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UNSC Controlled Space – Undisclosed Date [REDACTED] 2530

Margaret glanced at the files one last time, as if she had missed something. She never missed anything, that's why she had been picked for the job in the first place. That was how she had kept it all these years. Yet, somehow, something was missing here, and she couldn’t find what it was. But he did, even if he wasn't aware of it.

“Send him in” she said begrudgingly.

“Right away ma’am” replied an AI. Margaret had long since stopped trusting humans. Whenever the outmost secrecy was needed, AIs were the only ones reliable, and then not every AI was. But some of them were the perfect fit for the job. You couldn’t just order someone to forget something; no matter how faithful the soldier was, he simply couldn’t let go. An AI’s memories, however, could be deleted at the press of a button, and in cases they would even do it themselves.

“Them…selves” Margaret murmured to herself. She had become accustomed to smart AIs and to thinking of them as part of her staff. But no matter how smart, an AI could be corrupted by enemies both foreign and domestic. You could never be too careful, specially at the head of ONI. For that very same reason Margaret had four different AIs commissioned and assigned to her. Two of them were officially reported as malfunctioning and decommissioned. Not quite the truth, since they handled a lot of her affairs as head of ONI. Of course, they did everything that needed to be done in secrecy. Forging security footage, changing dates, logs and records, and even holding files like the one that was displayed in front of her. These two AIs were smart, but Margaret had asked that the personalities be removed, she wanted them to be as cold and dispassionate as possible.

The door opened, a man in black uniform stepped in, and the door shut tight behind him. The room became absolutely sound proof, and the man could feel the vacuum building outside the door. Margaret had full control; she could even choke everyone on deck if needed. The man clenched his jaw as soon as he stepped into her office. He tried to hide it, right before he saluted, but she noticed. Only a few had entered her Office and survived the encounter. Most had been transferred to distant, forgotten stations and jobs barely known to human kind. Very few had become her most senior Officers and one, just one, had become her Achilles heel.

“You may sit” Margaret sounded cold, she was not happy and there was no reason to hide it. The man briskly sat in front of her. She knew everything there was to know about him, but she didn’t know him at all. His rank and name were just filler, not the essence of who he was, and more importantly they did not say if he deserved any sort of chance.

“Guide me through the events” Margaret looked deeply into his eyes.

“It’s all there ma’am” the man said “I’ve spoken countless times with the AIs”

“I know, and believe me, I’ve read it countless times”.The way she pronounced the word ‘countless’ produced a spike in the man's heart rate, she was told by one of the AIs “But now, I want to hear it from you”.

Margaret wanted to hear every word of his report coming out of his mouth. She had a natural gift to detect liars and to not tolerate any kind of incompetence. Precious gifts that had helped her more than once.

“Yes ma’am” he did not stutter and that pleased her. She hated whenever an ONI Officer showed fear.

“I was doing a scout mission. Searching in the UNSC Prowler “Hades” for Covenant forward positions” the man paused for a brief second as if thinking whether or not to go in full detail “The mission came sanctioned per FleetCom, ONI, Section 3. Senior Officer Heinder had signed the request”. Heinder, the name rang a bell... It was one of Ackerson’s men. Margaret made a mental annotation to send him her regards later that evening. The man in front of her, Brigs, had chosen to go the full disclosure route, he was pledging his allegiance to her. Margaret did not care one bit, ONI wasn’t about loyalty, but about power, the rawest power in existence in the UNSC.

“I surveyed the planetoid XF-063, codenamed Onix, since the absence of tectonic movements and the presence of Forerunner structures made it ideal for the Covenant to set as a FOB”, ‘Forerunner’ a word that had become a problem for Margaret. “A Covenant Forward Operations Base in the region would…” the man began to say.

“I know what an FOB is, and what it would do, and as I recall it is not what I asked you to tell me” Brigs heart rate spiked again and then came down.

“Sorry ma’am, will not happen again” Brigs replied.

“See to it that it does not” Brigs gently bowed his head in acknowledgment and proceeded with his narration.

“The Prowler, the systems and the on board AI, Locker, seemed nominal, the planetoid showed the same readings as it had the previous year, in 2529, but then out of nowhere some sort of shockwave hit the ship. It wasn’t as hard as a direct impact, but noticeable none the less”.

“To what kind of impact are you referring to as a ‘direct impact’?” Margaret needed precise information and Brigs did not disappoint.

“Debris field impact, NavCom systems don't even detect them or issue warnings to the crew, they vary in diameter but most aren’t larger than 30 inches, the armor plating can take it, but you feel it resonating through the hull. You get used to it” Brigs realized he was derailing again and went back to his retelling of the events.

“What was peculiar was that all systems went haywire, comms, sensors, even artificial gravity. A second later, everything went back to normal. I suspected foul play and filed a report immediately, which brought me here, to you.” He wasn’t telling the whole truth and they both knew it.

“That’s not what brought you here” Margaret said.

“No ma’am, it was the fact that when I checked the AI it had been compromised. It’s memory had been completely wiped, everything, files, NavCom data, everything save for three things. Two unidentified words and a log, a record of sorts. That’s what brought me here.”

“Correct. And I’m sure you already know that for security reasons and until further notice you are listed as MIA according to our database, so is Locker and the Prowler ‘Hades’, acknowledge?” He didn’t know and Margaret knew that, and this was the most civil way to communicate it.

“Yes ma’am” Brigs did not seem surprised.

“You will be given a new identity and reassigned, you will play catch with me o you will most definitely disappear, acknowledge?” Margaret knew that he was better off dead, but after the continuous and colossal cost of the Battle of Harvest she had the feeling that she couldn’t afford to have him killed.

“I will serve wherever the UNSC needs me to, ma’am, and I will report to you as often as you ask”, ‘Good boy’ Margaret thought.

“How does a Halcyon-Class sound to you?”

“Sounds as good as it’s going to get.”

“You will be briefed, dismissed.”

Brigs stood up, saluted and left the room. It was the last time he was going to be wearing ONI’s black uniform, but he would forever be a spook, and one that would only answer to her. A valuable asset, provided that the ship he was going to be assigned to didn’t get blown to pieces, which in all honesty was a very probable outcome.

Margaret re-read the file once more. After the event, Brigs had come back immediately in outmost secrecy. Margaret had come half-way to meet with him. She hated space, but it was sometimes necessary. While Brigs was in the brig being questioned by the AIs, the Prowler ‘Hades’ had been literally taken apart piece by piece. Everything had been studied, recorded and tested as it was being dismantled.

There were no signs of foul play; if it weren’t for the record and the unidentified words, it might have been categorized as an AI malfunction. Whoever or whatever left them wanted to make sure that the UNSC, that Margaret knew it had been there.

When the on-board AI, Locker, was examined, a few things stood out. The most peculiar of them was the log that had been deliberately left behind. It was a database log. One of ONI’s most secure and darkest server records, to be precise. It was accessed even before the AI could initiate the most basic routine commands, and it was accessed through the open Comms channels. Whoever had entered the server had first screened many files, as if looking for something. It had finally found the database of the ongoing Spartan II program and stopped on a Datafile. It wasn’t looking for something, but rather for someone. Spartan Sierra 117, to be precise.

“It isn’t Covenant” Margaret said aloud as she read the report yet again.

“How can you be so sure?” an AI replied.

“Because if it were, we would have lost this war four years ago”. The AI didn’t reply. It was a logical conclusion.

“Do you have a translation on the words?”

“We have an estimate, according to Sander’s and Halsey’s research” said another soulless voice, “and it should be noted that they upped their security measures considerably, we may even have blind spots”.

“I will deal with it latter, give me the estimates” Margaret was anxious. It was the same anxiety she had felt when the first Harvest reports started coming in through Loki.

Two words flashed in front of her. She read them aloud.

“Ancilla; Librarian”

“The first one also seems to include some sort of schematic, an AI pattern.” A truly smart AI? A trap? Margaret couldn’t be sure, and she had to go to her Aquilles heel to be sure.

“Send the pattern to Halsey, tag it and track everything she discovers. Disguise it as research from someone else, someone she wouldn’t even dare to ask”.

“As for the second word?” the AI asked.

“We wait, and we prepare” Margaret knew these events had forced her hand “Contact Ackerson and Hood, set up a meeting, and bring the stolen Spartan. Ackerson’s ambitions may still be of use to the UNSC”