Futuristic Halo: Operation SHATTERED SKY (IC - CLOSED)

[0stinato]

That’s what SRG stood for?

Lyster was going to have to pretend he knew that all along.

In his defence – not that he deserved one, he reasoned – every year of his life had introduced a bushel of ripe acronyms, fresh off the plentiful vine of jargon. Most of them meant something, as any good acronym should, but when it came to teams, sometimes it was all Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot this, and Bravo-Romeo-Bravo that. Was it such a stretch to just assume he had been assigned to Sierra-Romeo-Golf-whatever?

Oh well. He wasn’t paid to think. That burden could go to Oscar-November-India agents for all he cared. Unless ONI stood for something too. And what with all the nonsense in this crazy universe, something like that could be possible. Just about possible. Maybe. Millions to one. Billions. Trillions.

Fortunately for Lyster’s general standing as an ODST trooper, and indeed a passably sane human being (the psych report said so), while one hemisphere of his brain was juggling with these massive realisations, the other one was mission-focused. He moved efficiently and didn’t even complain at the tightness of the elevator – not much, anyway, and barely audibly.

All that counted was, when the sergeant started speaking about the situ, he paid attention.

‘What if your name was Charlie Oscar?’ he said to himself in the privacy of his own helm.

So, Kinsley was eccentric, was he? There was a philosophical research paper waiting to be written about that, Lyster decided. The oddest of birds always made it through the wildest adventures unscathed. Or, maybe they didn’t, and the survivors were just so odd – possibly traumatised – that they occupied headlines or made scandalous art of the ordeals. However, Lyster liked to think the reason was more of a cosmic joke. The image of some mad scientist type tottering through a battlefield clutching at his conical flasks amidst the plasmafire and demanding silence was too infectious not to want to believe. Perhaps Kinsley would be that mad scientist, shielded from fatal harm by a forcefield borne of being God’s own favourite character.

When the elevator opened to the pulsing of the shard in the centre of the huge space, Lyster’s hopes peaked as he blinked in the light. The archetype was coming true! But, Kinsley standing before it bore no silhouette of an Einsteinian genius. No hair frazzled out into a lion's mane of intellect; no old-school blackboards flanked him and his creation. He did, however, wear glasses, so that was a point in the right direction.

And behind those glasses… yes, there was a glint in that ever-so-slightly twitching eye.

When the next firefight broke out, Lyster knew who he was choosing to take cover behind; if there was a rocker, this guy was half-off his.

Unsupervised and delighted, Lyster decided to answer Dr Kinsley’s question as he stepped out of the elevator with the group.

‘Um… traffic? Toll bridge?’ He shrugged. ‘Alien invasion? Think it was one of those.’

 

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Verent City - Enroute to Discovery Complex, Initiative Street
Then: City - Discovery Complex, Main Entrance

"I realize we are at the back of the train, BUT a heads on a SECOND CAS FIRE WOULD BE FUCKING NICE!!" The Chief Corpsman called over the NET. "But yeah, we're all still SAT back here! Combat effective." The open topped Warthog followed suit in rumbling over the remains of the debris in what was left of what could be called a street.

As Damien moved to dismount and join the growing stack/security he grabbed the Major's shoulder and held out two autoinjectors. "These are what we call Combat Stims. They're not exactly authorized, but they get you through a fight, used in tandem at least 30 minutes apart! If you use both at once you'll should live long enough to finish what you fight." Looking into the Major's eyes with a deadpan serious expression, that brokered no argument whatsoever, before dismounting knowing the man was probably dead either way. But hopefully had he had given him some hope after riding him so hard.

As Grim gathered himself and braced for his trauma pack being chucked at him, slinging it on with practiced ease he watched with horror and amazement as the Major was helped leaping down! 'FUCK MY LIFE!' He thought. Trotting off to join the stack. 'He has a DEATH WISH so fuck it, not my circus not my problem. Anymore.' Though in the back of his min he almost certainly knew it was.

Grim joined the stack near the end, not the number six as was his custom but also UNSC REGs stating that CORPSMAN and Medics 'SHALL' be free and available to provide primary care underfire without regard to other security duties, if allowed or able to. So looking down the line as they crammed into the elevator. As much as this bristled against his training, he HATED being packed in like sardines ready to be consumed. He stood there and held his weapon in the ADMIN carry and stared explosive daggers to the SRG grunt and their civilian counterpart. Which ended up with him getting a half inch of breathing room as the SRG grunt subtly waived off the civilian special operator.

Finally the doors opened to the blue glowing room and everyone filed out. After taking a moment to take a deep breath, the Chief Corpsman reevaluated his new herd. A mix of CIVIES and ONI and MAR. Which did take him the few moments, as the VISOR oriented and ID'd the Friendlies, and the resident Gunnery Sargent stepped up and INSERTED themselves! The brief silence that followed there was an auditable groan and slapping of palm on helmet with. "GUNNY!!" Looking at Lester with the look of an older sibling that had been there and wanted to stop you. Following quickly behind, though knowing it was too late.

Interaction: Viper Actual
Mentions: Solar Daddy , and the crew in the X-24 ( DrabberRogue GhastlySquash 0stinato Worthlessplebian )

 

[Solar Daddy]

Bassett had stood in the open canopy of the Sun Devil for a few moments, glancing up at the massive skyscraper before them with a down-tuned whistle. That was a long drop, and he sure as hell hoped they weren't going up. He then looked past the skyscraper at the further Verent city proper where countless beams of gunfire and pillars of smoke arose. He rested a hand on one of the still-hot barrels of the Sun Devil as he looked over the active destruction of the city. Hopefully whatever Kinsley was working on was worth the efforts. How many were dying each minute they delayed to help out here?

Owen climbed down casually from the fuselage of the tank and regrouped with the SRG team and its motley crew of in-tow scrapped soldiers. His assault rifle hanged from his offhand by the upper receiver while he listened in on the short recap of their plan to invade the complex. When it was time to move, Owen wordlessly joined in with the stack as they entered, cleared, prepared for a fight, and ultimately relaxed at the discovery of the ONI security guards. At least the UNSC had some hold over their precious city after all, even if it wasn't much.

The elevator ride was less than stellar for the stocky breacher, having been squeezed in behind Lyster and cramped up against the back wall. Owen flashed a grimace to Jace off to his side and periodically pushed back against the much larger soldier in front of him to fight for a bit of personal space. Luckily for Owen, at least, the elevator went down into the depths of the earth, and his mild hate for heights could be staved off another day.

By the time everyone started filing out of the packed elevator, Bassett was one of the last ones out, with Lyster already responding to the egghead down the way. Owen likely would've responded with some snide comment about his new best friend's chatty mouth, but he was taken aback by the freakish alien tech in front of him.

Instead, he muttered, "Doesn't look Covvie to me... But it's also clearly not a natural formation. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into..." Whether or not he even spoke loud enough for anyone else to hear, Bassett wasn't sure.

 

[Worthlessplebian]

King's head wheeled to Davis as the driver added to his sentiment. At first, King said nothing, the clouded gray visor of his helm gleaming dully in the dimmed lighting of the X-24. The ONI agent glanced to the mounted machine gun. He rang his fist against the weapon slit's side, a single, solid crack as his armour met armour. "It wasn't all bleak." King allowed, even as his hand trembled with the ache, spreading through his injured arm like crystalline thunder. King was third out from the X-24, drawing his rifle, the light of Verent City's worn-torn day struck him a second before the sight and muted devastation.

His head inclined, eyes craning up to the concrete skeletons of the buildings at his flanks, their shattered, smoking forms throwing honeycombed shadows before them. King familiar with ONI's eccentricities, saw it once again as he had many times before. From the furtive secrets they haughtily horded through the shrouds of misdirection, obfuscation, falsehoods to silencing of guilt-ridden researchers, destroying the samizdat, and their complete erasure — King himself an accomplice, hands slick with the crimson truth and sleep unperturbed by the heft of his deeds. However, as his eyes scanned the skyscraper before the SRG squad, his expression darkened; an obsidian monolith outstretched to the sky like a gauntlet's phalange, wickedly clawed, raking the sky, laying claims of dominance to the jagged stars. He was unimpressed.

For all the secrecy ONI coveted, the spendthrift nefariousness spited his auburn gaze, its inky black silhouette reflecting in his visor. The intemperance, the hubris, the conceitedness — it all made the maddeningly elaborate code-phrases and deception seem so humorously frivolous. He pushed back the scorn, burying it for the spirit's soothing numbness.

He was thankful that the lull of their battles continued, fingers tapping the length of his rifle's handguard in superstitious precaution. The entirety of the Sensitive Recovery Group had been ferreted into the lift. King suspected, a particular of these facilities, that it'll descend into abyssal depths. And as his eyes shifted to the lift's display screen, evincing the fifteen subbasement floors, he slumped his head slightly, before casting a glance 'round and behind his shoulder as Lyster stood at his back. "Cosier than the X-two-four." King commented aloud, but restrained to a low tone. The lift's descent started to feel more subterranean, even dismissing the quaking earth from the incessant bombardment of aerial and ground artillery — it was though King could almost imagine the sub-earth rock, smooth-cut by heavyset machinery.

The team had arrived at a spherical chamber, domed by polished metal plates, reflecting barely the vibrant light of the shard's ethereal energies. King's gaze lingered for long seconds at the shard, unable to prise his sight from the pulsing radiance at the heart of it all. A treasonous thought crossed his mind, ill-needed and unwanted. He looked down at his rifle and thought of sweeping it across, pilfering the shard for himself. He dismissed such ideation, further helped by Bassett's hushed unease. He leaned slightly. "It only gets stranger from here." He half-teased, patting the trooper on his shoulder. "Stick together and we'll be fine." He assured, voice steely and quiet.

"Black, S.O.P in regards to the secondary package's potential instability?" King spoke, switching to the internal radio channel of the squad so his words go unheard in the site's dome.

Solar Daddy Viper Actual

 

[Viper Actual]

Verent City - Discovery Complex, Sublevel 14

‘Um… traffic? Toll bridge?’ He shrugged. ‘Alien invasion? Think it was one of those.’

Dr. Kinsley shifted his attention to Lyster, his expression hardened. "I see that ONI is in the business of comedy these days," he muttered, gaze dropping down to inspect the blood-stained armor of the trooper. Though unlike Johansen, Kinsley's immediate reaction was to pout and turn his head slightly.

"If that is what I think it is I hope they had a good reason for getting splattered all over your armor, Helljumper."

Before Lyster had a chance to answer Black cleared his throat and took a step forward. "Dr. Bernard Kinsley," he began, pulling up a datapad which he extended towards the doctor. "Your hand, please."

Kinsley rolled his eyes, wiped his right hand against his labcoat and then pressed down the palm of it against the datapad which prompted a green light. Satisfied, Black nodded and stowed the datapad. "We're your extraction." The senior agent gestured towards the shard before continuing; "We won't be able to extract that however, so I hope you have backups with you."

"Then I'm afraid that your mission will fail," said Kinsley as he adjusted his glasses. "If Section 3 wants to get me out of here they will have to do better than whatever this is," he said while gesturing towards the SRG team.

"I'm sorry?" Said Black, a stern tone beginning to form.

"Black, S.O.P in regards to the secondary package's potential instability?"

The agent offered King a quick glance while gesturing 'Stand by' with his right hand. Amused, Kinsley observed the gesture and snorted. "You are welcome to stand by for as long as you want. I, however, am not leaving. Not without Dreamcatcher."

Black stared at the doctor, eyes gradually narrowing. "Dr. Kinsley, unless you somehow have not been informed, there is currently an entire Covenant army bearing down on Verent City. This building- and all of your precious research- will not hinder their advance."

"In fact, intel suggests that a high-ranking military official of the Covenant is aware of this piece of alien technology- because I assume that's what this is- and that he is on his way to seize it. A QRF organized by HIGHCOM is currently on their way to intercept him but if they fail I will have no choice but to execute my standing reserve orders to deny the Covenant any and all access to critical military and scientific research."

Pausing, Black gestured towards King, Lyster and Bassett. "To put it bluntly, I will have one of my men plant a bullet in that thick skull of yours and then blow up this entire building. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," replied Kinsley. "But that doesn't change the fact that I need more time."

"Time for what exactly?" Asked Grey, arms resting on her weapon.

"To win the war for us," said Kinsley, expression as serious as one could be. "You see, Dreamcatcher is not just any piece of Forerunner technology- it's a memory bank, a backup to be exact, which contains a fragment of an alien AI. At least, that's what we think it is."

Kinsley turned around and gestured towards the shard. "Even with a fraction of the data stored within we could advance our own technology by millennia. Losing such an asset would be a catastrophic loss. Not to mention the military benefits of an AI far more advanced than our own, perhaps we'd be able to level the playing field against the Covenant or seize the initiative from them altogether."

Black sighed. "I need options, doctor, not a lecture." He glanced at the rest of the team briefly. "Can we collapse the building partially? To seal off this entire sublevel? To make the Covenant think that we've destroyed the asset?"

Kinsley scratched his chin. "I suppose that could work. If you were to place the charges at the correct places you could sever the elevator shaft and collapse several stories of the skyscraper onto this room, effectively encapsulating it. All of the sublevels are shielded but for added effect you could always detonate a low-yield nuclear device above the rubble to fool their sensors."

"If you can manage all of that I will happily go with you," finished Kinsley, nodding.

Black looked towards his squad. "Lyster. Bassett. Assessment?"

At the same time Davis, visor transparent for the moment, visibly grimaced and grunted. He looked towards the accompanying Marines- Grim, Rad, Major Kovac and the combat camera team- with skepticism. "I'm not sure I'm too fond burying all of this and then hoping that the Covies don't find it," he said lowly.

Meanwhile Grey nudged King and nodded towards the shard. "I wonder how old it is. Hell, what if its made from some sort of spooky alien material that makes it indestructible?"

"Still not carrying it," said Hayworth, standing nearby, earning a chuckle from both Tremell and Wendell. Johansen on the other hand was staring at the shard with a child-like awe next to Ray.

DrabberRogue GhastlySquash Grim Wraithe Stjerna 0stinato Solar Daddy SpazTheButcher2 Worthlessplebian

 

[Solar Daddy]

Bassett thoroughly enjoyed watching the mild scuffle unfold before him; a steadfast ONI agent and a scrupulous scientist butting heads, what a combo. He was so invested in the standoff that he almost wasn't paying attention to what it was even about; that was, until someone made mention of collapsing buildings. Owen's ears perked up and he gave the others some time to hash out what they wanted to do before putting in his two cents.

"Well," Bassett chimed in before Lyster, taking a step forward. "It's doable. We could take some time to locate load bearing columns. Would be faster if one of the ONI boys had the architectural plans for the building, but we could manage without if need be. Lyster and I don't have enough RDX to collapse the building, though. Unless Naval Intelligence has lots of it stored on site, we'd need to procure it some other way."

Bassett stowed his rifle on its sling to free his hands, assuming he'd have to start sifting through pages of engineering documents soon. "There might be gear in the X-24 worth scrounging up. Not sure how else we'd get enough charges to blow the place in a hurry, sir."

0stinato

 

[0stinato]

"I see that ONI is in the business of comedy these days. If that is what I think it is I hope they had a good reason for getting splattered all over your armor, Helljumper."

It was very fortunate that Black was professional enough to verbally barge his way in and reroute the conversational direction because Lyster was in the process of forming the word, ‘Kinda.’

Instead, he bit his lip behind his opaque visor and listened quietly, taking information in bit by bit. With every new word the good doctor said, Lyster felt his humour begin to blunt into sardonicism. It wasn’t the insults that were doing it: as far as Lyster was concerned, Kinsley was proving himself to be a source of extreme amusement, and what more could he do to prolong that than be a perfect target? It wasn’t even the alacrity with which the conversation spun back to practicality and the mission, since Lyster generally liked the order that came with having a direct goal in sight.

In truth, it was those little flecks of excitement the good doctor was coming out with that turned his smile from wry to dry.

Dreamcatcher, eh? Alien technology, eh?

Before Lyster was an ODST, he hadn’t experienced this strain of ennui before. Nowadays, when conversations took a hopeful turn, a shrouded emotion gnawed on a well-chewed branch of his psyche. Either something about the training and mental prep for the role, or the simple label ODSTs got stuck to them had facilitated the development of his already-present nihilism into something small and compact that couldn’t be dislodged by psychiatrists. In his mind, it didn’t need to be excised anyway - who the hell would he be without it? - because it didn’t impact his performance out here. He had been in situations before where decisions had to be made, but never once had that grey emotion made them for him. He wouldn’t wander around a battlefield and shrug off the opportunity to back an ally up just because… well, who was he to say what mattered or not? It was his job to go feet first into Hell and fill it with as many threats to humanity before he got there.

He wouldn’t stop doing that, even now.

Now, when, like a desaturated little demon on his shoulder, this fascinating species of ennui was injecting complete indifference directly into his veins in response to the doctor’s words.

Win the war, eh? What a splendid bit of hope that was.

‘To win the war’ was always the goal, yet it was a concept he considered impossible for him to understand. Lyster could not imagine a universe in which he was alive to see peace. It just didn’t exist, and that fact made his life easier. After all, while he was still fighting a war, he never had to ask where home was.

The upshot of that, though, was that every shred of hope for the bigger things was sniped out of its updraft by his little grey lodger. He’d fight as he always did, but he would never hope.

Black calling his name earned only a slight turn of the head from Lyster.

Bassett stepped up and spoke, calling for architectural plans and the procurement of supplies. The only thing Lyster’s fellow breacher didn’t ask for which he really should have was a big red pen they could use to mark up the plans. And yes, it did have to be red.

‘Agreed,’ he said after Bassett's assessment. ‘If we don’t have enough, weakening the columns or areas around them through other means could allow us to spread what we have effectively, though that comes with higher risks setting and blowing the charges. We’ll assume the orthodox route initially but… just in case, keep the Sun Devil purring.’

Ah, the sweet embrace of the working mind. It was easier if he didn’t think about what he was fighting for.

--
Interactions: Viper Actual Solar Daddy