Several weeks had passed since the awful shore leave trial and nothing exciting had happened, much to the dismay of the Spartans stationed here. It seemed like they were on the verge of starting their own little war for some action when the announcement went out.

"Spartans 283 and 369 report to Spartan Command for mission assignment and briefing."

---

Tavish came into the room, while he was usually was lax in the area of respect to authority these days he'd been a silent malice towards them. Most of all the commander, who he believed had known full well about the people kidnapping UNSC member and had still sent them all in without telling them.

Aaron walked quickly into the command center and nearly bumped into Tavish. "Oh, sorry there Shaft. Guess im a little excited to be going on a mission finally."

Tavish gave a small grunt in reply, frowning beneath his helmet as he just listened to Aaron. Maybe killing something would make him feel better. He wanted to go three rounds with a hammer brute and pull it's brain out through it's own mouth.

Realizing that Tavish was still in his depression, Aaron decided not to try and continue conversation. "Come on, lets get this briefing over with so we can get out there."

Tavish nodded slowly to Aaron, hoping this briefing would be over with soon. He'd been wearing his helmet a lot lately, taking solice beneath the blank exterior.

Aaron led them into the briefing room where the Admiral was waiting.

The Admiral watched as they came in and gestured for them to have a seat.

There shouldn't be a menacing way to walk past someone and sit down, but Tavish managed it somehow, the chair legs scraping on the floor as he pulled his seat out and sat down so heavily the reinforced metal groaned. He wanted to kill something.

Aaron sat down and set his helmet down on the table. "So what's the word, sir?

The Admiral punched a key and brought up a holo-display which showed a planet rotating slowly. "This is Ortega, a rather uninteresting planet when you look at it. But, what makes it interesting is that fact that it is apparently a world wide mine of rare metals and gems from your simple coal all the way up to black diamonds the size of your head." The holo-display changed to show a compound of some sort with small vehicles moving around along with people. "This is the primary mining facility called MF-417 or The Big Retriever as it brings in the largest amount of mine-ables. But all of that is non-important data to give you a small idea of whats going on. The main thing you need to know is that several shipments have gone missing on its way to the primary shipping facility for its quarter of the planet. And when I say that I dont mean a few boxes have come up missing, I mean three whole convoys have vanished off the grid. Not even wreckage has been found for them." He punched in a few more buttons and the display switched again to show a road that went from MF-417 to a much larger facility with small ships flying to and fro. "Your mission is two-fold. You are to ride with the next outgoing convoy to the shipping facility to try and ensure its safety along with two squads of ODST. Should no attack occur on this convoy you will try to determine the cause of the disappearances and use the ODST where needed. You will not be returning here till this has been solved, understood?"

Tavish just nodded, so he didn't present his boss with the middle finger, then promptly try to stuff that up his nose. Protecting a comvoy. Great, he wouldn't even get to drive on this mission. He was getting sick of this, being thrown into something they had no idea about and told to solve it out. Maybe he wouldn't come back. He'd resolve it, just not tell anyone.

Aaron frowned, this wasnt the kind of mission he had hoped for either. "An escort and detective mission sir? Sounds to me like the ODST could do this mission on their own."

"They could, except that they cant control the vehicle you will be driving." The Admiral said as a new image replaced the picture of the facility. This new image was of a six wheeled, heavily armored vehicle that looked similar to an APC. What it had that stood out was a large collection of data collection tools such as antennas, satellite dishes, echo location devices, etc that were scattered about the top of the vehicle in a semi-uniform manner. What caught Aaron's eyes, however, was the miniaturized tank cannon mounted on the top. "This is the DC-AR ASV(Data Collection and Advanced Recon Armored Support Vehicle). It is designed to connect directly into its two Spartan crew's armor systems allowing them instantaneous access to anything on its scopes as well as increasing the weapon's accuracy and efficiency. You will be joining the convoy in this, but since it is a prototype there may be some bugs that make an appearance. For that problem we are also throwing in a few Guass Cannon MLRV-Warthogs as backup. Any questions."

Tavish raised a hand and said in a monotone voice that still somehow laced itself with sarcasm and rage "So we will be going into a mission we know barely a thing about in a vehicle that neither of us have never driven and that is likely to glitch out?" It wasn't the terrible odds that bothered him, it was the fact they keep sticking them in there as if they didn't need intelligence and breaking stuff was all they were good for.

"The only thing about this mission you shouldnt know about is the identity of the attackers." The Admiral answered, "And the DC-AR ASV has gone through several non-field exercises and has passed all with flying colors, but since this is an actual field test we need to properly warn you in the event something goes wrong in the nitty gritty of the moment."

"We do not even know if there will be attacker" Tavish grunted under his breath "I don't know the space, I don't know the gravitational pull, I don't know anything about the planet's atmosphere..."

"All the small data like that will be provided to you upon departure, since it is a long trip you will have plenty of time to read it if you so wish." The Admiral said turning off the holo-display and sitting back down in his chair.

"How much field time have these ODST seen? I dont want this to be even more of a babysitting job then it is already." Aaron asked once the Admiral was seated.

"They have seen enough combat to know when, where, and what to shoot at. And not to run away in the face of overwhelming odds." Was the Admiral's response.

Tavish was twitching a finger, which meant right now he didn't think he could find anything else to complain about. He wanted to yell at the man, to punch his head off, but he wasn't quite that angry yet.

"If there are no other questions then you are dismissed. You will receive the rest of the info as well as the simulator code for the DC-AR ASV so you can familiarize yourself its controls and functions. You are dismissed." The Admiral turned and began reading through another file.

Aaron stood from his chair and grabbed his helmet. "Come on Shaft, lets get going so we can hurry back."

"What's the rush?" Tavish muttered darkly as he stood up, he was in his full armour, he didn't need anything else. He followed Aaron, no doubt they were heading to the hangar.

As Tavish predicted they headed straight to the Spartan Hangar after a quick stop at the armory to pick up their weapons.

---

Spook Was a few minuets later than she'd intended to be, but she wasn't about to come up here unprepared without her armor. "313 reporting for duty sir."

"In here Spartan." The Admiral could be heard saying from the briefing room near the entrance.

Spook replied by joining the admiral in the briefing room.

"I have a high priority mission for you Spook." The Admiral started as he swiveled his chair around to look at her. "We sent out a team to try and recover a recently located AI that was believed to have been destroyed when its ship went down according to Cole Protocol." The Admiral brought up a holo-display of a cruiser labeled the Unyielding Valor briefly before switching to a line up of several ODST and a single Spartan. "These are the missing soldiers and the Spartan that was sent with them. We lost contact with them two days ago and Command has decided that with the high priority of this mission we are not to wait the customary week." He switched the display over to a planet with a "shield" of asteroids orbiting around it. "This is where they were sent, Gret VII, which is where the AI's distress call was received from. The problem is that it wasnt broadcast on a secure UNSC frequency, so anyone or thing could have picked it up."

"And you want me to go in and recover the AI." Spook said. This wasn't exactly her specialty, but she did have the tools to slip in undetected, as opposed to the other members of her team. If she were careful her presence might not even be detected. "When do I leave sir?"

"You leave as soon as your bird is prepped. However, we are not sending you in just to recover the AI." The Admiral added as he punched in a few buttons to prepare the next image on the display. "We are sending you in to find and aid any members of the team you find. They are your main priority. Once that is taken care of you are to help them retrieve the AI or retrieve it on your own, depending on the teams condition." He finished pushing buttons and a grainy image appeared. "This is the last message we got before they went dark."

The recording began to play, showing a woman in ODST armor looking behind her at the sound of someone complaining about "rough bandaging". The air looked grimy, as though there was a factory nearby pumping out pollutants into the air. The woman turned her head and looked into the recording device. "This is Recovery Team - Sierra Tango Victor one one nine. We are near the location of the Unyielding Valor, close enough that we can see it." With that she turns the camera and aimed it towards what looked like a leaning monolith that could just be made out as a ship. "Looks like when it hit the planet it dug in and now stands like a tower. Still looks like its in good enough shape, and at night we can see light inside so we assume that it still has power in some places. Either that or someone has moved in, but we havent detected any movement or signs of technology in the area so..." She let the sentence trail off as the man's voice could be heard complaining some more in the back. The women with the recorder smiled, "Victor took a tumble today while we were climbing down this ledge here. Luckily the Spartan grabbed him before he went over the ledge or he would have more then a broken leg and busted hand to complain about." She said that last part loudly as if trying to remind the complaining man how lucky he was. "This has put us behind, and gives us a decision to make. We can continue on at a slowed pace, wait here and risk calling for an evac bird, or turn around and wait at the pick up point till the bird shows up to take us home and then start over. Will contact you again in the morning once the decision has been made." With that there is some noise and the recorder is then turned off.

"That is the latest we have on them and their whereabouts." The Admiral commented as he turned off the holo-display. "Do you have any questions?"

"I'd like to download this to my VISR if that's possible sir." Spook told him. If they'd planned to call in again in the morning then whatever had happened to them had taken place during the night and that meant she'd need to find this sight and get a good look at it. If she could find tracks or signs of a disturbance then it could lead her to the teams whereabouts. Though finding the AI seemed more important than tracking this lot down, she'd follow her orders and concentrate on the team first. Even if they would make things much more difficult for tracking down the AI.

The Admiral pulled out a small data chip from the console and tossed it to Spook. "That should hook straight into your helmet's system for easier download. We need these soldiers found Spartan."

"Understood sir." Spook replied jacking the chip into her helmet until the zip was complete. She gave it back to him and said, "I'll do my best."

"I know you will Spartan." The Admiral said as he took the chip and put it on top the file folder. "Also, if you wish you may take Scorch along with you for support. If you think you would work better alone then that is your choice. If you take him along though I am leaving it up to you to fill him in."

"That may be a good idea Sir." Spook told him. "He can find the troops while I recover the AI, would that be acceptable?"

"I would rather you two stick together if he does go." The Admiral explained, "Whatever is out there might have taken out a squad of ODST and a Spartan. You would increase your odds of survival in pairs."

"Understood sir." Spook replied, though orders were always a little pliable once you got out into the field. She'd already disobeyed a few weeks ago by taking Lil'buddy with her while on leave. She didn't usually make a habit of disobeying orders, but they could always see how things went once they got out there. "If there's nothing else I'll go brief Scorch." 

"That is all I have for you. Go bring those soldiers home." With that the Admiral dismissed her and returned to his files.

"Yes sir." Spook replied and departed for the mess hall where Scorch could usualy be found.

Spook arrived, hopefully sooner than the admiral would have expected. She had the A.I. and could not wait to hand it over... after she warned him about it's corruption.

The Admiral looked up from a geological survey report on the terminal and spotted her. "Nice of you to arrive before called Spartan."

"I wanted to get this thing out of my helmet as soon as possible." Spook said unplugging the chip from the back of her helmet. "You may want to jack her into a secure terminal. I think she's been corrupted. She thinks she's a god."

"A God?" The Admiral said, with confused worry in his voice. "A God needs followers."

"There were plenty of those." Spook told him. "Scorch brought back some of the alien technology and I've got a blood sample. The other one probably also. We only recovered one ODST and the spartan."

"It's a shame you couldn't bring them all back." The Admiral said as he led her to the debriefing room. "Hopefully the rest of your team will arrive shortly to add to all this."

As Spook followed she explained what she could. "There was a fire fight before we arrived. We found one ODST pinned to a tree via some alien type spear. Scorch salvaged it so the tech boys could have a look. We-" meaning her, but she wasn't selfish about things like glory and honor. " tracked the team to a small cave. One had been wounded and later killed. The team captain was the only one to survive. She has... moxy." Spook smiled behind her helmet remembering their short exchange before meting face to face.

"So you encountered the hostiles later on?" The Admiral asked as he activated the systems in the debriefing room, and flipped through the list of active missions to find their's.

"I can't yet speculate on when the boys ran into their trouble." Spook continued. "Considering the wounded I thought it was best for scorch and the medic to travel on to the LZ while I secured the AI. I only had one encounter while inside the Valor. He was... formidable." Though the image of him with a plazy on his crotch brought another smile to her face. "But he won't be singing praises to any gods any time soon."

"This is grave news any way its said." The Admiral said as he sat down and rubbed his chin. "This world has just got out of one conflict, and we haven't even recovered from that."

"They still die sir." Spook told him. "It's just a means of finding the right bullet."

"Spartan 372 reporting in, sir!" Scorch said as he entered the room, snapping to attention. "Sorry for the delay, Admiral. I had to deposit my findings with the techs. I didn't feel it wise to leave it unguarded, and it was rather heavy."

"402, reporting." Following neatly behind Scorch, Stitch saluted. "Apologies for lateness, a similar situation to 372, sir!" He needn't know that it was mainly due to his own curiosity, that wouldn't serve well as a first impression. On that note, neither would lateness, but such is life.

The Admiral returned the salute and gestured for them to sit. "Glad you could join us, Spook was filling me in on a few details of your mission." He waited till they were seated before continuing.

As Scorch sat down, he remembered the alien spear he had picked up. The Ruby had shown him how to collapse it while they were fighting and he pulled the small cylinder shaft from his hip. "Admiral, I have one of their weapons here, if you wanted to see what we're dealing with."

The Admiral held up a hand to ward off the compacted weapon. "I'm not the person to be giving it to, once you are done here you should return to the labs and let the techs look at it."

"I intend to, sir. I had forgotten about, after the alien showed me how it collapsed." Scorch told him truthfully. In most cases, it was better to just state the truth than try to fabricate a lie.

"It showed you?" Spook Sort of blurted before she'd had a chance to rein in her mouth. "What, did you stop for coffee and donuts along the way?" What had these two been doing while she was dealing with the Pope of Doom?

"If I'm honest, I didn't have much time to stop while I was running to the LZ, trying not to get my comrades killed." Stitch hung his head at the end of the sentence, he had lost too many on that mission. "Trying being the operative word." At least that one ODST had survived.

The Admiral raised his hands to signal then to settle down. "As long as the mission was completed it doesn't matter who did what. Tell me exactly what happened so we can begin analyzing this threat."

Scorch spun the baton in his hand before holstering it on his thigh again. "Is it safe to assume that Spook has given you her report thus far?" It was a pretty stupid question really, but if he didn't have to give a report from the start of the mission, he'd prefer not to.

"Well sir..." Stitch cleared his throat, he hoped this wouldn't take long. "As you know, I was sent, along with quite a few ODST, to retrieve the AI originally, and, as you gathered, all did not go well." He shook his head, it certainly didn't. "From nowhere, I saw soldiers picked off, including one who you could say, held the spear before Scorch took it." He hated himself for leaving that one, pinned, but it was already too late. "The most tactical thing we could do was hide, I found a cave, and managed to get a few ODST there with me." Tactical. More like cowardly. He'd not even fired a single blast till Spook and Scorch arrived. "When those two arrived, they told me to simply return to the LZ, which I did, but I encountered a few of the aliens, green ones, and lost more to them, leaving only one ODST and we three spartans left in the end." He held his fist against his chest, bowing in respect to those who had died. "That's all I know from my side."

Spook had already pretty much told the admiral her side of things, so she remained quiet to let scorch fill in his little bit of gap.

The Admiral nodded his head as Stitch told him what happened. He noticed the underlying emotions in the Spartan's voice. "You did the best you could considering the unexpected situation. Don't blame yourself for their deaths."

Scorch bowed his head in respect to the ODSTs who had died. He didn't know them at all, but still, they were fellow soldiers. He looked at the Admiral, waiting for his permission to give his report.

"Scorch, you can give your report now." The Admiral said, gesturing to him.

"Well, I'm assuming that Spook gave a report up until we split from each other. On the way back to the LZ, we came upon a small group of the aliens. There was a Ruby armored one, it was clearly the leader. I call it out for a duel, to give the others time to get to the LZ. One of the ODSTs was injured, so I thought it best to provide a distraction to the enemy." Scorch explained, pausing to gather a breath. "It seemed to have enough honor to accept the duel. That's when it showed me how to collapse or extend the spear. It pulled this little baton out and extended it, like so." He took the baton and pressed the correlating button and the baton extended into the spear. "We fought and he was beginning to win. When the others were clear, I decided it was best to put an end to it and discarded the spear. When I overwhelmed him with my sword, I gave an honorable opponent a chance to yield, and it beheaded itself upon my blade. A greenish gelatin mass evacuated the armor and escaped, I gathered the armor and headed to the LZ."

"Some sort of parasite? Or a symbiotic partnership, maybe?" The Admiral said as he pondered the situation. "The Ruby maybe killed itself to protect the little goo."

"The Ruby was simply an armor sir. It appeared as if the goo controlled the body." Scorch elaborated

The Admiral looked even more concerned by this news. "This is a grave threat indeed. I will have to go over your reports and the data we can get from your helmet's data logger thoroughly. Is there anything else that you wish to add?" he asked the three Spartans.

"They explode as easily as anything else." Spook said speaking up. "And it didn't slither away afterward... Then again, I don't know many creatures that would after having a plazzy go off on their crotch."

Stitch bowed his head, many died. Too many. On the note of other information, the spartan divulged. "I managed to get a small, albeit mildly damaged blood sample." He saluted once more. "It's with the lab techs now, sir.

"The Rubies seem to have a sense of honor, much like the Elites used to, sir." Scorch pointed out as if that was a good thing. It was the honor of the Elites that made them such dangerous opponents.

"The one I met was a religious fanatic." Spook told the Admiral. "And we all know nothing makes a worse enemy than a cause."

The Admiral nodded at this mixed news. "Alright, Spartans dismissed." he said as he turned his attention to the computer.

Spook didn't hang around for any idle chitchat that might ensue. She headed to the labs to check on her power cell. She didn't like going into battle without having tested it and considering it had posed some problems, she wanted to check it out.

Scorch nodded his thanks to the Admiral and then left for the labs as well, wanting to check in on his trophy.

With nowhere better to go, Stitch decided to follow the others to the lab, curiosity over the lab results filling his thoughts.

---

Aaron entered the command room and walked right into the debriefing room. "Admiral, sir. We need to talk."

The Admiral looked up and caught the hint of concern in his voice. "What is the matter?"

"I have reason to be concerned about the mental health and stability of Spartan-396, Shaft." Aaron said, "During our last mission he showed strangely violent feelings along with several suicidal talkings."

"What would you recommend we do Spartan?" The Admiral said as he brought up a few files on his computer.

"I suggest we watch him for a month or two, maybe keep him from running any missions during that time." Aaron said as he plopped down in a seat and removed his helmet, setting it on the table. "Then, if he doesn't improve then we submit him for a psych eval."

The Admiral nodded solemnly at the news, "I hope it wont escalate any more."

"I feel the same way Admiral, cant afford to lose anyone on the team." Aaron said with a shake of his head. "He should be along shortly had to drop something off at the labs."

Tavish walked along, humming softly to himself as he neared the command area. He picked up voices as he got near the door... no doubt talking about him. He COULD try and listen in... or he could just go in anyway. He knocked loudly, his armoured knuckles declaring his desire to be let in.

"Come in." The Admiral said as he held up a hand to stave off any more conversation from Aaron. He wasnt sure it was Tavish, but since he was the only one expected right now, there was a good chance that it was.

"Hello sir" Tavish said, giving his commander a small salute as he came in "Have you finished talking about me or should I stand outside for a little while? I promise not to listen in." He just wanted it to be pretty obvious that he knew what they were talking about, no point beating around the bush there.

"We still have some things to discuss, but we can save that for later." The Admiral said, not denying the conversation topic. "We need to discuss the mission first."

"Yes sir. We made contact with a... less than helpful group of miners at the base and escorted the cargo shipment when everyone was ready. Soon we found the trailers going into a minefield, though we believe that these mines did actually teleport the entire vehicle to another area. As we were clearing the mines we were attacked by invisible ships; I found a frequency on the radio that disrupted the cloak and we managed to shoot down one. We investigated, finding a strange fleshy... goo puddle inside. It attacked us, then fled. We moved towards our own ship, but a second enemy craft arrived and opened fire." Tavish was doing his best to remember everything that had happened "When we woke up out armour had not been removed, but we were in an underground base with suits of armour guarding the door. We subdued our guards, then took out two more that arrived and a giant diamond creature that came with them. We left the other prisoners with a weapon and explored the complex. We have found out that they likely have some kind of radar in the suits, because they don't have eyes. We found a stash of weapons and I held off the lift while Scorp brought up the prisoners. We radioed for back up and had to fight our way to the front door. When the transport arrived I attempted to bring back a suit with me, and it took several minutes and a rather enlightening talk with him before Scorp blew its legs off and I could drag it on board."

The Admiral listened intently as Tavish related to him the mission. When he had concluded he turned to Aaron. "Anything you would like to add?"

"Well...um. There were several different types of enemy armors there, and the building we were kept in wasnt something that was just thrown together in a matter of days. It was a rather large structure made entirely out of ruby, and only the underground dungeon was made of other material." Aaron added to Tavish's story.

"The ship we investigated was also highly technical, but I think the lack of ears or eyes is a hindrance to these slime things. They don't expect frequency attacks, and they might become easily overwhelmed when processing sounds. Just a hunch sir, but it would explain why the ship was so easily uncloaked." Tavish gave a small shrug, trying to think through everything that had happened "Oh, and is our mission classified? Or can we share details with the other Spartans, it's obvious already that they went out on a mission and met exactly the same creatures. This is either a coincidence or we're discovering something massive here." Or they were sent in without any intelligence to keep them on their toes; there seemed to be a lot of that lately, sending Spartans in without telling them what they were stepping into.

"No, your mission is not classified and you are free to discuss it with the rest of your group." The Admiral said as he fanned through some files that he had gotten together from the other group's mission. "I would, however, ask that you keep it discreet when around the rest of the personnel. The last thing we need is hysteria over a possible new threat. Especially if this thing turns out to be another holy war, could cause great panic."

"Holy war?" Aaron asked almost immediately after the words were used.

"We didn't find any examples of relics or religious iconography" Tavish said slowly "I tried to raise conversation with several of the armours but then they all attacked so I couldn't find out their reasons. We did find what appeared to be a feeding ground however... they were eating people."

"To make a long story short, Spook recovered an AI from a downed cruiser that, in the time it was believed destroyed, became a deity to these Armored aliens." The Admiral explained, "She also believes that she killed the head of their religion for that planet. And flight records show that shortly before they jumped to slipspace, there was a number of ships inbound on them, presumably to capture them. However, they made no mention of seeing any 'feeding pits'."

"We just stumbled across it sir, pot luck. I'm sure if we hadn't been getting people out of there we would have had time to explore and kill these creatures" Tavish gave a small shrug "If we have the AI won't we soon be expecting an attack on the base? If we have their 'God' then surely these things would go to the ends of the earth to fetch the AI back."

"That is a concern to us, but the pilot followed Cole Protocol and made a blind jump from the system followed up with several randomly selected destinations to hopefully elude pursuit. Despite this, we have our orbital defense grid on alert and keeping an eye out for any approaching, unidentified ships." The Admiral said as he stood, signalling the quickly approaching end of the debriefing, "Either way, we expect increased hostility from them and more encounters. Now that we have their Goddess, I expect them to be a constant threat."

"I should go back to the labs, tell them about the frequency I used. Keeping an eyeout is all well and good but these things have cloaks, so we should be ready just in case they get in close without us realising" Tavish gave the commander a small salute "If you need anyone to go back and search the ruins of the bombed base I will happily go back. I remember most of the lay out, and we might be able to capture a living one this time to get some answers. Well... I thought I had sir, but the armour went silent."

"Might have suffered injury and died on transit." Aaron said tacking on an idea to Tavish's statement.

"Either, we should have some answers in a few weeks." The Admiral said with an exasperated sigh. "You are dismissed, once we know more about these adversaries then we will make the announcement to the entire facility and then brief all our combat units on what we know."

"The weapons we collected are probably already handed over to the tech boys to look at, we dumped them all with the rest of the weapons when we got aboard. We won't be too bad against them next time" Tavish gave another small salute, then turned and headed out of the door. He would go talk to the others in the labs... in a bit. When he turned towards the lab way he got out of sight of the door, then stopped and waited for his boss to emerge. He wouldn't mind a chat.

Aaron saluted the Admiral and then turned to follow Tavish. "Well, looks like we have a few weeks of rest then."

"I doubt it." Tavish said with a small frown. He looked back towards the doorway and began to walk with his boss towards the labs, that was where everyone else was at least "It seems too much of a coincidence that we're sent in to fight the same enemy in two different places..."

"Oh geez." Aaron said with a shake of his head. "Let me guess, it's a government conspiracy against all us Spartans. We were nothing more then a science experiment to see how we would fair against these armored things. Hell, they probably even made them as the next generation of Spartans."

"I was thinking more that the organisation of this is too good, to be at the area that Spook and Scorch were sent out to at around the same time we were sent out to investigate. This has been planned out, and we might be a bit too late to act. You saw the amount of bodies in that room, it's not our government, but it might be too late to come out of this smiling if it's gotten to the level where they're no longer building, just cutting off our supplies" Tavish gave a small shrug "Sure, the people in charge AREN'T telling us everything, and that ticks me off, but I'm more worried about how far spread this threat is."

"Well, we don't really know everything about Scorch and Spook's mission except that she came back with an AI they were supposed to recover." Aaron tried to rationalize. "While we were supposed to find out what was happening to shipments of precious stones. I just think that your a bit too paranoid."

"They were sent directly to the base where they were keeping their God while we were sent to the place they are cutting off our supply lines and building their armour out of it. It's not paranoia if it actually makes sense. We've just crippled their beliefs and we've crippled their armourments. That is too much of a coincidence to happen by accident" Tavish said firmly "We're not being told stuff. I know that."

"Of course we're not getting told stuff." Aaron countered, "That's one of the job specifics in Military Intelligence, to show as little of it as possible. And I dont think we broke their supplies either, nothing that big is only supplied by one line."

"We broke a large part of it then, and protected one of our own bases. And there's not telling use everything, and sending us in blind. Again. I'm just saying I'm getting sick of getting nailed by every god damn surprise around the corner and waking up inside the enemy base" Tavish shook his head slowly "We're Spartans dammit. That's the only reason we're not dead, anyone else would have gotten killed out there."

"Exactly. We are Spartans and that's why it don't matter what we get told." Aaron said, gesturing with his hands profusely, "We go in and get the job done, if we don't then another will."

"We're currently getting it done by brute force and not finding out half the stuff we need to. I'm just saying that they should stop sending us into places completely blind, or I WILL die out there because some pencil pusher has pointed out that I've got a record of getting out of being kidnapped and they suppose that I can do that again and again. I'm not the Spartan version of Houdini, one day people are going to be smart enough not to unstrap the Spartan" Tavish shook his head, squeezing his fists slowly, clenching and unclenching his hands just so he got his anger out.

"They gave us all the information that they had before sending us out to Ortega. And what they knew was next to nothing." Aaron said, wondering if he should just take him straight to Psychiatric Care or not. He knew that all this paranoia was emanating from one speck of Tavish's life and that was their trip to New Tokyo, he just didn't want to bring it up.

It wasn't though, several times Tavish had been sent out on missions, wrong missions, stupid missions, sent to the wrong place... The death just set him off. "How do you know they gave us everything? If they did then they're damn foolish then, risking two of their top Spartans out there when an unmanned drone could have EASILY been used to follow that convoy. How did they know that there would be someone to fight?"

"They didn't know there'd be fighting, just like we don't know if they told us everything." Aaron said, "If this wasn't a high risk mission, then they wouldn't have sent us. They would have sent some ODST or just a squad of Marines. If we are going in then we should assume that it's not an easy-peasy mission."

"Oh come on, out in the wastes like that? With all that desert and free space? It would be more likely a group of rebels on the planet, people picking off gem carrying rocks for their own gain, not a huge army of armoured soldiers. They sent in TWO Spartans and an ODST team" Tavish said firmly "Are you telling me that something that might have just been a case of embezzlement, or a group of barely armed rebels, is worthy of that much attention? They were expecting something much more of a challenge. They knew SOMETHING. I was expecting hell. It would just be nice to be told everything once in a while."

"If it were a group of rebels or pirates there would have been tracks and wreckage. There were none, and that's why they sent us and the ODSTs." Aaron said, stopping in the middle of the hallway to address the topic better. "And it wasn't just a case of embezzlement, people and vehicles were going missing along with several trillion credits worth of jewels."

"There wouldn't have been any wreckage, they could just steal the entire vehicles, clear up after them. And you think people looked for other tracks and trails along the route, but completely missed over a HUGE clump of mines? We found them in the first few seconds of being there" Tavish shook his head, crossing his arms as they walked "And it COULD have been embezzlement, couple of vehicles out, at least on the books, a few fake names, a few old vehicles, which can be dumped out into the sand. Sell on the jewels to someone else. that's much more likely than interstellar jewel robots that are powered by goo."

"Exactly! No one expected these...armored aliens, but some sort of well equiped mercenaries or pirates. If they did then they probably would have sent more soldiers and Spartans." Aaron said.

"No! See, they DID expect these things. That's what I'm saying. If they thought it was embezzlement, then it would have been a god damn lawyer, if it had been Pirates or mercenaries and ODST team could have EASILY taken them out. They were expecting something huge, not a small group, they sent in TWO Spartans" Tavish shook his head, why was Aaron trying so hard to defend these people "They showed us nothing, but they sure as hell seemed to know what to expect."

"You need to stop looking at everything as an attempt to kill us." Aaron said with a sigh. "Or as some giant government conspiracy to test some sort of thing or to discover something."

"it's not a conspiracy, and it's not an attempt to kill us, they just don't care" Tavish said, his voice almost a growl as he said those words "We're weapons to them. Not people, not individuals. we're expensive weapons, and they think that we don't need to know anything, we just need to be aimed and set loose."

"We are highly trained and enhanced soldiers that are meant to be able to handle any situation." Aaron said, "If they don't know what's goin' on then they send one of us, sometimes more."

"They send one of us when it becomes vital. They don't send us when it might possibly be pirates or one guy fiddling the accounts" tavish pointed out "And seriously... an unmanned droid, that's all they needed to send out to get an idea, get a video feed back or SOMETHING. Either they know something and they told us nothing, or they know nothing and they've approached this in the stupidest way."

"Your really promoting the whole unmanned drone thing for someone who a few days ago said the idea was awful." Aaron said with a shake of his head. "And it couldn't have been some accountant, they cant make entire convoys disappear physically."

"I never said such thing" Tavish said, frowning at aaron "When have I said getting a little recon was a bad idea? And yes, embezzlers can make entire make entire fake convoys disappear. It would make more sense than making one or two vanish, since then people would look into the survivors."

"But they weren't fake convoys!" Aaron said frustrated, "They were real convoys with real people that went missing who we found being eaten!" When Aaron realized that people were giving him looks and he wasnt supposed to talk about it yet, he forced himself to be quiet.

"But I've already given you an easy way that fake convoys could have been sent out and reported missing. I've given you a clear and reasonable account of how this could have been embezzlement. Just because it WASN'T doesn't meant that those in command should have sent us in, it just means they either knew something about this that they didn't tell us or they hadn't a clue and lucked out when they sent us in" Tavish pointed out, his voice steady and calm as he spoke. He wasn't going to yell or be loud, he was just pointing out the huge hole here.

"You havent given me any explanation about how it could have been embezzlement. People up and vanished, they didnt just go and hide in some hotel room waiting for the heat to die down. And how on Earth could Command expect a new race of goo with cloaking and teleportation tecnology?" Aaron put his head in his hands and sighed. "I think you need to take these few weeks off and cool off. Get all this conspiracy stuff off your mind and get your head together."

"They say people disappeared, and yeah, they did, but no one else looked into it" Tavish said with a soft groan, rubbing a hand across his forehead slowly "Look... all I'm saying is that... I'm fed up of being just... sent in with no idea. I just want to go in with an IDEA that I will have to fight, so I don't get caught off guard again and again. Before I was always sent in with an idea that there would be covenant, I don't care if it's difficult, if it's tough. I just want to be able to equip myself for the job. I could have brought a lot more protection, I mean I didn't even have my shields for this."

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Halo C.E. RPG
- Spartan Command
- Spartan Command Archive1