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”
