User:CMDR RileySV/Sandbox

November 15, 2552 Dawn Facility, Earth Orbit, Sol System, SolCore

High above the Earth's surface, it was calm. Helped by the fact that combat in orbit between the United Nations Space Command and the alien alliance known as the Covenant, had lulled for about a day or two. In spite of this, Avery Johnson was clad in his new battle dress uniform. Combat could come at moment, so it was better to be prepared then caught basically naked. Or at least that's what his many years in service had showed him. The person walking beside him, Veronica Dare, appeared to have similar feelings; sporting a less armoured, specialized ONI field agent suit. Both of their boots clanked on the space station's hallway floor.

"No offence Sergeant Major, but more Marines aren't needed in this situation." Dare said, with a bubbling annoyance in her voice. An ONI agent through and through. ONI, or the Office of Naval Intelligence was the de facto central intelligence agency of the UNSC. Their various agents and officers were often given a larger degree of freedom then other branches. This sometimes gave them the idea, and occasionally the means, to push and manipulate situations to their wanting. Certainly beyond what soldiers other branches of the UNSC were allowed. The best counter to that attitude was to remind them that they were in a military first and foremost. One with procedures and hierarchies. Something else that his many years of service had showed him.

"Duly noted, Captain." Johnson retorted. "But the Admiral thinks one more might help. If you have a problem with that, your superiors might be able to convince him otherwise at the next Security Council meeting." Dare shot an exasperated glance back at Johnson. In reality, there wasn't much she could do to get rid of him. Fleet Admiral, Lord Terrence Hood was in-charge of the UNSC's forces at Earth and held considerable sway in the organization's decision making. This fact seemed to dawn on her.

"Lord Hood may have given you clearance, but it was my op, and it's my interrogation. We only captured one." Dare was firm and her frustration was palpable, but she kept her composure. "It's very delicate." The two had stopped in front of a closed bulkhead door. Johnson worked the controls.

"Don't worry, I know what the aliens like." Johnson said. The door opened and he immediately caught sight, and smell, of the Engineer. The floating, pink, bulbous, and rancid alien was near the centre of the room, interacting with some sort of electronic device with it's tendrils. The Engineers were members of the Covenant, though unlike the other species of alliance, the Engineers appeared rarely in combat. Johnson had heard rumours of their existence since just after the Battle of Arcadia, about 20 years ago. He himself had seen them a handful of times between then and now, and each time it was unexpected. And now he was going to talk with one.

Something else that caught Johnson's eye were Dare's Orbital Drop Shock Trooper team. ODSTs were Marine Corps special forces; often shot out of the bottom of a starship or space station towards the surface of a planet. A rapid reaction force or an instant flanking unit. These ODSTs specifically acted as the former a month ago when the Covenant first came to Earth and landed at Mombasa. That was where they rescued this turn-coat Engineer. Like Dare and Johnson, the whole team were donning their ODST suits.

Gunnery Sergeant Buck, the next in the team's chain of command after Dare, was watching the alien. Another ODST named Mickey was on one knee also watching it. The other three had their attention elsewhere. One was standing beside a set of stairs in the back of the room and watching Johnson, another was lying on top of the stairs and barely holding himself up, and one was asleep below the stairs.

"It has access to the Covenant battle-net?" Johnson asked Dare while walking to the alien. If it does, this could be a boon for the UNSC defenders. Any information the Engineer could pull from it could shift the battle in the UNSC's favour. Humanity's homeworld depended on it. Johnson's home depended on it. An idea popped into his mind. The Engineer looked like it enjoyed human contraptions, he would give it something else to understand. Johnson stealthily pulled his lighter from a pouch.

"Limited, but yes. We're not entirely sure how it manages a remote connection to the w-" Dare cut herself off as Johnson tossed the lighter straight at the alien. Mickey almost immediately got up to try and catch it midair.

"Whoa, stand down! Stand down!" Buck ordered to everyone. Mickey hesitated the moment he heard this, letting it be caught by the Engineer.

"Sergeant Major, please! It's extremely flammable!" Dare warned. Johnson ignored the comment and continued right into the alien's face. The Engineer examined the lighter with three of it's eyes; looking up and down the metallic exterior, trying to understand exactly what it was.

"The Brutes. The bastards who put bombs on your buddies and killed millions of my people," Johnson said. The Brutes were another member species of the Covenant. Unlike the Engineers they were one of the more common fighters of the Covenant and had been a fighting force in the war since the very beginning.

"They're digging a mighty big hole." Without breaking eye contact with the creature, he sat down on a crate beside it. In one fluid motion he pulled a cigar from a pouch and placed it in his mouth. "You're gonna tell me exactly what they're looking for. And then, you're gonna help me stop 'em." Johnson said again. The Engineer flipped the lighter open, ignited it, lit Johnson's cigar, and closed the lid. Dare walked up from behind Johnson.

"Engineers are mostly non-verbal." She handed him a tablet. "Mostly." The tablet was already on, displaying some sort of translation or text-to-speech software. "This one has a preference for a specific topic." She stepped back and stood beside Buck. Logos for the City of New Mombasa and its services were plastered along the side of the screen like a list. Johnson looked up at the alien.

"They call you Vergil. Right?" Johnson asked. A positive sounding chirp replied back to him from the tablet.

"Missing persons alert! If you see this person, please contact authorities for possible reward!" An energetic, semi-robotic voice came from the tablet. The logo of the New Mombasa Police Department moved to the centre of the screen, as several files related to a teenage girl named 'Sadie Endesha' popped up around it.

Even without the briefing beforehand, Johnson could've figured it out right away that there was a city AI inside this thing. In his childhood home of Chicago, corporate and municipal AIs could be found everywhere. Controlling so many facets of day-to-day life. And they all sounded like this. Clearly aware of the situation around them, but only speaking through pre-recorded or pre-designed speech. Johnson tapped ash off the front of the cigar. Momentarily pausing on that odd, but somewhat pleasant hit of nostalgia. It also reminded him exactly what he was fighting to protect.

"Missing persons..." Vergil repeated their previous dialogue. The files on the tablet had relevant information like height, weight, nationality, last known location pings highlighted in a desperate attempt at getting some sort of attention.

"We hear you Vergil." Dare assured. "Like we said. We can help, after we ask a few questions." The tablet went black for a moment. The Engineer instead began to frantically make gesture's with their tendrils. The lighter fell out of their possession as they did this. The gesturing was accompanied by them floating upwards ever so slightly.

"Focus Vergil. If she's still down there, the Brutes and that dig site could put her in danger. Especially if she was near Mombasa." Johnson said. This caught Vergil's attention and brought them back down to Johnson and Dare's level. "What do they want with that hole?" Vergil looked at both of them for a moment. The tablet came to life again, but with a pink background and several triangular symbols dotted around. An audio wave form was in the middle, with one end cut off by the edge of the screen. It appeared to Johnson like some sort of interface for the Covenant battlenet. Though clearly not designed for a human tablet.

"THE GREAT MACHINE. IT'S SCALE AND PURPOSE BECOMES EVER CLEARER. THERE CAN BE NO DELAY IN IT'S..." It cut off before it could finish what ever it was preaching. The baritone rhythms of a Brute were unmistakable.

"A machine?" Dare asked. "At that scale? It spans a hundred kilometers." A positive chirp came from the tablet. Johnson took a second to think about his next words. It was clear to him that Dare wasn't fully apprised of the larger situation of the war in the same way that Johnson was. The Covenant weren't the only aliens in the galaxy. To follow that line of logic would now require bending the meaning of "Top Secret". And certainly bringing attention to why he was actually here.

Johnson looked around for a few moments contemplating this. Dare was looking at him, expecting him to say something to her or to Vergil. Buck was watching the alien. Mickey had wandered off during the course of the conversation and was looking out the window towards the moon. The other three weren't paying attention, watching, or conscious. It's a risky manoeuvre, but there weren't many options left.

"Good speech." Johnson said looking back at the alien. "Sounds quite a bit like what your other buddies were talking about in Mombasa," Johnson leaned forward towards the Engineer. "About the Ark." Vergil looked directly at Johnson, intrigued with the depth of the human's knowledge. "Does this Great Machine have something to do with it?" He asked. "Or Halo?"

"Sergeant, I'm beginning to feel out of the loop." Dare said. Her anger and annoyance seemed to give way to curiosity. In truth, she was. The Ark and Halo were other large scale machines. Their creators were another group of aliens named the Forerunners. Long dead, but a central component to the Covenant's society. If these things were connected, this could be the break through they need.

"You are, Captain. And I think ONI would prefer it that way." Johnson replied. The battlenet interface disappeared. An image popped up in its place for a few moments. It looked like a pie chart divided into thirds, coloured in black and white. In each 'corner' were different symbols that Johnson couldn't recognize.

"Talk to a representative at African Trust for an all-in-one insurance policy!" The screen went back to the text-to-speech software of before. The logo of the New Mombasa Marketing Department was centre stage.

"Vergil, that pie chart design you put on the tablet. We saw it Mombasa as well. Is that related to this?" Dare asked. Vergil looked at her and a positive chirp came from the tablet. Quickly after this, the pink application with the audio waveform returned.

"THIS GREAT INSTRUMENT WILL BRING US TO SALVATION. WHEN OUR PROPHET ARRIVES, ALL SHALL KNOW THIS TRUTH." The Brute voice spoke again. Johnson began piecing it together. This machine/instrument thing is connected in some way to the Ark/Halos, and thus the Forerunners. This would make it a high-value target for the Covenant and its leadership.

"Truth, huh?" Johnson said. A double entendre to be sure. The Prophet of Truth was in fact Covenant leadership. "Does he or the Brutes need something to turn this machine on?" Johnson inquired.

"New vehicles are on sale at your local HuCiv dealership. Talk to one of their sales representatives to see if one is right for you!" An image popped up of a silver, tri-legged structure. Each leg impossibly thin, held to the one beside it with an equally slender brace. All three legs supported and led to a lean central spire.

"Well, that doesn't look like something the Covenant made." Buck said. A positive chirp came from the tablet. Dare and Buck looked at each other in response to that. Johnson recognized it. It was a ship. One associated with the Prophet of Truth. Beyond that, he didn't know much about it.

"If that thing is needed to activate that machine, how can we destroy it Vergil?" Dare asked. The images went away and a logo of the UNSC and the Mombasa Marketing Department was in the centre of the screen.

"Hold the line. Join the UNSC Navy today!" The voice on the tablet was slightly different. As if pulled from a different source than the prior statements.

"Vergil, thank you." Johnson said as he stood up. He reached his hand out to shake. "You might have saved us all. Including Sadie." Vergil reached their tentacle out and they shook. Johnson grabbed his lighter from the floor and walked back to the door. Dare followed him.

"Captain, do you need this?" Johnson asked while holding up the tablet so she could see it from behind.

"No. That should have everything on it. I think the Admiral will appreciate having it all in one place." There was a slight eagerness to her voice. Not an eagerness of a job well done, but of finally getting rid of a pest. They stopped in front of the doors. "And don't worry, Vergil will figure out another way to talk to us. I expect a wall console will start muttering about parking tickets soon."

"Missing persons alert!" The energetic, semi-robotic voice came from the tablet again. "If you see this person, please contact authorities for possible reward!" All the police files returned and this time stayed. Vergil was looking at them from a distance. They waved before going back to whatever they were doing before Johnson and Dare initially walked in.

"There's more to that squid." Johnson pointed his cigar back at them. He turned back to Dare. "I'll talk with Commander Keyes on where to move it. I expect new orders will be handed down to your Marines soon." Johnson said. "Unless ONI has other plans." It was Dare's turn to look back. Buck was watching the two of them. The others still were not paying attention.

"I uh..." Her demeanour changed almost immediately as she faced Johnson again. One of slight disappointment and sadness. "No, I don't think ONI does."

"I appreciate your time Captain." Johnson nodded in acknowledgement and proceeded through the door. The last thing he heard was from Buck as he walked up to her.

"So, does this mean I won the war?" The doors closed before he heard any reply. Johnson became lost in thought as his boots clanked on the space station's hallway floor. Earth wasn't a perfect place by any means, despite what might be said officially. But the idea it represented and the people that lived there, those were worth fighting for. And Johnson hoped that the strangest interrogation had ever performed and the tablet he was holding could ensure a future for both.