Spartan Joe, on the ground @spartan-joe371 - Tumblr Blog

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“It depends on the model. The Aurora Units that the Federation uses today are incredibly advanced, but the hodgepodge of AI systems that they replaced weren’t all that bright,” Samus relates, pressing onward through the bunker. They come across a doorway that leads into what is clearly a living space, but the room’s interior looks like nobody’s used it in months.

“Weird that whoever lives here would be ordering supplies. It doesn’t look like there’s been anyone here in a long time,” she remarks, taking a moment to sweep around with the X-Ray visor in search of any hidden features.

“Any idea what supplies they were ordering?” Joe inquired. Clearly no hired muscle was present around here, so food supplies would definitely be strange, though if it was munitions or other pieces of tech, that’d probably make more sense.

Either way, Joe had a very distinct feeling that there was probably something hidden in that room. It felt almost suspiciously abandoned at this point. Hopefully Samus’ X-Ray Visor would pick something up.

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“I’m beginning to get a picture of what our perp’s like,” she says as she rockets the turrets ahead of them. Once encased in ice, a couple of shots from the Nova Beam are all it takes to put them out. Meanwhile, the turrets behind them proved to be of equally flimsy make – they were run-of-the-mill auto-turrets, as opposed to the heavily-shielded mega-turrets that had been guarding the door.

“What do you think, Joe? What’s smart enough to crack the encryption on a Federation supercomputer, but not smart enough to tell the difference between two different people wearing similar suits of power armor?”

“Sounds like we’re dealing with some sort of AI,” Joe commented. “Definitely not a UNSC Smart AI. Dunno how advanced Federation AIs are, but given that and the mechanical voice, sounds very much like we’re dealing with a machine.”

The fact that this AI didn’t have the sophistication of a UNSC Smart AI was curious to Joe, but then again, the Covenant’s AIs weren’t that advanced either and UNSC Smart AIs were made via human brains.

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As they’re proceeding down the door, a voice coming over the bunker’s PA system gives them reason to pause. “Well, if it isn’t a pair of uninvited guests,” a robotic voice greets them. “Looks to be one Samus Aran and…make that two Samus Arans. Didn’t know the Federation had finished that cloning program – they’re ahead of schedule. Too bad I’m about to scratch out their prototypes.”

As expected, several more auto-turrets swing down from the overhead and lock onto the two power-armored fighters. Samus is already tracking on a pair of turrets ahead of them, the end of her cannon opening up so that she can fire off a salvo of ice missiles. “Check our six!”

The fact that Joe was mistaken for Samus Aran was curious. The Feds were actually planning on cloning Samus? Questions for later. The focus was on the turrets.

Joe quickly whirled around and opened fire on the turrets behind them. He needed to take them down quickly. Joe charged up his Arm Cannon and unloaded on the turrets nearby him. Since he had gotten that Diffusion Beam upgrade, the blast radius of his Charge Beam was large enough to engulf a couple of the turrets, though whether or not it destroyed them was up in the air. Thankfully the Ice Beam was part of Joe’s arsenal, so he could at least freeze the turrets to eliminate with his missiles if that failed.

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“Good job,” she says, glad that he was able to get the door open. She uses her own scan visor to trigger the opening mechanism, and holds her arm cannon at the ready as the blast door slides open. “Looks like there’s room enough for both of us in that corridor, but mind your six. Turrets could swing down from anywhere.”

Steeling her nerves, Samus begins descending into the bunker’s access corridor, keeping her head on a swivel.

Joe nodded, following in alongside Samus. He kept his Arm Cannon at the ready and one eye on the suit’s sensors. If anyone tried to ambush them, the Power Suit should alert him to their presence, though autoturrets popping in from behind would still be a problem, especially since cover only rarely existed in corridors. Joe knew he’d have to rely on dodging and the Power Suit’s durable energy shields to make it through here.

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“It’s worth a shot, but if this person is a skilled enough programmer to hack a secure Federation research database, the odds are that the code on their locks is pretty solid,” she says, switching over to her scan visor and zeroing in on the lock. She waits as the progress bar slowly fills, but shakes her head when she gets the final report.

“No dice. Your suit’s software might be more up-to-date than mine, though,” she suggests, stepping back from the door. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Joe nodded and gave the scan an attempt. Joe knew that he couldn’t just plug in an AI here and let them bypass the security systems, but frankly if the Scan Visor didn’t work it’d be unlikely that a UNSC Smart AI could bypass that encryption.

Thankfully Joe’s armor had been upgraded with the latest UNSC decryption protocols, and between that and the Scan Visor’s innate skills at decryption, Joe managed to make just enough progress to open the lock. Whether or not he did so without tripping the alarm, however, was another thing altogether, since it was unlikely that he could access these security protocols without warning the people inside.

“That should do it, but we should be careful going in there. No telling what’s waiting for us inside of there.”

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That’s apparently a lesson that Samus had never learned, given that she seems to be using a combination of agility and shield-tanking to manage the attacks. Fortunately, his super missile is more than enough to completely destroy one turret while also weakening the other enough for Samus to finish it off with the Nova Beam.

“If this asshole didn’t know we’re here before, they do now,” she says, before moving up to the door. Now that she’s close enough she can scan it with her X-ray visor and look for any kind of structural weakness. “Might be able to melt the lock through the door with the Nova Beam, but that is just as likely to fuse the door as open it. Any suggestions?”

“Could try and bypass the security protocols,” Joe suggested, approaching the door. “Haven’t met a security protocol the Power Suit couldn’t bypass by now. The Scan Visor should be able to open the door.” That is, unless the door required a physical lock, which wouldn’t surprise him if that happened to be the case.

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“Well, let’s see if we can’t get a look beforehand,” she says, switching over to her X-ray visor to try and pick out any defenses before they go active. It proves to be a fruitless endeavor, though. “Nope. All the ionization coming off the wreckage around here is throwing off my visor.”

She hefts her arm cannon and gets ready to vault over their cover. “Alright, then, we do this the hard way,” she says, before clearing the scrap and beginning her approach. As expected, a pair of turrets – Pirate make, judging from their appearance – swing down from their armored alcoves with shields already deployed.

“Mega turrets!” Samus calls out, quickly sidestepping as they start peppering her vicinity with accelerator shots.

Joe’s instincts quickly caught up to him. He flung his hands out and activated one of the Forerunner upgrades he installed into his Power Suit. A Hardlight Shield came up and shielded Joe from a few of the shots as he got back into cover. While technically the Power Suit could survive getting hit by these weapons, years as a Marine and a Spartan drilled into him to take cover or die.

Once Joe was in cover, he readied his Arm Cannon. A Super Missile should suffice to break one of the Mega Turrets. Charging up his Arm Cannon’s Power Beam, he fired the Super missile at one of the Mega Turrets, hopefully blowing it up with the attack. If not, he needed a Plan B, one that hopefully wasn’t just “shoot it until it dies”.

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Getting through the scrapyard like this is a slow process that involves several close calls. But after what seems like hours of wandering Samus takes a knee behind some scrap and motions for Joe to join her. “That’s the place, alright. I noticed it the last time I was out here, but didn’t think anything about it at the time,” she says, peering around her cover.

If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it would be easy to miss what Samus is talking about. The entrance of the bunker is rather cleverly concealed by the natural contour of the scrapheaps, such that it would be almost impossible to spot from above. “I hate digging people out of bunkers, but somehow I don’t think we have any other option.”

Joe heads over to the scrap and looks over the area. “Raiding a hidden bunker to get what we’re after...” Joe shook his head. “I’m willing to bet the bunker’s defenses are online and are probably going to be shooting at us once we get inside. We’d best be ready for anything.”

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Samus nods and starts walking out into the scrapyards, hand already resting on her arm cannon. “Alright, try to follow my path, but don’t get too close. If you see my shields start visibly glowing, it means that I’m surrounded by acid gas and my hazard suit’s kicked in,” she says. “Call it out if I don’t seem to notice it, and I’ll try to find a better path.”

“I know we reinforced your suit before you came here, but acid vulnerability’s always been a weakness in the Chozo design,” she points out, still picking her way through the wreckage. As if on cue, her shields become visible, forcing her to take a few steps back and choose a different route. “The fact that I’m using a Pirate shield module to do this is, well…let’s say that the irony isn’t lost on me.”

“You’d think with all the crap the Chozo made the Power Suit immune to with upgrades they’d take the precautions to resist something as mundane as acid,” Joe commented, falling in behind Samus. His shields were tough, but not invincible, and he didn’t want to risk his shields taking too much damage on their approach. Joe made sure to call out when Samus was entering acid terrain, not wanting to get caught in that mess.

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Joe’s eventual arrival at the marked coordinates reunites him with Samus, who is keeping a wary watch over the surrounding area. There aren’t many places somebody could hide here, but she can’t help the feeling that somebody is watching them.

“You about ready to head into the scrapyards of this hellhole?” she asks upon his arrival, looking out over the broken landscape that awaits them: a tangled mess of metal and polymers, periodically broken up by hazy clouds produced by the rivers of chemical waste running beneath the sea of hulks. “I know I sure am – hell, scenery like that makes me want to plop a vacation home down here.”

Joe surveyed the terrain. Not many potential ambush sites, but visibility was going to be hell with all that terrain to navigate and the clouds. Getting through this terrain was going to be a pain in the ass. Still, that didn’t stop Joe from being light-hearted about it. “Can’t be worse than that time we went to Phaaze,” he commented. That was an experience he didn’t want to relive anytime soon. “So sure, let’s blast a path through this area.”

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“Roger. Transmitting to your HUD…now,” she says, the coordinates appearing in Joe’s field of view. Based on the satellite map being provided by the gunship, the coordinates are quite a distance out into the scrap wastes after all, and the route there is particularly treacherous.

Samus then picks a point along the route not far from their present locations and tags it. “Unless you have any objections, this looks like a good spot for us to meet up.”

“Coordinates received. Making my way there now,” Joe responded, quickly heading off in that direction, disposing of his Active Camo since it was no longer strictly needed. If anyone turned hostile, Joe could probably handle them, but he suspected that he’d be able to lose them just because of how fast Spartans were when sprinting, given how he could outrun a horse if he pushed himself to his limits.

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Samus takes a break from leading some thugs on a wild goose chase and answers Joe over the comms. “Alright. I think I know roughly where they were talking about,” she says. “Finding the entrance to the bunker might be a bit tricky, but the X-ray visor should help.”

“Understood,” Joe replied. “Send me the coordinates and I’ll meet you there.” Joe didn’t really need his Active Camo anymore since they had the intel they needed, but he should probably keep it on just to scout out the area and make sure there were no other nasty surprises waiting for them in the near-future.

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Fortunately, Joe’s work turns up a particularly juicy nugget just when it seems like the hacker might completely evade them. He overhears discussion of somebody trying to arrange a delivery of supplies to a bunker out in the toxic scrapheaps outside of the city limits. From the sound of things, none of the goons talking about the job sound particularly interested in doing it because it runs a bit too close to being a suicide mission.

Joe recorded the conversation and transferred it to Samus over a secure connection as it was going on. Once he was out of earshot, he activated his comms. “Looks like I found something worth investigating. We’d best get to that bunker, see what’s inside.”

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In keeping with The Plan, Samus begins conducting a very obvious sweep of the area to try and find anything she can about the hacker using the information they’ve been given by Federation Intelligence. Predictably, it has the intended effect: despite not being able to gather any intelligence, all the malevolence that New Syracuse has to offer begins to pivot towards Samus. Joe’s work should be much easier now, provided that he doesn’t blow his cover.

With the distraction underway, Joe quickly infiltrated further into the compound. He never once turned off his Active Camo as he wandered around, hoping to find any useful information from any individuals who looked like they might’ve been involved in information gathering. Any piece of information might give them a lead, so Joe couldn’t just discard anything he overheard out-of-hand.

He did need to get relatively close to overhear things, but the fact that his Active Camo was easy to miss unless you were deliberately looking for it no doubt gave him an advantage in the matter. Here’s hoping nobody was looking for an invisible infiltrator like this.

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Fortunately for Joe, the environment on New Syracuse isn’t particularly bright – the thick layers of industrial pollution in the atmosphere have screened out much of the sunlight that might reach the planet’s surface, and simultaneously make the entire place uncomfortably warm. “That idea makes about as much sense as any,” she says, coming up with an idea. “Say, Joe, I have a suggestion that might make your life a bit easier.”

“I’m thinking that since I’m about as subtle as a Phazon bomb, the best thing for me to do is to, well…be obvious,” she explains, quickly looking around their environment. Nothing appears out of place on the landing pad, but she’s still not happy about how exposed her ship is. “While everyone’s paying attention to me, you can use the combination of a distraction and your active camouflage to do that whole eavesdropping thing. Bit risky, but it’s not like I can sneak around with you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Joe responded. Given the fact that the Power Suit was hardly designed to be stealthy, getting a distraction in so that Joe could sneak around would be for the best. “I’ll contact you with any intel I gather along the way.”

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The trip proves to be a long one, even with the Silverhawk’s ability to travel directly to their destination. Fortunately, Samus keeps the ship well-stocked with a variety of recreational activities. Neither of the two manage to die of boredom before the ship’s computer announces to Samus that they’re due to translate back into realspace soon.

The translation back into realspace is easy, but getting them docked planetside is considerably harder and requires greasing a few palms in order to secure a landing pad that isn’t just a front for some starship chop-shop.

Finally, though, Samus finds herself walking down the loading ramp of her ship and into the hazy, polluted atmosphere of New Syracuse. It’s a bit less dramatic than emerging through the top hatch and leaping out, but she needs to account for the fact that she has an invisible helper tagging along. “You all set over there?” she asks over the internal comm net.

Now, Joe’s Active Camouflage wasn’t perfectly invisible. It was possible for someone to see the bent light around Joe’s body if they looked hard enough. In practice, this really only happened if Joe was too close to the opponent and it was bright out. Dark areas made it extremely easy for Joe to avoid being seen even up-close. “All set on my end,” Joe answered over internal comms, exiting the loading ramp.

Joe had to be careful in all of this. No doubt somebody would ask questions if they saw an invisible man in the area. “We should try doing some eavesdropping first, try and gather some intel about what’s going on. You’d be amazed what folks would say within earshot of someone, especially when that someone isn’t immediately visible.”

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“I hadn’t even thought of that, but I like that idea. One of us can do the scanning while the other provides overwatch,” she points out. “We’re a lot less likely to get ambushed that way. Of course, scan visor or no, I’d keep your finger near the trigger.”

“For now, though, the ship’s on autopilot. Feel free to make yourself comfy, and I’ll keep you updated on our ETA.”

“Since I’ve got the Active Camo unit on my armor, I can provide overwatch without risking being spotted too early on,” Joe offered. “Alternatively, I could use my Active Camo unit to help facilitate the scanning without arousing suspicion.” Still, that was all something they’d have to think about later. “Sure, I’ll see what I can do to relax while I’m on the ship.”

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