Quadrant-4 shipping is just another generic example of a busy spaceport, with ships running nonstop shipping out all the materials and gems that get mined on this portion of the planet. Its about five stories tall and all stories house ships for loading and unloading. Also a few companies have put in their own money to allow dock housing for ships too large to fit in the facility.

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Aaron and Tavish's shuttle swooped down into a special military landing pad and settled down with a gentle *thud*. The door's opened and the Spartan's stepped out, followed by their two squads of ODST.

"Thank God we have our armor." Aaron said as he looked over his HUD, "Looks like the weather here is shit!"

"The weather will reduce visability of enemies, while we'll standing out like a bleeding neon sign" Tavish said in a gutteral voice. "Stay a bit back." He was talking to the ODSTs "If it starts here for some reason you'll be harder to spot behind us, and can open your own surprise fire efforts."

The ODST's two squad leaders simply clicked their affirmative. Seems they were already treating this as a combat situation and were ready for Covenant or Rebels to pop out from the loading equipment.

"Well, thankfully we should be in that little data gathering and that thing has heightened sensors out every cranny." Aaron said as he started forward, looking for the vehicles that are going to take them to the mining facility.

"Heightened buggy sensors" Tavish muttered under his breath. He seemed determined to drag the entire feel of the place down by several notches, then murder an enemy. That was his plan right now.

First Tavish complained about not getting to drive anything, now he is complaining about the thing he gets to drive? Aaron just would not be able to figure this man out, but as long as he was able to kill things when the time came he was alright with that. "Alright, you two squads spread out and see what you can find out about the missing convoys and try to find our damn transport to MF-417!"

Again, two clicks to confirm before the squads moved off leaving the two Spartans alone.

Aaron sat down on a nearby rock and looked about the place before looking over at Tavish. "Shaft, not to sound uncaring, is this mood issue going to interfere with our mission?"

"Yes" Tavish said plainly "You know it, I know it, and I would have thought that dumb bastard back at base would have figured it out too, but no, my trust in my superiors has been kicked down another notch. I didn't think that was possible." He didn't know why Aaron had asked the ODSTs to hang back, he would have happily said all of this in front of them. "I'm messed up. If I don't do something completely dumb on this mission then I'm going to end up punching the commander through the wall when we get back. Just a heads up."

"So your gonna blame the Admiral and the rest of Command for some little girl getting killed?" Aaron said in response. "And you better keep yourself on the straight and narrow cause I'll be damned if I'm going to be taking your body back in a box."

"I'm going to hold them responsible for sending us into an area of known UNSC disappearences without any prior warning, armour or weapons. They can't just have sent Spartans out on a random trip!" Tavish almost growled that last part "I blame them because they reduced a civilian situation into a blood bath. Not everyone needed to die. Even those you killed reaching me probably could have been convinced, or at least taken by surprise so they weren't all kill shots. And haven't you heard?" the man's voice sounded both angry and hollow at the same time "They don't bring Spartan's back in a box. The general public we're a cross between sharks and a H R Giger nightmare! Even if we lived through this, through all of this, we could never be Spartans AND people."

"So you think they sent us in there to purposely get captured?" Aaron said incredulously, "That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. And those men would have tried to kill all of us regardless of the situation." He added as he stood up and began to pace a bit. "And what's this not Spartan's and people nonsense?"

"I think they sent us in there without a clue so we wouldn't act suspicious, and if we DID end up killing everyone then just MAYBE it would look like an accident" Tavish could go on Scorch's level of psychotic conspiracy theories right now. "And that's what they tell people. They tell people that we're not... people any more. That we're half machine and half sirloin steak smashed together with chemicals. They think we don't have skin beneath our armour. No one would ever believe that you are a Spartan AND a normal person. And I don't think they'd ever let us leave.

"Your talking like your due for a psych evaluation." Aaron said as he shook his head. "And of course they arent gonna let you leave. All the money they put into each one of us! You'll be able to leave when your dead or too old to be of any use."

"No. They will never let you leave" Tavish had never heard of a retired Spartan. Certain death missions and impossible odds, that's all they got in truth. After all of that... they'd probably slice you up just to see how you'd done it. "Come on" he said gruffly, standing up and glancing back towards the ODSTs "We need to get this started. I need to murder something."

Aaron walked over and placed his hand on Tavish's shoulder. "Your life aint the only one in the balance here. You've got all those ODST to look after, and the lives of everyone that'll be in the convoy. And then you've got my life in there as well since we'll be in the DC-AR together."

"I never said I was suicidal. Just mental" Tavish said with a faint gravely undertone. He didn't plan on dying, or letting anyone else die on him, he was planning on tearing a few covenant enemies a new space hole. They were sufficiently not human enough for that. Or perhaps simply running over something and wiping it off the vehicle himself. "Which way is it?" he asked, looking around and trying to figure out what buggy machine he'd be test driving.

One of the ODST squad leaders chimed in. "Looks like we get the transport Warthogs over near the east entrance. I got three boys waiting for you to get there while we do a little more info gathering."

"Good work, dont be too long we need to get moving. The convoy isnt too keen on waiting for us. Deadlines and all." Aaron said as he turned and started towards the east entrance.

Tavish gave a thumbs up to the ODST as he followed Aaron, his feet swinging along beneath him like pendulems. Not the way trained soldiers should walk, but then again Tavish had armour that meant if he stubbed his toe the thing he'd hit it against would be reduced to mush. He followed Aaron in this slow, swinging gait towards the east exit and the warthogs.

Arriving at the east entrance, Aaron stopped and looked at the Warthogs they would be riding on to their next destination. "Are those actual working vehicles? The look like they'll fall apart the second we hope in it."

"It'll do" Tavish didn't like this, they'd let the warthogs fall apart. Later he'd be driving a massive unknown ship of possibly the same condition. He didn't like this at all. He moved forward, stood next to the driver's seat, and pointed a thumb determinatley behind him while staring at the ODST behind the wheel "Get in the passenger seat, or gunner, whatever, I'm drivingt."

The ODST took a quick glance into the back where the turret was supposed to be. Instead the turret had been inexpertly ripped from its setting and replaced with crudely attached seating. With an audible huff he hopped out and made his way into the back, plopping down in the rickety benches.

"Always making friends." Aaron said as he hopped into the passenger seat, which creaked and shifted alarmingly under his weight. "Good to see the civilians took good care of military hardware."

"Hey if they ask for a EVA Spartan then they're going to get one, and I'm going to do my job. You hanging on back there?" Tavish looked around at the makeshift seat "Hang on" he advised "I'm not going to wreck this thing but it looks kinda shakey back there."

"If my seat falls out while we are driving, just leave me and I will catch up." Aaron said as he tried his best not to move so the chair wouldnt break. He signaled the ODST in the other Warthog that they were moving out and to stay close as they made their way to Ortega - MF-417.

The engine whined when Tavish tried his, the motor sound as if it hadn't had a good see to in a few years. Instead of his usual thing of getting out and having a look, Tavish decided to do the next best thing. In on smooth kick he smashed up through the flimsy case, booting the engine hard and making it roar into life, so he could follow after Aaron.