EliteCommander

Halo: Aegis Team

Despite the strength of his defenses, as well as his rage and resolve, the Brute chieftain’s armor could only take so much. His body could only be pushed so far. Yalu’s carbine found a weak point in the armor, so all of the heat, kinetic force, and radiation found its way right into the Jiralhanae’s body. He lost the use of his arm, and with all that surrounded him, it made him an easy kill. A few shots from Elna was all it took to finish him off.

Few of the rebel Humans had survived the firefight, and those who did were quick to retreat out the other side of the chamber. With the immediate threats dealt with, it was easy to take a look around and see where they were. Some of the crates had been broken open during the fighting, and there were weapons visible. This was the armory, which meant that the console they needed to hack was in one of the adjacent rooms. There were not many rooms to search, so it did not take long for Aviza to bring Shih to the console. It was in a small room through a door on the left side in which the rebels had set up some of their equipment. Whatever the room’s purpose, all Shih needed was access to their network.

As Shih had alluded to before, the insurrectionists’ network security was surprisingly robust for a rebel cell. Even a smart AI like Shih took a minute or so to get through into the network. It was clear that the rebels either had a few talented members, or some resourceful allies, but in any case, Shih was able to recover the information they needed for their mission here and now. In the time it took for Shih to complete her work, Vael’s team was able to double-back and rejoin with Aviza’s, so they would all be able to move together.

By cross-referencing the intelligence pulled from the network with rebel communications she had been intercepting, Shih was able to determine their target’s most likely location. ”It seems like one of our suspicions was correct. The rebels discovered tunnels underneath the surface that spread out in all directions. They have plans in place to use them as an escape route in just this situation. If I’m reading this right, some of those tunnels are large enough that they were able to get entire dropships down there. They’re evacuating everyone they can right now. Their commander is organizing things, but he’ll be leaving soon enough too. I…think I’ve identified a path to his pelican, but if we don’t hurry, he will get away from us.”

The Cradle

For Vreta’s procedure, the medical center he was taken to was located in the Rahn’Masser’s headquarters itself. He and Rareth went their separate ways upon landing, but the doctors already knew to expect him. In fact, they already had his treatment queued in the machines and ready to go. As far as procedures with neural implants were concerned, replacing a storage drive was quick and easy. Its physical location was close to the access port in the back of the skull, so it was a simple matter of opening the port and having the precise tools to remove it. Vreta did not even require sedation for the process.

Once removed, the storage drive was no doubt taken off right away for study. Given the nature of the program that had attacked him, it was safest to consider that drive to be permanently compromised, along with any systems it touched. As long as proper quarantine procedures were followed, though, it would be safe to study it and learn what they could. Vreta could restore most of the data that had been on his drive from external backups, once he had a new one.

Up to that point, everything had gone about as Vreta had expected. However, what he had not anticipated was the report he was given right after the drive was removed, while he was waiting for the replacement. It was a report detailing the discussion that took place between Roth’Orsa and Freyr, and what it contained was both enlightening and alarming. Without internal memory, only Vreta’s vital implants were still active, so it took him longer to read through the report the “old-fashioned” way.

Ultimately, Vreta could not be sure where this would lead. It seemed like they were not sure whether or not the Institute actually had any dangerous plans in mind, but the possibility that they could was too risky to leave alone. If they were being deceived, it could be dangerous to reunite the object with the Cradle. It seemed likely that Vreta’s own directives might change out of this, if he was being briefed on these events. Given the sensitive nature of this issue, all information would be on a need-to-know basis.

After a while, Vreta did start to question why it was taking so long for someone to return with his replacement storage drive. He had been alone in a waiting room reading the report, but when someone did finally come in, it was not one of the doctors. His guest was once again the Datius Rareth’Jharn, which no doubt meant that no one would be disturbing them until their business was concluded. He sat straight up and clearly gave Rareth his full attention, while she was the first to speak.

“I’ll assume you’ve read the report, so you know the situation. I only learned myself just a few hours ago, but I have had a discussion with the Director. This is a matter in which we will need to tread carefully. We have to maintain our alliance with Outremer, but it’s possible their government is being lied to as much as we are. You will be at the center of this as much as I am, so you will need to be ready.” Rareth explained.

“Of course, Datius.” Vreta answered with firm confidence. “I already have a good position among the research team to be closely involved with the investigation heading forward. What is my next objective? The report did not mention our plan going forward.”

Rareth shook her head. “Because we don’t have one. At least nothing more specific than what you’ve already read. All of this has just happened in the last few hours. Our goal is to investigate and learn what we can. It is up to us to determine how best to do that. And given this whole matter with the virus, both the Director and I agree that it sheds new light on the potential capabilities of the Institute, or at least what they can harness from the Cradle. We believe that all agents directly involved in this investigation will require the greatest level of preparation we can give them. Your neural implants will be receiving a software upgrade, and will require a substantial hardware upgrade to accommodate.”

For a moment, Vreta felt confused. “But my implants are already top-of-the-line. There aren’t many upgrades they can have, unless…”

Vreta’s eyes widened slightly. His implants were the top in their class, so there was only one option left for improvement: the highest class of implant. To integrate a full, living AI with the mind of a Rothian was the best that could be offered, and it was no trivial task. A full Rothian AI was an immensely complex neural network that required powerful hardware to operate. It was well-known that Rothians could fit such processors in artificial bodies, but to integrate it into a living Rothian mind was another matter entirely. Officially, such implants did not even exist, but unofficially, Vreta knew they were given only with special approval, and only when needed. These style of implants were far more comprehensive than most. Not only were they much larger, physically, but they touched virtually every part of the brain and nervous system. Its parts could be upgraded or replaced, but as of yet, no way had been discovered for a brain to survive having them removed. Not only would this upgrade require comprehensive brain surgery, but once he went through with it, there would be no going back.

To all of these considerations, Vreta looked into Rareth’s eyes and answered without hesitation. “I understand. I am ready.”

The Cradle

Rareth turned her head slightly towards Andersen. “All is well. I just wanted to speak to the Sacred Band. I will be leaving shortly. Vreta’Sori, I would like for you to join me. In light of recent events, a few questions have come to mind that I would like to ask about your previous experiences in the Cradle.”

“Of course, Datius.” Vreta answered with a small not. Naturally, he expected she was lying about her reasons, but he would not deny a Datius regardless.

Moving her focus back to Thebes, Rareth continued to show her sympathy, as least as much as it could be conveyed across species. “If you think that is the path he would prefer, then I respect your choice. I can understand if your people do not prefer to engage in ceremony. Though, if I may ask the favor, would you consider allowing me to at least add his name to the list of honored? Given the secrecy of our work, it may be beyond your lifetimes before the details of his deeds can be told, but I do feel he at least deserves to be remembered among those who were lost before they could see eternity. You need not answer now; just think on it. If you make a decision, you can tell…well, any of our people, really. The answer will find its way to me.”

---

After they parted ways with the Sacred Band, Vreta ended up joining Rareth when she left the ship. He originally intended to speak with Freyr when he could, but events in the simulation changed those plans considerably. Rareth waited until they were the only two passengers aboard a Rothian transport bound for the surface before she finally spoke up openly to Vreta. “The hacking attempt, was your implant able to recover any logs from the event?”

Vreta nodded. “Even better. I was able to create a write-once partition and direct a copy of all changes to be saved into it. Any code she injected into my head, any transmissions, any changes that anything made or attempted to make, are all saved within the partition.”

While not going as far as smiling, it was easy to see from her tone and demeanor that Rareth was pleased with the result. “Excellent work, Agent. We will get you down to the medical center right away to deal with it. Meanwhile, I will go speak with the Director. This may change aspects of our approach going forward.”

The Cradle

Rareth moved along just ahead of the group. She gave a brief look towards Kjartan, but otherwise continued on with what she was saying. “A life is not something we take lightly. A Rothian life, or a Human. Memnon was your friend, and a member of your team. Your customs of course take precedence, but he did die fighting for Rothia as well. If there is no conflict with your customs, I would like to offer our honors also.”

Once they were in a space where they could loiter freely, Rareth stopped once again. “When a Rothian soldier dies, there is generally a public…what would be the best word to describe it to you? A vigil? It is an observance to honor the life and death of the fallen. It is a more public event than the funeral. It would be our way of showing respect to him, but you would know better than I if he would want to accept such a thing.”

The Cradle

Vreta hummed to himself as he looked over Kjartan and Thebes. He still was not sure entirely what to think of the Sacred Band’s newest member. Just based on their short time working together, it felt like he would be more of a liability than an asset. He would just be someone to watch out for if they continued to work with the Sacred Band in the future, Vreta supposed. “Well, at least everyone is fine. I’m sure that’s not how any of us expected the match to end.”

As they moved to leave the arena, Vreta kept close to the Sacred Band. The simulation had been an interesting diversion, and one that he hoped would convince them to see him as less of an outsider, but he still had certain things he wished to say to them before they parted. “I know everything is still moving quickly with the excavation. A lot of work to do, not a lot of time to stop and think. I know I wasn’t there in the simulation, but I did see the recordings of what happened. I wanted to thank you for it; you fought for our people as much as you did your own.”

From the floor of the arena, and with everything he had been dealing with otherwise, Vreta had not noticed Rareth’Jharn up in the spectator booth. So, it came as a surprise when he suddenly heard her voice ahead of them. “That they did.” She said, stopping just in front of them. As a guest aboard the Human ship, she lacked any of her military equipment and weapons, though seeing her outside her suit really just drove home exactly how large and powerful of a Rothian she really was. She towered over the rest of the crowd, supersoldiers included. As they had learned inside the simulation, much of her body was artificial, though one would not be able to tell through her synthetic flesh. “I am not so busy that I cannot come to say it myself. I know our people have different customs, different ways of seeing things, but I wanted to give respect in the ways of my people.” She said to the Sacred Band.

The Cradle

Vreta’s implant had stamped out the final traces of the virus in his mind, outside of the records in the quarantined partition. Though, it had stopped fighting back after the room had gone dark. The simulation might have ended inconclusively, to the confusion of most of those involved, but Vreta could be satisfied with the fact that he had a record of everything that happened within his mind. He realized that he was going to have to schedule some minor surgery to deal with this, but hopefully, what was within his storage drive now would be a gift well-worth the trouble.

In the spectator’s booth, there was another guest to the Barbarossa. She stood near the window, looking out over the now-featureless arena. Rareth was unarmored and unarmed, or at least did not carry any external weapons. She had not originally come for any official purpose as a Datius, but rather simply to speak with the members of the Sacred Band. She had not expected anything more complicated than a conversation, but she was nothing if not adaptable. It had been easy to notice when something strange started to happen with Vreta, so she had been in a position to observe everything that was observable when the room shut down. “Interesting.”

On his part, Vreta did not show any signs of distress, nor did he have any intention of letting on to what happened on his own. It was in his interest to keep the details quiet for now, if at all possible. In fact, the more ignorance he could believably feign towards 595, the better. Though, he could not be sure what the simulation’s observers already knew. After all, the room would not have shut down without reason, so either the virus forced the simulation into shutdown for some reason, or there was something that the ship could detect, which it reacted to. “Is everything fine? No one is hurt, are they?” Vreta asked loudly.

The Cradle

It took only a moment for Vreta to realize what was happening, and his implant was already working to contain the detected threat. Someone was being exceptionally bold, and at least at first, Vreta had a mind to show them who they were dealing with. However, he soon realized that there was something more to this virus. Normal Human malware likely would have been dealt with before Vreta was even aware of it, but there was something different about this one. His implant started dedicating a surprising amount of resources to adapting to the malicious code, so as quickly as he could, Vreta himself stepped into action.

From the start, Vreta disabled all outgoing signaling from his implant to prevent any outbound transmissions. Without that, there would be no connection from his implant to any external server. Naturally, he also ceased his ongoing tactical support to his team so that his implant could dedicate its full processing power to the task ahead.

Despite the surprising sophistication of the virus, Vreta might have been able to have it dealt with swiftly, had that been the path he chose. There was clearly Cradle tech involved with the program, but his own implant was top-of-the-line by Rothian standards. It had immense computational capacity compared to anything of Human creation, and this virus was at least still partially Human-made. Vreta, however, was not merely interested in stopping it. This presented new opportunities beyond just the outcome of a combat simulation.

Vreta, of course, did nothing to hamper his implant’s ability to fight back and protect himself. He stopped his own digital assistance towards his team so that his implant would have the resources for the kind of record-keeping he required. Like a ship sealing off compromised compartments, his implant first quarantined various sections of his internal network from one another. Some sections, by their core design architecture, were inaccessible. Implant subsystems connected to most vital organ systems were isolated, with their own processors and core programming. They were disconnected from his neural implant, except for a specialized interface that allowed the subsystems to view directives without allowing the direct transmission of code. The virus could not spread to them, but other systems, such as his sensory and motor functions, did have a direct, low-latency connection to his neural implant. As such, his implant did have to work to protect them.

Instead of outright deletion, Vreta directed his implant to create an quarantined partition with “write once read many” write protection. Any well-made virus would be able to erase part or all of itself if needed, but his implant was more than capable of dealing with that issue. It issued a root-level override to all deletion operations, or indeed any form of code modification, to instead copy into the quarantined partition. In effect, that partition would serve as an immutable record of everything happening within Vreta’s internal network in order to guarantee that he could save a copy of the virus in its entirety. Of course, Vreta had stopped giving any manner of assistance to his team during all of this, but at this point, his goals had changed.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

For the remainder of the quick, bloody battle, Meesei’s pack was the hammer that crushed the Daedra against the anvil of their allies. Vicious and deadly, Kaleeth crushed and cleaved through every Skaafin in front of her. Her armor was still more than strong enough to hold off their weapons, and they were given little chance to aim for precise strikes. Janius certainly would not allow them the chance, and any he did not slay with claws and blades, Sabine would pierce with ice and freezing cold. Mages among the Skaafin attempted to defend their ranks, but between Sabine’s chilling cold and the awesome power of Meesei’s lightning that followed it, there was no defense that would be good enough. The momentum of the pack was all but unstoppable; by the time they pushed through to the point of reuniting with their allies, they were practically competing for kills.

The reinforcements from the pass had bolstered their weary allies, both in numbers and morale. With the cavalry moving around the perimeter and attacking from any angle they could, the Daedra’s own numbers withered as they fell more and more quickly. Now that Arinette was no longer leading them, the Daedra did not entertain the thought of retreat. They fought to the death, down to the last single individual. Their relentless struggle did cause more casualties on the part of the mortal invaders, but they did all fall in the end.

Standing over the last, freshly-killed Skaafin corpse, Meesei turned back and looked up to the tower at the top of the hill above them. The pillars of energy that swirled around it were much clearer to see, and feel, from here than they had been from the other side of the valley. They were still a fair distance away, but the power looming over them was beyond immense. It was a concentration of magicka on a scale that she had never witnessed before. Without a doubt, that was where they would find Vile.

Unfortunately, the threat of Vile’s Daedric servants was far from over. They had killed all that stood in their way, but as they could see from their vantage point down into the valley below, more reinforcements were on the way. A substantial portion of the Daedra fighting down in the valley were breaking off from the “main” battle below to come protect their lord’s tower…a force much larger than the one they had only just managed to defeat. Saras approached Meesei on one side, and Hjergir on the other. Both still lived, but neither had been through the battle unscathed. Saras was burned across his stomach. Badly. He looked like he had taken a direct hit from a fireball, and it was likely only the fact that he was a Dunmer that was allowing him to keep going. Hjergir’s white fur was stained red across much of his body, and it was hard to say how much of it stemmed from his own wounds.

“The Daedra are drawing off quite a lot of their forces to come deal with us.” Saras commented. “Our forces in the valley will certainly gain a great deal of ground off of this…but it won’t matter if we are overwhelmed first.”

Hjergir reached out one hand and pointed a claw down towards the bottom of the hill. “There’s only one good path leading up here. That’s a chokepoint we can hold. Not forever, but…”

“...long enough.” Saras nodded in agreement. “As our lord Hircine said, it is our Champion who will defeat Vile. Your pack is the one that needs to reach him. We can make sure his minions don’t have a chance to overwhelm you.”

Ri’vashi sheathed her katana in its scabbard and dismounted her horse nearby. “This one agrees, but she will not leave the Champion’s pack unprotected. She made a promise to guarantee that the Champion reaches Vile, and she intends to keep it.”

The Cradle

Vreta had seen the explosive drones in action before, so his implant knew to mark it as a priority threat. The drones were quick, but that did meant that, by tracking the drone’s vector, he could know just as quickly which one was targeting him. In an instant, Vreta snapped his aim towards the incoming explosive. His implant gave its projected path, as well as assisting his hands in aiming precisely enough to put a shot right in that path. Vreta took multiple shots, though it was his first that struck the drone mid-air.

The detonation was still close enough to stress Vreta’s shields and drop them low, but he was still able to dive into the nearest cover. He had to wait for his shields to recover, so he took the time to observe the state of the battle. He was not sure what was causing his frontline to lose ground, considering the advantages they had over the enemy, but it was a circumstance he would need to adjust to. The soldiers behind Vreta were at least keeping Saddam occupied for the moment, so Vreta could afford to focus on Thebes. The marines Vreta was pushing with did not yet have pressure on them, though they had still not found a shot on Thebes. He was not sure he could rely on Kjartan to defeat Thebes alone either, so he needed to help personally.

Vreta shifted over next to one of the Blue team marines in cover near to him. “I need this.” He said as he grabbed the Human’s lethal grenade. “Kjartan, shield up. Grenade incoming!” He warned through their comms before arming the grenade and tossing it over towards Thebes. He stayed down while his implant tracked the explosive through the air. Though he did warn Kjartan, he still made sure to throw it such that Thebes would be between Kjartan and the grenade, just to be safe. At the last moment, Vreta peeked a narrow angle and shot the grenade to airburst it on Thebes’ position.

Halo: Aegis Team

As tough as its defenses were, the Brute Chieftain was not invincible. At least, not any longer. With his shields now depleted, his armor had to handle the incoming fire. Many pellets from the shotgun blasts either deflected off of the armor or was stopped by it, but each shot weakened his defenses, and some broke through. It might have been hard to notice in the chaos of battle, but bright red blood dripped from some holes in the Jiralhanae’s armor plating.

Had the Brute’s ambush not been discovered, or his allies not taken so many casualties when they tried to rush across the room, they might not have been able to place as much focus on the chieftain himself. Alone, the chieftain could be overwhelmed from all angles. Still, in his blood rage, he may not have even been aware he was essentially alone, and he would be fighting to his last breath. Tar nearly knocked him off of his feet when she jumped on him from behind, but he managed to keep standing. In a rage, he let out a roar as he managed to reach up over his shoulder to grab a hold of Tar’s arm. He had her in a vice-grip, and despite his unfavorable leverage, his raw strength was not something to be ignored. Although, in his struggle against Tar, he could not focus on many other threats.