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Part 6: The Fallen Before Us
2536, March 12, Military calendar, Aboard Assault Cruiser Romulus; high orbit over planet Euripides.
Colonel Garrison Prinslow sat in the high backed chair at the head of the table; ahead of him holoprojectors were displaying mission recordings from the SPARTAN IIs deployed on Euripides. He was an aging man, perpetually at the rank of Colonel since his appointment to ONI's secretive first division. For thirty years the gaunt, hard face that sat above his black uniform had only become harder and paler. A more poetic man would have surmised that his body had begun to react to the metaphorical shadows he operated in, Prinslow didn't have time for metaphors, and even less patience for poets.
The ranks of the Office of Navy Intelligence first division were concealed well despite their funding from the naval corps; there were few officers high up enough to know even the hierarchy of ONI first division. Prinslow was somewhere in the top seventieth percentile in the organization, but even he didn't know exactly who his constituents were within there.
Prinslow's rigid brow narrowed as the first covenant began to fall before the SPARTAN IIs' weapons, assault rifles and sniper rounds tearing through alien flesh and armor. The four augmented soldiers he watched were his personal assignment from Vice Admiral Adrian Yu. Errol 049, Scott 079, Paul 002, and Irenka 103 were his specific task to monitor and evaluate within ONI first division's own special criteria for Halsey's experiments. Prinslow had met the woman once, and she reacted poorly to him, but like a civilian would, cling to idle rumors and egotistical self preservation. He didn't care for her, but then again, there weren't many people he did care for, he mused to himself.
Errol 049 took a plasma round to his chest and his vitals flashed, Prinslow noted the deficiency in his reaction time to avoid or anticipate the attack in the direct fire fight. Errol was proving to be less and less of what Vice Admiral Yu had detailed for him. The Vice Admiral had made it clear to Prinslow that he, and a select group of others within ONI first division, was to be reallocated to data gathering and recruitment detailing specifically within the Navy's special operations program. More importantly, to evaluate the usefulness and aptitude of the SPARTAN IIs that survived Halsey's own Project MJOLNIR experiment.
Yu was an effective tactician, and an even shrewder politician within the Navy. He managed ONI first division's elite covert operations wing with an infallible mission record, he was a cold and ruthless soldier on the field or off, Machiavellian was the term Prinslow had heard more than once to describe Adrian Yu. Yu wanted what Halsey had made, Yu wanted one of the SPARTAN IIs for his own purposes, and he was one of many men and women within the higher echelons of the Navy's intelligence community who had taken a keen interest in the Spartans after their initial success in retrieving the rebel leader Robert Watts. Yu, Prinslow recalled, had said that the children did indeed show "promise."
The one that kept Yu's attention most was Scott 079, the one who time and again seemed to fit ONI's criteria best. 11 years of training and missions had shown him to be adaptive, violent, remorseless, and most of all, independent. Yu had given Prinslow a pay increase every year since he had begun studying the four candidates, as far as Prinslow knew, his case studies had been the only ones to even garner a positive reaction from Yu. To Prinslow the money was meaningless, ONI was his life, and the corps was his life. Thirty years ago Prinslow had been a Marine Special Forces Colonel. He had been a father and a husband; he was none of these things now. His family was dead, dying in a rebel strike that shattered a colony arboretum dome while his wife and two sons walked amongst the trees. Their last hours were shared by twenty three other civilians who died, sucked into the icy vacuum. Prinslow never thought of these things anymore, he wasn't a man to live in the past.
Scott 079 penetrated the enemy ship alone, rushing through the darkened corridors, his helmet mounted cameras and external sensors recording data all the way. Prinslow watched the mission clock move by; the SPARTAN in combat was astounding to him, efficient, ruthless, cold, and instantaneous. But more like an animal than a machine, a predator on foreign ground, but infinitely adaptable, separated from his pack he was even more deadly.
Prinslow watched taking notes leisurely as the mission timer clicked away. Twenty minutes had gone by before the recording turned dark, sounds of plasma weaponry echoed through the audio receivers, a grainy harsh static accompanying each splash of energy. The recording betrayed no visuals of the fire fight however, the subject was clearly under cover and the cameras on his helmet clearly obscured. Prinslow suddenly heard something unfamiliar from the recording, a guttural harsh flowing of alien consonants and tones. The noise was clearly naturally formed; it was a voice, but clearly not registering on the translation databanks for the covenant forces.
Prinslow frantically searched his desk before retrieving Scott 079's personal mission's log. "Freeze," he commanded and the recording froze with 54:07 on mission timer. Prinslow hastily skimmed the log for mention of the incident, but only near the end of Scott's transcription did he see it, "52:56, encountered heavy resistance near enemy craft internal command hub. Cut off from reinforcements." Prinslow scowled angrily, there was clearly more to this encounter, the SPARTAN had omitted something important, what had he held back. Prinslow read on, "60:23, all hostile forces eliminated. Command structure neutralized." Prinslow knew he had it. "Play," he growled and the recording went on, fighting, intense close quarters combat, it was hard to follow, half of the battle was hand to hand, and static assailed the electronic sensors as plasma blades arced and danced around him.
Prinslow's eyes widened as the visuals finally became clear, the motion slowing, the mission timer read 59:02, and the SPARTAN was walking up a long purple ramp to a raised dais surrounded by glowing panels. And there it was the grey skinned alien in a mottled lump of gold and red robes. The alien's complicated guttural voice making sounds and tones previously unheard on the battlefield; it was no Elite, no Jackal, no Hunter, nor a Grunt. "He's the only one who saw this..." Prinslow unemotionally set to work sending the coded information to Yu with the addendum: "translation AI required, SPARTAN candidate selected." The boy held so many more secrets than they had suspected, it was no wonder he was viewed as such a thorn in the side of Halsey and Mendez.
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