabbard. "I'm used to get scorched a little, after all. It's those damned LMG shots that's got me groaning."

"Dammit... dammit" Tavish muttered, frantically tapping in on the console before looking around "Out of my expertise. I can't get it to change. Stitch, you think you could have a crack at it?"

"I can try." Stitch thought hard. "Can't stop the signal reaching them, but I could stop it reaching us maybe?" Well that wasn't exactly true. It could pass right through them however. With luck. "What is the nearest planet, is it inhabited, and do we care?" He wasn't great at what he called 'Space Geography'.

"Ain't nothing a little sleep can't fix, huh?" Aaron said as he offered Scorch his hand to help him up. He looked over towards Stitch to try and answer his question, "Old research facility about five systems over. No longer in operation so it'll be perfect as a scapegoat."

"Sleep and a metal grinder." Scorch mumbled as he reached behind his back and felt the variety of dents and scraps.

"What are the chances this thing can regenerate or something?" Spook asked, jostling the thing with her foot. "Cause I don't know about you boys but I really don't feel like repeating this whole thing all over again."

"Well, we could just make sure the lab boys keep it properly locked up this time" Tavish said, gazing down at the slime. He'd brought this thing on base, but what part of "there's an alien life form in this thing, or possibly crawling around the ship" meant that should treat the situation lightly?

"More security and double checking, definitely." Aaron said as he went to see how Stitch was doing on rerouting the signal destination and ending the transmission. "But the AI had some hand in this. Just don't know how."

Scapegoat. Just the words Stitch hated to hear usually, but luckily in this context, it was fine. After a serious typing session, he paused for a moment. "Just a heads up, it might get a little bit darker, I'm sort of shutting off most of the non-essentials here, so they have nothing to track." With a few more key presses, the lights dimmed, still enough so that they could see, but still much darker. "And yup, we should be invisible to that beacon." He breathed heavily. "I hope."

"If we're not we're going to need more firepower than we have on base." Spook told anyone who would listen. "Without birds in the sky and the main defenses powered down we're sitting ducks. If these things are on the way, we're on the verge of another foothold situation. We need more men."

"We'll have to do what we can." Aaron said as he got a response from his call. "Unless they got damn good engines, they won't be showing anytime soon."

"Right, that gives us enough time..." Tavish's eyes swiveled to Spook as he said those words, before pulling away again to the others "To get repairs started and the base a bit more up to scratch. Lets try and make sure that the people are armed this time, alright?"

Scorch groaned and popped the release for his chest plate. He couldn't stand the curiosity any longer. The alien was dead, or at least unconscious at the moment. The threat, for now, was neutralized. He pulled his armor off and sat it down on the table with a loud Clunk. He spun it around and couldn't help but wince at the damage to the back.

Spook couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Scorch outside his armor. He looked positively tiny by comparison to the others. No wonder he was a close combat specialist.

Aaron looked around at the group of Spartans and let out a little sigh of relief. This was a tougher adversary then they had fought before and was beginning to look like another Covenant style war was on the horizon. He looked around the command center to survey the damage done and quickly realized that hardly any computer in the room was still operational. "I don't think they are going to be able to fix this up anytime soon either."

Scorch looked over his shoulder at Spook and couldn't help but smirk. "Enjoying the view?" He asked her as he reached behind his back and rubbed the tender spots from the LMG shots.

"Fuck off." Spook snapped at Scorch, but she wasn't at all sure why. "Sir, there's plenty that can be operational by the time these things get here. If they're coming... I can probably rig the exterior turrets to scan and fire on enemy ships. I think the techs use bubble shields to keep the cold out while they're working outside."

Aaron was shocked by Spook's sudden little outburst, but didn't mention it. "None of this is up to me Spook. When the Admiral has a chance to hear everything and confer with the higher ups then we can make a game plan."

Great... that meant more standing around and Spook still had a talk with Shaft looming over her head. "With your permission I'm going to go have the lab boys make sure this thing didn't leave a piece of itself inside my armor when it attacked me."

"Permission denied." Aaron said quickly, "There's no one down there right now to help you. Wait till the boys get here to clean this up and I'll let you go down there with them."

"Right. Well, so we're just standing here right? Until this guy turns up. Or maybe we should go find him, right? Cause sure as hell I don't want to just be dicking around until then" Tavish growled gently, casting a glance towards Aaron, then towards Spook. The talk was needed. Badly. He didn't like waiting for higher ups to be able to direct them on what to do, when they had something very important to do already.

"No, we stay put till they arrive." Aaron said, irritated that after he told one person to stay put that another person wanted to leave. " We can't just mosey off while we have a possibly dead alien here. How do we know it isn't just waiting for a chance to slip off while we aren't here?"

Tavish snapped off his helmet, marching over to the alien and scooping it up in one hand. He began to pool the puddle of alien straight into the helmet, cleaning up as much as possible. It seemed more solid than it looked, a good like sensation when lifting it. Tavish dropped it all in his helmet, after shutting off all the air vents and valves so it couldn't leak out, then carried the helmet bowl full of alien over to a damaged piece of equipment. he ripped off a large metal panel, then put it on top of the alien filled helmet, and turned it upside down so it couldn't over balance and tip out. "There. I'll happily replace my helmet with a bucket if we have one."

Aaron walked over to Tavish and took the goo filled helmet and dumped it onto the floor before pushing it into Tavish's chest. "I don't know what your problem is, but you WILL obey an order. And I can start finishing every sentence with 'That's an order' if you can't get it through your damage head what one is when I issue you one." he said, mere inches from Tavish's face.

"My problem is that we're not soldiers, we're SPARTANS" Tavish snapped at him "Yeah, we talk to the higher ups, but they wave us towards the enemy and then let us do the rest. My problem is that we don't HAVE to wait around, we get things done, and we get things done quickly, and well. So while we could be spending out time dicking around in here, guarding something that is quite easily defeated by a BUCKET and a PIECE OF METAL now, I could be... say... fixing up some turrets, or some vehicles, just in case we DO get an army coming down on us any minute. Spartans are there for when being just human doesn't cut it. You're so by-the-fucking-book that you're going to get people killed. Yeah, I'm pushing it right now, I can see that, but if I didn't disobey orders, if I hadn't SPRINTED out of there the moment I saw Spook camouflage, she could have gotten out of this with more than just a few marks in the armour." This wasn't the only reason he was losing it, really, but it was a damn good one "I just want you to give me ONE GOOD REASON why I can't scoop that damn thing into my helmet, and hand it to the Admiral when I'm on my way to FIX A DAMN PELICAN. And I don't mean because it's an order!"

Aaron removed his helmet and let it fall to the floor. "Because you're going to need to give a full report to the Admiral when he gets here." he said harshly, "Our purpose is to get done the jobs that other, just humans as you put it, can't. We also don't walk off to fix a "Damn Pelican" till that job is done and the job isn't done till we leave the debriefing room. Now are we done here or do you want me to put you on report for insubordination?"

"So your reply is because it's an order" Tavish sniffed, leaning back and glaring at Aaron "I'm not going anywhere, but reports can be given anytime. Reports can be given on the fly. We've got issues here, and they're not going to get solved by standing around in a room saying that we've got issues. Are you seriously happy walking through this and taking no initiative on what to do next until you've got it in triplicate from the Admiral?"

Running his hands through the small amount of hair on his head, Aaron let out a deep sigh of frustration. "Yes! It's a fucking order!" he shouted, jabbing Tavish in the chest plate. "We. Follow. Orders. That's our job. If you don't like it then request out. It's not like anyone is forcing you to do this." Every Spartan knew that they could put in a request to be moved out of the Spartan program. They would be put into a military desk job and under pretty heavy surveillance and was considered cowardly and shameful, but it was an out.

"I LIKE helping people" Tavish said, not responding to the tap "In fact, yeah, I don't like a lot of things about the Spartan program, but what I do like is that when you complete it, even if they treat you as a weapon, it means you can DO something. Our job isn't to follow orders, it's to get stuff done. and standing around waiting for one guy to show up, who hasn't even done that yet, while an enemy invasion is heading our direction, isn't getting stuff done. You want to be someone who follows orders blindly, fine, but I don't like it when it's the person in charge!"

This was getting out of hand. Spook might not like standing around but if someone didn't get a hold of Shaft this would end in Aaron knocking his head off and as big as Shaft was, Aaron was much bigger. Since removing helmets seemed to be a theme of the evening she removed hers. She stepped between Shaft and Aaron and said, "Tavish..." She'd snapped off her fair share during the last hour or so but there was a calmness in her voice that she thought he might respond to more than just shouting at him. "I don't like it ether... Just... calm down..."

Aaron was just about to respond when the sound of footsteps could be heard from outside the room. Several lab techs wearing hazmat gear walked in with containment equipment, followed by several Marines and the Admiral. Aaron quickly saluted to the Admiral and moved away from Tavish.

Tavish had sighed gently when Spook was between the two of them. It took less than a second for the anger to slip from his face, and a soft nod to come from him. he didn't look at Aaron as he did this, only Spook. "Alright... alright..." he said, managing a little smile down at her before the Admiral and the rest came in. He turned, and saluted like a good little solider. It was a half-hearted, sluggish salute though. If anyone asked he'd blame it on the foam they'd been sliding around in getting in the engines on his suit and slowing down a gear or two.

Spook tried ignoring that little smile and snapped her helmet back on when the Admiral arrived. She saluted though like Shaft there was less umph in it as there had been in past salutes.

Scorch turned as the Admiral entered and snapped to full salute. His chest was bare, but his helmet was still on. It must have looked pretty ridiculous, but he didn't care. It wasn't like he could put the armor back on in the seconds it took to salute the Admiral.

With all the removal and such of helmets, Stitch kept his on tight, especially with this team, it helped if there was some buffer from emotions. He hardly knew them, and didn't feel like showing his face yet. Saluting the admiral, he wondered what would be happening next.

The Admiral gave the room a once over before looking at the group. "I think you missed a few terminals." he said with a faint grin. "Whats our status?"

Tavish closed his eyes and just stood there. He wanted to explain why he wanted to leave right now and get to work, but Aaron had decided that there was no need for him to have any opinions at all and that he knew best. So he left it for aaron to talk.

"The target is dead, or so we believe." Aaron said as he looked back at the goo as it was being, gingerly, placed into a tight sealing container. "We inadvertently caused severe damage to the command room in the process. Also there is an injured Marine in the lab along with another Marine and Liddia. Also, the goo managed to send out a burst transmission regarding our location, but Stitch managed to divert it and make it look as if the signal came from elsewhere."

"Good job Stitch, same goes for the rest of you." the Admiral said to them with a nod of approval.

"However..." the word hung in the air like a massive stink and Tavish had to say it. No more. Apparently Aaron needed a bit of help, so he was going to only offer one word that Aaron should be thinking about.

The Admiral seemed a bit taken back by Tavish's one word. He glanced at Aaron, questioningly who simply shrugged and rolled his eyes. "However, nothing. We managed to get out a distress message and help should arrive withing the hour to get the rest of the mess straightened out. Till they arrive we won't know the extent of the damage and how long it will take to get operational again. We may be relocating for a bit."

"What are the chances that whatever the good was sending the message to, will be able to intercept our distress signal?" Spook asked. She didn't care about relocating, so long as it was warmer than this place it didn't matter to her, but she did care about getting attacked again before help arrived. Who knew how fast these things could travel, they didn't even have vertebra.

"What are the chances that an enemy made entirely of eyeless blobs, who have no way of conventional sight, have developed a system of tracking a signal that WON'T be tricked by such a simple trick we pulled? What are the chances that, since the signal must have been on for at least... five... ten minutes while we fought this thing, some of them might want to check out us, just in case." Tavish knew that the changing of the distance of the beacon had been his idea, kinda, but that didn't mean he thought it worked.

"Those are all very good questions, and I can only answer a few of them at this time." The Admiral said, "Our distress call was only sent to the military headquarters here on Earth, so the chances of the aliens getting it would be little to none. As for the rest of the questions, we really don't know enough about their technology level to make any assumptions. So our planetary defenses have been put on high alert."

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A.I. Goddess's Terminal

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