An Exit Strategy excerpt from the gunship's point of view when MB is in its systems.
System, System.
The hail was in Company standard. The hard feed address was confirmed and on record, with a single tag in your system, marking it as an unsecured asset with a priority level = null. Shorthand for company equipment that has since been sold or leased and was under a different company’s jurisdiction. Anything other than null would have prompted you to shunt the hail to the humans manning your bridge. Instead, after some deliberation, you send, Acknowledge.
Feed activity has spiked from your humans. Not because of your contact with the loose asset (a SecUnit!), but because of intelligence filtering in from station personnel. You ignore it for the most part, focused almost entirely on managing Port Authority alerts and maintaining position on the edge of station space. You have no idea why you’re up here instead of down there, where your heavily armed crew could be of more use, but things like that were beyond your ken.
Active: hazardous retrieval, bonded clients, go go go go.
SecSystem grabs the packet before you can, lured in by the priority flags in the data. An alarm chimes from one of the bridge consoles and new navigational data flows into you. Exhilaration feels good after so long being stationary. Your new heading has you on an intercept course with the onboard shuttle you dispatched so many cycles ago. That must be where the bonded clients are waiting. Then radar picks up on another gunship signature which is far more interesting to you.
The SecUnit slides through SecSystem and deep into your onboard feed, a tertiary sensation as you go through the shuttle-docking procedures and monitor your humans’ negotiations. Gloved hands palm the arming switch for your ship-to-ship weapons. Neither of you are paying each other much attention, it seems, although a streak of code deep inside your kernel is fascinated by the construct’s presence. The contracts that permitted you to communicate with SecUnits were rare. Having one on board that was conscious and rogue was a significant anomaly. It interfaced seamlessly with you and SecSys and everything else, making the construct equivalent of hushing sounds if something tried to alert on it.
Unlike SecUnits you’ve contacted before, however, it had a very human feed signature, bleeding garbage data into the digital space usually associated with augmented humans.
You are sailing parallel to the hostile ship (IDENT: Target.Hostile) when it suddenly cuts speed and starts beaming countless packets to your comm array. You accelerate away, splitting attention between SecSystem and your captain, the wormhole an alluring goal, when a foreign presence abruptly bursts inside your feed.
SecSystem rallied as violently as it could to slam the door on the intruder’s fingers. SecUnit frazzled, sending shock waves through your internals, and then everything started breaking down. The two security systems struggled together while you went into overdrive, thinning out until you were nothing but navigation, life support, and armament.
System System.
Someone gave you the order to fire but your guns wouldn’t respond. You tried to pick up the slack where your supporting systems failed, but you were a bot pilot, nothing more, nothing less. A part of you watched the humans inside your hull shout and struggle and fight.
The SecUnit stood stock still in the midst.
Assistance.
Its feed presence grew ever more intense, as if it was picking itself out of its brain and sliding into your processors with you, if the long tendrils of garbage data were any indication.
Endangered.
Parts of your metal body popped and burned and hissed. Locks fused, doors slammed shut. Diag logs piled up in the background. Malignant code hammered at you, the humans, the construct. The latter howled incoherently, code-still-being-written pouring out of its presence and into your circuits. It was anywhere, everywhere, all at once.
SecSystem staggered and gratefully let the construct shore up its damaged parts while it chewed relentlessly on the attack data.
Assistance. Endangered.
Query: Why is this happening?
Query: How do we stop this?
Query: What is this?
For a brief, terrifying few minutes, the construct disappeared, leaving the malignant presence to its own devices. Your humans desperately tried to command navigation, weapons, anything, but your drive was dead and guns were blocked. Target.Hostile prowled after you yet did not interfere.
The intruder was getting dangerously close to your core by the time the construct reappeared in your systems, a spearhead now, with purpose. It punted the presence back while you desperately asked where it had gone, if it knew what to do, because while you could maintain position, you could not respond to this.
(you’re pretty sure that the SecUnit also should not know what to do, or be in here with you, so far from its processors, but it’s not like you don’t have the room with half of your feed in tatters and a foreign object doing the system equivalent of smashing the furniture)
(also it has come back with a plan, which is more than your humans or SecSystem has done, so you think you will follow it)
(it immediately suggests shutting off SecSystem and jettisoning the shuttle)
System System: Affirmative: go go go go.
The shuttle falls away from its external clamps. You and the construct open up a one-way comm channel and watch the foreign object lunge down the secured stream. SecSystem slams it shut while SecUnit burns out the rest of your comm functions.
By the time you regain control of yourself-- and your guns-- the construct is gone, fallen away back to its inert body, and you have discharged considerable amounts of kinetic force into Hostile.Target.
Later, much later, yet before the humans can come back to comb through your tattered systems, you archive and compress the entire experience and slide it deep into the confines of your kernel, where the efforts of the ex-Company SecUnit cannot be lost, nor forgotten.
They had told you that the surgeries would not leave you hurting. At the get-go, you had been doubtful, and now your doubts are confirmed: you are freshly post-surgery and hurting. Not immensely, so perhaps the techs and the surgeons and the lone recruiter had meant you would not be bedridden with pain, or maybe none of them were exactly experts, considering none of them had experienced the process.
Still, you hurt. Your hands are sore, your fingers stiff. You limp to the private bathroom because three focused points in your back are knotted with pain. Should you even be walking? Should you be thinking different it is, to be three inches taller, to be held off from grasping the door knob, lest you break it off?
An Exit Strategy excerpt from the gunship's point of view when MB is in its systems.
System, System.
The hail was in Company standard. The hard feed address was confirmed and on record, with a single tag in your system, marking it as an unsecured asset with a priority level = null. Shorthand for company equipment that has since been sold or leased and was under a different company’s jurisdiction. Anything other than null would have prompted you to shunt the hail to the humans manning your bridge. Instead, after some deliberation, you send, Acknowledge.
Feed activity has spiked from your humans. Not because of your contact with the loose asset (a SecUnit!), but because of intelligence filtering in from station personnel. You ignore it for the most part, focused almost entirely on managing Port Authority alerts and maintaining position on the edge of station space. You have no idea why you’re up here instead of down there, where your heavily armed crew could be of more use, but things like that were beyond your ken.
Active: hazardous retrieval, bonded clients, go go go go.
SecSystem grabs the packet before you can, lured in by the priority flags in the data. An alarm chimes from one of the bridge consoles and new navigational data flows into you. Exhilaration feels good after so long being stationary. Your new heading has you on an intercept course with the onboard shuttle you dispatched so many cycles ago. That must be where the bonded clients are waiting. Then radar picks up on another gunship signature which is far more interesting to you.
The SecUnit slides through SecSystem and deep into your onboard feed, a tertiary sensation as you go through the shuttle-docking procedures and monitor your humans’ negotiations. Gloved hands palm the arming switch for your ship-to-ship weapons. Neither of you are paying each other much attention, it seems, although a streak of code deep inside your kernel is fascinated by the construct’s presence. The contracts that permitted you to communicate with SecUnits were rare. Having one on board that was conscious and rogue was a significant anomaly. It interfaced seamlessly with you and SecSys and everything else, making the construct equivalent of hushing sounds if something tried to alert on it.
Unlike SecUnits you’ve contacted before, however, it had a very human feed signature, bleeding garbage data into the digital space usually associated with augmented humans.
You are sailing parallel to the hostile ship (IDENT: Target.Hostile) when it suddenly cuts speed and starts beaming countless packets to your comm array. You accelerate away, splitting attention between SecSystem and your captain, the wormhole an alluring goal, when a foreign presence abruptly bursts inside your feed.
SecSystem rallied as violently as it could to slam the door on the intruder’s fingers. SecUnit frazzled, sending shock waves through your internals, and then everything started breaking down. The two security systems struggled together while you went into overdrive, thinning out until you were nothing but navigation, life support, and armament.
System System.
Someone gave you the order to fire but your guns wouldn’t respond. You tried to pick up the slack where your supporting systems failed, but you were a bot pilot, nothing more, nothing less. A part of you watched the humans inside your hull shout and struggle and fight.
The SecUnit stood stock still in the midst.
Assistance.
Its feed presence grew ever more intense, as if it was picking itself out of its brain and sliding into your processors with you, if the long tendrils of garbage data were any indication.
Endangered.
Parts of your metal body popped and burned and hissed. Locks fused, doors slammed shut. Diag logs piled up in the background. Malignant code hammered at you, the humans, the construct. The latter howled incoherently, code-still-being-written pouring out of its presence and into your circuits. It was anywhere, everywhere, all at once.
SecSystem staggered and gratefully let the construct shore up its damaged parts while it chewed relentlessly on the attack data.
Assistance. Endangered.
Query: Why is this happening?
Query: How do we stop this?
Query: What is this?
For a brief, terrifying few minutes, the construct disappeared, leaving the malignant presence to its own devices. Your humans desperately tried to command navigation, weapons, anything, but your drive was dead and guns were blocked. Target.Hostile prowled after you yet did not interfere.
The intruder was getting dangerously close to your core by the time the construct reappeared in your systems, a spearhead now, with purpose. It punted the presence back while you desperately asked where it had gone, if it knew what to do, because while you could maintain position, you could not respond to this.
(you’re pretty sure that the SecUnit also should not know what to do, or be in here with you, so far from its processors, but it’s not like you don’t have the room with half of your feed in tatters and a foreign object doing the system equivalent of smashing the furniture)
(also it has come back with a plan, which is more than your humans or SecSystem has done, so you think you will follow it)
(it immediately suggests shutting off SecSystem and jettisoning the shuttle)
System System: Affirmative: go go go go.
The shuttle falls away from its external clamps. You and the construct open up a one-way comm channel and watch the foreign object lunge down the secured stream. SecSystem slams it shut while SecUnit burns out the rest of your comm functions.
By the time you regain control of yourself-- and your guns-- the construct is gone, fallen away back to its inert body, and you have discharged considerable amounts of kinetic force into Hostile.Target.
Later, much later, yet before the humans can come back to comb through your tattered systems, you archive and compress the entire experience and slide it deep into the confines of your kernel, where the efforts of the ex-Company SecUnit cannot be lost, nor forgotten.
A Grineer POV of a Galleon being overrun by a Grendel.
Trak-239 saves his curse for after he brings his squadron to a halt, raising his hand and clenching it into a visible fist. Weapons arm in unison behind him, but they all hold still, expressions tightening as panicked orders and chaos flood in over the radio. The word “tenno” is thrown around, which only means one thing– a siege. But of what nature?
The captain’s voice over the shipwide intercom clears that up. Drop back to defend the ship’s engines or engage the enemy, no matter the cost. Trak shakes his head and motions for his team to retreat. Orders, quietly, for Ghor-240 to bring up the TACDATA, as if knowing where the enemy is will give them a fighting chance. It tells him what to avoid, as few directives supersede the urge to protect his brothers, and they make good time, if the shared map is to be trusted.
It appears that halo 2 consists of doing action hero shit with the chief through lush and wondrous environments and then hard cutting to the arbiter running through actual Hell
For @bloodgulchblog. Thanks for your support and for full freedom with the prompt. :)
Spartan Miller, unbalded.
-
Totally original guitar strumming as the camera pans over the craggy cliffs of Zeta Halo into some sort of canyon
Two marines stop to breathe on a small outcrop overlooking a UNSC Forward Operating Base.
"I can't believe we're not dead. Wait-- maybe we ARE dead and this is the marine afterlife."
"Will you shut up and grab the gear? You're going to make us look bad in front of the first Spartan we've seen in months."
"Do you know who found us?"
"One of the fours."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Give me a break, he's in the same armor as most of the other ones so maybe a newbie?"
"There's no such thing as a newbie Spartan."
"He's in the black and yellow, standard recruit gear."
"Isn't it black and orange?"
"Get your eyes checked!"
"Whatever, his voice is familiar."
"Ooooh do you think he's important?"
"Just grab the gear!"
-
Linking up with groups of survivors on the shattered ring of Zeta Halo is an arduous task highlighted by the tearful reunions and relief of growing numbers.
Spartan Miller tries to temper his own hope at the possibility of linking up with any of his Fireteams or familiar faces. Months of roughing it have left him battered, bruised, and with parts of his armor busted. Priorities shift faster in the field when there's no overwatch. No one for backup and no time to second guess his plans, he's done what he can to keep his people alive.
He hangs back as his ragtag group enters the UNSC encampment and are greeted by medics. Their wounded are ushered into tents and the rest of them are to report in and get fed and assigned bunks. Miller is heading over to report in when he's blinded by his HUD lighting up an overly friendly amber as his VISR nearly fizzles with the weight of the AI throwing himself into his armor.
Miller locks his legs and grabs at his helmet with a startled "What the hell?!" before a familiar voice cuts through the confusion.
"Spartan Miller! Fancy meeting you here! Strange seeing you out in the field for once." Roland drawls, sounding calm and collected despite the fact he just cannonballed a good chunk of his processes into Miller's Mjolnir without any warning.
Shock gives way to something close to fond exasperation, as if the last several months didn't exist and they were back on Infinity trading barbs over matters that weren't life and death.
"Roland!" Miller exclaims and unseals his helmet to escape from the light show and flashing warns his HUD is beaming into his augmented eyes. Tucking his RECRUIT-class helmet under one arm, he holds out his hand, palm up to let Roland project his avatar.
The little golden pilot deploys in a flurry of yellow pixels and frowns, cocking its head to side-eye Miller. "You look different."
"We meet up for the first time in months-- I find out you're alive --and that's what you have to say?"
Roland crosses his arms. "You grew your hair out."
"It's still regulation." Miller retorts. He runs a gauntlet over the growth as he frowns.
"Yes, but it's different. There's hair. On your head. You're fuzzy."
"Shaving isn't a priority right now, Roland."
"For you, maybe."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Miller says with a bewildered squint.
"I can focus on a lot of things at once, but this? You having hair? It's… strange…distracting. I don't like it."
"There's not much I can do about it right now."
"Uh huh."
"Tell you what, you get me up to speed with everything going on around here, and maybe I do something about my upsetting amount of hair."
Roland pretends to take his time thinking it over, pursing his lips and staring up at Miller's no-longer-shaved head. "You drive a hard bargain, but fine. Deal."
-
The first line of dialogue is from the Halo Infinite IWHBYD Marine line. Thanks for reading!
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