Napalm Riot

Chapter XY/tryout

Odessa walked around the facility. There was nothing left in there. "Why did we even come here...", she muttered to herself. Damascus has been abandoned for years. "We need it.", electronic voice echoed inside her helmet."You mean you need it.", she cut the AI. "When Covenant's remaining forces passed this planet, they thought there was nothing of any value in here. Which means it's still here, keep looking." Odessa took a deep, restrained breath, activated her headlight and pressed on. Rocks crunched beneath her feet, half a ton of armor crushing everything into fine dust. "What's the ETA?" "Twenty minutes from now.", AI replied and added, somewhat ominously, "...if nothing goes wrong." Odessa stopped and looked towards the cave exit far behind her. "Explain." She didn't feel comfortable being back here, let alone having her AI sound so...insecure. Tion was a superb AI, brother of Cortana in a sense, developed by doctor Halsley around the time Cortana was created, in purpose of exploring different aspects of AI personality. In some ways and at some times, he would seem as her twin and would step over into personalities she displayed. One of which was stepping away from his usual cold and calculated demeanor. Being insecure was not something Tion displayed often. "Well, let's just say we better find it sooner rather than later, or we might get pretty busy.", Tion replied shortly. "I hope you know it's your life at stake here too.", Odessa added dryly. She let herself into a fast sprint, avoiding and jumping over big chunks of rocks lying around. At the far end of the cave, a small nuclear power generated lamp was giving out the faintest green glow. It was situated right beside the ID point in front of large solid steel door. Odessa came to a halt, dust spraying around her feet. "Get to the panel on the left.", Tion instructed. "Enter command: Foxtrot Sierra Sierra 186 Bravo. I will let a small electrical charge into your retina. Remove the helmet and take the retinal scan when I tell you to." Odessa punched in a line of commands on a small dusty panel by the door but she hesitated removing her helmet. This became an unknown teritory after the facility was abandoned and there was no telling what may lie beyond this point. They weren't even sure the Covenant did really pass out on Chi Ceti IV. Still, she reached at the back of her neck and released one of three small hatches that held the helmet in place. She then proceeded to the other two and slowly pulled it up and off her head. She gagged. The air here was stale, dry. "Processing electric charge...this may be slightly uncomfortable.", Tion warned her. A bright flash blinded her, it was as if her eyes were wide open while watching a flash grenade go off. For a split second, she lost her balance. Tion immediately closed down nerve endings in her eyes, causing her pupils to widen to extreme. "Quickly, retinal scan, 20 centimeters in front of you.", he lead her. "This better be worth it!", Odessa grunted and stumbled closer. Suddenly a metalic panel moved and revealed a small scanner. It beamed into her eyes, inspecting for retinal patterns. There was a loud thump and the steel door soundlessly slid apart. "We're in." Odessa blinked, regaining her vision. The vast space in front of her looked like an immense hangar. Once again, she glanced at the scanner, which pulled back into the wall and disappeared. "What's the trick?", she asked aloud. Tion chuckled. "Retinal patterns change for a very short period of time if eye has been submitted to shock. I processed an electrical charge into the nerves, causing patterns to change and then shut the nerves down to widen the pupils, so that the risk of being denied entry on account of wrong patterns by unauthorised personnel would be lower still." Odessa shuddered. "Do that one more time and you'll be in a cube for the rest of this mission." She reached for her rifle that was hanging on her back. Cautiously, she proceeded through the hangar. It was dark, too dark, but as she made her way through, faint glow appeared along the ceiling. Odessa suddenly stopped and looked around. "Tion, there is nothing here whatsoever." She could only hear her own shallow breathing. The air was unbearable, she unclutched her helmet from her hip and screwed it on tight. "There.", suddenly a nav point appeared on her HUD. "Air vent. Use that to get down one level." With heavy adjustments in her visor, she could just about see the contours of the vent built into the far wall. "Are you sure I'll fit in?" "Wouldn't hurt you to get out of that suit once in a while...but yes, the vent is high and wide enough." With two quick glances to the right and left, she made a run for it, boosting the buffer field between her feet and the floor, to lessen the sound and echo produced by her armor. The vent indeed seemed very high and wide, in fact too large to be used as an air vent. But then again, this was probably the biggest hangar Odessa has ever seen. She spent years here on her training but this was one of the restricted areas. The railing was hinged on and she lifted it with ease and leaned it against the wall. Her proximity scanner didn't pick up anything at all and she bent down and crawled into the long tubular tunnel. "Proceed with care. I can't tell what's down there.", Tion warned her silently. "Just like you...", Odessa remarked cynically. It wasn't long before she reached a steep spiral downwards. Nav point pointed to the bottom. She sat on the edge of it. "So...are you going to tell me what we are looking for?" She pushed herself off and started spiraling, trying to slow it down by spreading her elbows out as far as possible. A second of silence passed before Tion answered. "A Covenant AI."

A rather bulky ship emerged from Slipspace at the verge of Chi Ceti IV's orbit. UNSC Eternal Aphelion was a sister ship of the Pillar of Autumn, another Halcyon-class cruiser. It approached the planet and relayed a short frequency beacon. The beacon bounced off of another, smaller, vessel on the surface of the planet and returned to Aphelion. "Confirmed, Longsword inbound.", electronic voice reported. Tion's subroutine lacked his personality but it did the job. "Standard orbit, open secure channel.", captain Delacroix commanded. Captain was a sturdy woman of near-fifty but she could still knock a cadet out. AIs themselves had hard times contradicting her and certainly none of those under her command had any intention of advicing against standard orbit in such close proximity to the Covenant. "Assuming standard orbit, aye. Channel open.", her comm officer replied. Delacroix nodded stifly and sat down in her chair. "SPARTAN-086, this is Captain Delacroix. Report your status."

Odessa landed at the bottom, crawled towards the exit she could see shadows of and found herself in what seemed to be a laboratory. "Covenant AI? And it didn't occur to you to tell me that before?", anger could be sensed in her tone of voice. "Captain's orders. Actually...it was ordered up from ONI..." "Figures...", the Spartan muttered. "I'm detecting activity from the Longsword.", Tion suddenly broke in. "A handshake beacon. Aphelion has arrived." Before 086 could reply, a hiss of static deafened her ears. "SPARTAN-086, this is Captain Delacroix. Report your status."
Odessa opened her comm channel. "This is Spartan-086. Everything clear down here, proceeding according to plan." "Very good. Carry on. We'll be in standard orbit, radio in when ready for pick-up.", Delacroix finished. "Tion, send her our coordinates.", the Captain commanded the AI's subroutines before setting her chin on her knuckles and immersed herself in the map display on the screen. "How much time do we have?", Odessa asked as she approached lab instruments. "Half an hour, give or take.", Tion answered, absent-mindedly. He was preoccupied scanning for the memory block and any possible hostile activity in the vicinity. Odessa proceeded to examine everything that was lying around. This was supposed to be a sterile environment but still she noticed thin layers of dust covering surfaces. "There. Check that locker by the wall.", Tion instructed. When she approached it, Odessa noticed it was secured by numerous password-pads. "Now what, genius?" "You'll notice a small pocket at the back of the locker. Place my memory cube in there and I will reroute security locks. Computer must still be operational on some levels, if I send a line of commands, it might confuse it enough to let us open the locker." This meant it came to the point of doing something Odessa despised - taking the AI out of her mind and back in. She reached for the pocket at the back of her helmet seal and felt for the cube. After taking a deep breath, she clicked the safety lock that kept it in place and pulled it out of the pocket. A momentary stab of pain in her temples and suddenly she felt the familiar sense of emptiness. Quickly, she clicked the cube into the pocket and activated the transfer. Half a dozen numpads on the locker activated, blinking red and green lights all over. After few seconds, green and red lights on each panel alligned and blinked three times, synchronized. The locker door slid open. At first, it seemed nothing was in it. Spartan bent lower and looked at the back. Her visor adjusted to the darkness inside and she could finally see a small metallic cone in the far corner at the bottom of the locker. Assuming that was it, she reached for it but pulled back at the last moment, letting out a dissatisfied grunt. The AI needed to be placed back into her interface before she did anything. She heard a silent "click" and soon noticed that Tion's storage cube popped out of the pocket. 086 stared at it for a couple of seconds, as if hesitant about it. She reached and pulled the cube out, found her armor pocket and inserted it without thinking. Coldness splashed her mind and the pain came again, for a short moment. "Good to be back.", Tion remarked jokingly. When Odessa said nothing, he sighed and added: "The cone at the bottom of the locker, that's it."
Spartan activated the comm channel to Aphelion. "Package retrieved. Extraction needed in approximately ten minutes." Up at the ship, Captain's face widened only slightly in a small smile of satisfaction. "Acknowledged. Meeting point at Longsword's LZ. Delacroix out." Odessa tugged the strange metallic cone onto her belt and turned to face the door she just spotted. "We can't go back through the vent. How do we get out?" Suddenly she felt nervous. It was more than strange to find something as precious to ONI as this, right here of all the places, and yet without any sign of anyone, enemy or otherwise. No one ever captured an enemy AI, and for Covenant to...allow one to be captured and "stored" here and leave it without claim was near-impossible. Something was very wrong.

"Captain, incoming transmission from Tion."
"Put it through."
"Captain, we're not safe here.", Tion's voice spoke through the bridge speakers. "It's highly unlikely Covenant would just leave a fully functional AI in here, hibernating, without anyone to come for it. I advise caution."
"Noted.", Delacroix replied briskly and cut the link off. She clenched her jaw, trying to push away the sense of guilt. The Spartan wasn't briefed on anything, the mission was presented to her in short lines before she was sent away and even Tion didn't know much more. It wasn't safe, no. In fact, it was as far from safe as it could possibly be right now. But Delacroix trusted the Spartan's records. She was a remarkable soldier and an excellent tactician, especially with an AI like Tion. Besides...there was another fact to consider...Delacroix turned to her first lieutenant. "Go down to medical bay. See if they're ready." Lieutenant was about to turn and go, but stopped. "Ma'am?" His eyes were displaying somewhat of disbelief. "Get him out, Parkins." The young lieutenant saluted somewhat hesitantly and nodded. "Yes, ma'am." He knew situation was about to go dire. Sending two Spartans instead of one meant that this was no intel mission after all. He felt for his pistol, holstered to his belt and picked up his pace as he went down the corridor.

"That glass is nearly impenetrable but you might be able to break it with the help of your armor and rifle stock.", Tion said after inspecting possible exits. Odessa approached it, looking over its frames. She hefted her rifle in one hand, wound it up under her arm and swung viciously at the window. It didn't budge. A second passed and Tion spoke again. "Try now. I took the liberty of boosting up the buffer field of your arms sections." "Gracious of you..:", Odessa remarked and gave the AI a silent laugh. She hung the rifle on her back again, stretched her arms, turned away from the window before affecting a strong blow with her elbow with all her might. Cracks started spreading across the surface with a creaking sound of bullet-proof glass. Ignoring the numbing pain in her arm, she reset the buffer field and pushed her fingers into the cracks, peeling large chunks of glass off until she made a hole big enough to pull through. "I've located the way out, follow the nav point. With any luck, we should be at the LZ in time." A tiny blue arrow appeared on her HUD, pointing across the next room, displaying distance of 50m. "I thought you didn't believe in luck." "It's a wonder what you can learn working with humans..:", the AI sounded amused. "Alright, this shouldn't be a problem...", Odessa said to herself more than to Tion but just as she did, a loud explosion thundered somewhere outside the facility, shook the ceiling above her and caused a line of metal wall elements to come crushing down on the floor in the laboratory she just left behind. "I thought this place was abandoned!", she shouted and made a run for the first door. "You weren't the only one!", Tion processed an AI equivalent of dread which could be sensed in his voice.

"Captain. Diagnostics complete, everything is working fine.", a man's voice came through the comm link. "Well done. Send him to the bridge, we don't have much time.", Delacroix said in her usual serious fashion, only this wasn't out of it being the way she was. She was genuinely concerned. "Aye aye, Ma'am.", the other side cut the comm off. Delacroix got up from her chair and paced across the bridge nervously. "Captain, I'm detecting multiple energy spikes across the system.", her nav officer reported, patching the scan results through to the main screen. The captain froze in place and turned to see it with her own eyes. "A welcome comitee...", she muttered and clenched her fists.

The large, bulky form of a Spartan attracted all sorts of looks as he walked through the corridor, from fear to awe. One thing was obvious, though. Sending him down as well meant there was more than to be desired, even for one Spartan who's already on the surface. And that, of course...meant trouble. A junior lieutenant was just about to get off the bridge when he almost bumped into the Spartan. The sight of him kept the lieutenant on the place and only a moment after he managed to tear his eyes away from the soldier and go about his business. "Captain is waiting for you, sir.", one of bridge officers said. The Spartan said nothing but nodded and proceeded down to the command center. Captain Delacroix was immersed into the map spread on the screen in front of her. She noticed the shadow that he cast over her and turned around.
"SPARTAN-117 reporting for duty, ma'am.", his voice boomed low and he saluted.
Captain nodded and the corners of her lips slightly curved in a smile. "Master Chief."

"I've laid out the map on your HUD, you have three possible exits but I advise going by the elevator shaft!", the AI tried to fight the sound of explosions outside as the Spartan ran down a corridor. She noticed metallic door straight ahead but the light on the panel above blinked faint red, which meant the lift was suspended. A storm of sparks blew out of the bulk on her right, bursting into flames and sending optical cables flipping across the corridor. Odessa ducked and rolled under the fire, got to her feet and resumed her run. Once she reached the door, she realized there was no way to pry it open, the two parts seamlessly connected in the middle. One glance down the path she just came by running was enough for them to realize they had to act fast. Every bulkhead was exploding, something must have sent a powerful blast into the optical array. "Place your palm down on the ID pad on the wall, I'll use your shield energy to disable the system!" Within a second, Odessa punched the pad, heard a loud hiss and felt a light burning sensation blistering her skin. The door slid open a tiny bit and creaked to a halt.