A Meeting With a Kaidon

## Story

February 26th, 2559 - 09:12

It felt empty.

Not that anything was different, the vast void of space was always absent of activity. There was little to latch onto but the specks of starlight glistening through the viewport, disrupted only by the vibrant cloudy streak of the Milky Way slicing the darkness in half. It was peaceful… but this time in a haunting way.

Ever since the rise of the monolithic Forerunner enforcers known as the Guardians, it was difficult to find an opportunity to set foot on a planet inhabited by more than a few thousand people. Most of the last few months have been spent aboard the *Steelskin*, a *Gladius*-class corvette Jet and his team had stumbled onto mostly intact on their last sanctioned mission. Crest had given Jet one last birthday gift, one that granted the group of Spartans an escape when the *Infinity* failed to show up. *Steelskin* wasn't its actual christened name; Max had dubbed the recently reclaimed vessel after a song he used to hum during ricochet games. Fist of the Unicorn had played it once at halftime during the 2554 Championships and it had been the team's lucky anthem ever since.

It's been two months now, and a lot has changed. With no contact from the *Infinity*, Fireteam Amber had elected to continue working alongside Zachary Rayne, an ONI agent they had met shortly before encountering the *Steelskin*. The Office of Naval Intelligence would normally be the best equipped to handle the guerrilla situation they found themselves in, but Zach had been out of contact with his command structure for months as well. Still, it gave Amber a mission handler and a purpose. Jet wasn't going to complain.

"Good morning, Spartan Thompson," spoke a feminine voice from behind Jet, waking him from his star-gazing daydream. "Breakfast is prepared."

Jet looked over his shoulder, making eye contact with the yellow-tinted illusion standing on the table. He nodded, and Monarch vanished with a smile from beneath her little hood. She was the *Steelskin*'s pilot and Zach's second artificial companion. Amber had ceremonially terminated his last one, Theia, when the aging AI had reached her limit and consented to deactivation.

It was the first time Jet had witnessed the death of an artificial intelligence. He wasn't sure what he expected, but Theia had taken it well. "From the day I was born, I knew I wouldn't live past seven," she had said. "I made peace with that long ago." It was Zach who was the most affected by it, having served alongside her all her digital life.

Jet expected to hear Monarch's announcement again through the wall to Cora's chamber, but it never came. It was likely the Spartan was on the deck below, tinkering with the team's equipment like she said she would last night. It occured to Jet that he has never actually consented to the tampering.

He had to watch his head descending the stairwell. The *Steelskin* was never designed for the larger frames of a Spartan crew. Jet had learned that the hard way on more than one occasion.

As he reached the base of the steps, the sound of metal impacting metal could be heard originating from the cargo bay, followed by cheering and laughter. Jet popped his head in to investigate.

Cora was relaxing on the floor, resting a ComPad on her lap and enjoying what appeared to be a cold can of lemonade. Zach was standing beside her, arms crossed but clearly enjoying the scene. Beyond them, a disgruntled Maximilian and celebrating Abigail, the former picking up a metallic ball as it rolled past his feet. The two of them were dressed in their full suits of MJOLNIR.

"Three out of five!" Max demanded, passing the ball to the team leader.

"That was three out of five," Abigail responded, placing the ball on the floor between them. "But I can go for another round."

It seemed the team had converted the empty cargo bay into a gravball court. Ricochet, but without the cover and firearms. Three dents in the wall behind Maximilian told the story better than any scoreboard could.

"Later," Zach interrupted. "Food's gonna get cold."

"When did you set this up?" Jet asked the group as he emerged from the corridor.

"I threw this together this morning," Cora answered, having finished her drink. She crushed the can in her hand as she stood up. "Max had the idea. Gives us a better way to try out the new armor than just running our standard calibration tests."

"And you approved it?" Jet asked, turning to Zach. Max and Abigail were leaving the room through the far passage, likely headed to the armory.

"Why the hell not? Keeps morale up, and it's the closest to a gym we have on this ship." Zach scooped the ball off the floor and placed it into a bin in the corner of the room. "Just wish I could compete with you guys."

"There's nothing keeping you from trying," Cora boasted, lobbing the crushed can into a waste basket in a way that mimicked a halfcourt shot.

"Augmentations? Ignoring that, the fact that you four are literally sports stars?" Zach pointed to the three marks on the wall between Max's goalposts. "I don't want my head looking like that."

"Commander Rayne." It was Monarch's voice, but Jet couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.

"Yeah? Got something for me?" He picked up his own ComPad from a table out in the corridor, pushing past Jet in the process.

"I have completed my scan of the system. The results have been sent to your display. No Guardian Custodes present, but the colony has an unrecognized fleet in orbit."

"Human? Covenant?"

"I cannot tell."

Zach hesitated for a moment, tapping away at what Jet could assume was the data Monarch mentioned. Two days ago, the *Steelskin* had jumped into the outskirts of a star system containing the lost colony Shear. Zach, forever paranoid, had been keeping the ship away from any planetary bodies until he was confident it was safe to approach.

"Uh huh. Thanks, Monarch. I'll bring it up during mission prep."

"Field work?" Jet interjected.

"Diplomacy, if things go how they should. How's your Sangheili?"

"Like I'm speaking sixth-grade German."

"Anyone on the team more fluent?" Zach was still looking at the tablet.

"Negative. Jet's our best," Cora answered. "Our suits have translation systems, is that not enough?"

"I'm just covering all my bases, that's all." He shut off the ComPad. "Come on, let's eat."

February 26th, 2559 - 11:36

*It isn't hers. Just a copy.*

Zach delicately rolled the data crystal between his fingers. It was identical in every way. The dimensions were standardized long ago, the mass deviating from the average only by micro-engravings: "THA 4669-2." Theia.

*It is just a copy.*

Years ago, Zach had a duplicate transfer chip made for Theia for use in his field ops on Gilgamesh. It was a contingency plan, should Theia become compromised. Afterwards, it had become little more than a desk ornament in his office back in Salem.

But when Cortana's Guardian arrived on Earth, the second chip had proven useful. It was Monarch's chip now, despite the engravings. She wasn't stored on it now, of course; the *Steelskin*'s network gave her far more space to breathe. But had he not kept the second chip, Monarch would still be trapped in her ONI data prison.

"Fireteam Amber is ready for their mission briefing," Monarch spoke through Zach's earpiece. Her voice was a mimicry of Theia's. "Should I inform them you are on your way up?"

Zach groaned, climbing out of his bed for the second time today. He set the crystal down on the nightstand.

*She's more than just a copy.*

Zach hated that he had to remind himself.

February 26th, 2559 - 11:41

"He is on his way now."

"Thanks, Monarch," Abigail responded, leaning on a railing that divided the two levels of the bridge. Displays and workstations were awake with activity, but not a single man filled any of the positions. A vessel even of this size would normally have half-a-dozen personnel in the bridge at any given time, but the *Steelskin* was a ghost ship. Computers operated without user input, and screens displayed warnings to absent eyes.

The central viewport was darkened, shielding Abigail's eyes from the radiance of the system's central star. From this distance the sunlight was not dangerous to her eyesight, but the darker view helped with identifying the astral bodies that were visible to the naked eye.

"Hey, Abby!" It was Jet.

Abigail turned around to face the rest of the team. Jet and Cora had repurposed the central inoperative holo-table into a place for arm-wrestling, and Max was acting as referee.

"Are you going to keep running matches in the court downstairs? I'd like to hop in for the next one," Jet asked without breaking his stare-down with Cora.

"Two-on-twos?" Max asked, a hint of excitement in his voice. "I call Cora!"

"After that performance earlier, I don't think I want you on my team."

The door behind Max slid open with a hiss. Everyone looked over at the entering commander, except Cora. She used Jet's momentary lapse of focus to slam his hand onto the table.

"That was cheap!" Jet complained.

"Ref?" Cora asked, already knowing Max hadn't been looking.

Zach answered in his place. "Cora, push ups. You're expected to salute an officer on deck."

Cora let out a groan.

"That goes for everyone actually, except Green. At ease."

Abigail didn't realize she was instinctively saluting until Zach had pointed it out. For the first time since the "funeral," Zach was wearing his service uniform. The ONI insignia contrasted sharply against the stark gray of his chest padding. There was only one other modification to his uniform: a singular silver leaf pinned to his collar, easily mistaken for obsidian in the darker light of the room. After a bit of hesitation, she slipped her hand back down to her side.

Zach stepped over Cora as she was finishing what was barely a workout and placed his tablet on the holo-projector. A few seconds later, Amber gathered around to get a better view.

"What are we looking at?" Max asked, poking his head over Jet's shoulder.

The tablet displayed the results of a scan Monarch had been preparing since they entered the system. Excluding themselves, the only vessels Abigail could see were in close orbit above the second planet from the star.

"If I had to guess, the Fleet of Salvation. Wartime reports indicate the fleet had attacked and destroyed the colony of Shear in 2526, but saw no other combat afterwards." Zach paused briefly. "That's the public record, anyway."

"Let me guess, ONI coverup?" Abigail commented.

"We would never... but yes. the Office had reason to believe Shear had surrendered and joined the Covenant. Knowing the Covenant typically didn't accept surrender, ONI had concerns publication of the story would result in more colonies trying—and failing—to negotiate."

"So we're looking at a Covenant world?" Jet leaned closer to the ComPad and squinted at the planet on the display.

"Everything I'm going off of is ONI theorycraft. We believe its possible that the inhabitants of Shear survived, and that what we're looking at is either the only case of humans within the Covenant or, more likely, a splinter group."

"Separatists? Like the Swords?"

"From what we could tell, Salvation was a large Covenant fleet lead by a Supreme Commander, a Sangheili Kaidon named Kel 'Katamee. It seemed unlikely that the Prophets would let such a sizeable and glorified military unit go to waste so early in the war unless they had a very good reason."

Zach presented a scanned document on his tablet detailing the Supreme Commander. It consisted of only two paragraphs, mostly covered in black ink.

"Keep in mind, nothing indicates this guy's still in charge. We're going off of data from over thirty years ago, and its patchy data at that."

"Where do we come in?" Cora asked.

"You're gonna go conduct a little bit of negotiation," Zach answered. Max looked like he was going to pose a follow-up question, but decided to keep it to himself. The commander continued, "We know three things about these guys. First, they don't have a Guardian overhead, which makes this place safer than half the galaxy already. We also know they didn't continue their offensive during the war. Combine that with the rumor of human cooperation, and we might have found ourselves some allies."

"Our supplies are running low," Monarch sounded from everywhere at once. Her figure appeared on Zach's pad. "Anything that can secure us a safe place to rearm, restock, and refuel would help tremendously. I would also be interested in getting assistance repairing the vessel's damages, especially our missing thruster."

Abigail recalled the state the *Steelskin* was found in back on Crest. It was mostly intact and functional, surprisingly, but it wasn't without missing pieces. Monarch's been making due with what she could, but she had previously described it like how she imagined it felt to have a limp.

Zach rested against the railing Abigail was sightseeing from a few minutes ago. "Ideally, you four would be conducting this meeting without your gear, but I've heard you'll need your suits to help with translation. As such, I'm permitting the usage of your new armor, but you'll be leaving your weapons on the ship with Monarch and I. Get your stuff ready, I'm hoping to arrive around eighteen-hundred."