Mission One: Ciricunius II

"It was a change of pace, having the upper hand for a change," she answered, "Still, the innies are ruthless bastards when it comes to UNSC,"

"To be honest, I've never encountered an Innie that lived up to all their talk when faced with the raw firepower and numeracy of the UNSC. Hell, the looks on their faces when they see an ODST alone is enough, really."

Hayha looked back finally, shaking his head. He'd been a little distracted, wondering how stiff the hay was.

"Never been a POW, then?" Asked Sasha, "My team found a marine strung up, tortured and shot in the head. Must've been one hell of a way to go,"

I stopped.

"There was much evil on both sides of that battle."

My voice quiet, withdrawn.

"Yeah, well the innies deserve everything they get. Murderous pieces of shit," Sasha spat, her hate for innies obvious through the venom in her voice.

Jesús woke up, and sat up, and glanced around the cell, still somewhat asleep, not taking anything in.

"ODSTs have done the same thing to the insurgents."
I kept my voice quiet.

"Hola." Jesús mumbled, upon seeing the man in front of them.

The captain surveyed the ODSTs,

"I imagine you're wondering why you're here. Well. You've been officially killed in action. In truth, you were kidnapped and brought here to assemble an elite squad of ODSTs. You will be performing missions deep behind enemy lines on the slightest bit of intel. You will operate against both Covenant and Rebel forces. There is a high chance most of you will die on these missions. I'm not going to sugar coat it for you."

The captain paced up and and down a little,

"You've all been stripped of your ranks and any previous history. You will begin today as new people."

The captain approached each of them in turn,

"Staff Sergeant Sasha Winter. You will be the squad leader. The success or failure and the lives of every person here rests on your shoulders.

Sergeant Yeodera Hayha. You're the team's overwatch and sniper.

Corporal Nicholas Saint-Nicholas. You will be in charge of keeping the squad alive and working during missions and providing support where ever you can.

Corporal Sinead Orchestra. You're the team's demolition expert.

Corporal Jesús Salazar. You'll be helping wherever you can."

The Captain backed off and gave them all a stern look.

"You've all been chosen for this because you're believed to be the best. But let's get one thing clear. We work purely for Section III of the Office of Naval Intelligence. However, there have already been numerous inquisitions by Section I and we ask you at all times to keep your eyes open for anything suspicious. If word of this gets out, Section III will pull all their support and we'll be facing a full tribunal court."

I did nothing as I looked at the Marine before me. Higher rank or not, I was his superior in every way. Smarter, faster, stronger. The Marines were the best fighting corp in the whole UNSC, and we ODSTs were the best soldiers in the Marines.

I waited, silently, before nodding in affirmation of the Captains words.

Jesús nodded, glancing around.

The captain pressed a button on the holographic map table that was to the side of them. It brought up an image of a planet.

"You are currently on board the UNSC Carrier All Under Heaven. We are currently MIA in UNSC records. This planet is Ciricunius II. We have intel that suggests a large insurrectionist force is currently gathering there. "

He pressed another button and the map zoomed in to display a birds eye view of a base lost in a forest.

"You will be dropped here"

He indicated a mountain range that was about 30 miles out from the base.

"The mountains will give you cover as you come down in your pods. From there, you will link up to this road here and follow it along to the base. Then you will pose as members of the rebel forces and gain access. Inside the base are numerous documents that will help in the war against the Innies. You are to extract these documents and get out."

He indicated another mark on the map to the south of the base

"UNSC Marine forces will be deployed here, exactly one hour after you hit dirt. They will proceed to storm the base. You will link up with them, gear up and help them take out the rebels. We can't chance a direct attack because they'll wipe the data before we get a chance to see it."

He closed the map and looked at the squad again.

"I'd recommend sticking together where possible. If you don't link up with the Marine forces by the hour mark, they'll attack regardless.

The marines here will guide you to the armoury and then to your pods.

Any questions?"

Hayha raised a hand instantly, looking at the Captain and not waiting for him to acknowledge his questioning of the plan.

"What do you mean gear up with the Marines? We're going in with arms and armour aren't we?"

"You'll be dropped in armour at first. But I doubt the Innie's are going to let you in if you're carrying fresh UNSC weapons and armour so you'll be ditching them at your drop zone."

"How do we, uhh, get uhh, extracted?" Jesus asked.

"Once you've extracted as much data as you can and linked up with the Marines, you'll proceed to attack the base. After that, Pelican dropships will bring you back here."

"What is the expected resistance? What are their armaments?"

"So, it'll be a procure on-site operation."

Hayha looked at the hologram closely, attempting to ingrain it in his mind.

"What we have is what you've seen on screen. An image and the word of a captured insurrectionist. You'll be scouting at the same time as extracting this data.

Remember. The key to this is to stay under cover until you link up with the Marine forces."

"We'll be doing recon." I scratched my chin. "What else do we know about the base? have we done any scans of the area?"

"We don't know what tech they're supporting. Any kind of scan could reveal us and we can't chance that."

"right.." I whispered to myself. "What support do we have, before we meet up with the marines?"

"None. You'll be alone. If you get caught, that's on your head."

The captain gave them all sorrowful glances

"I wish the odds were better. But this is what this team was brought together for."

"Hm... What'll the Marines be packing once they're down? Vehicles, heavy weapons, stuff like that."

"That's not relevant yet. You'll see once they deploy."

The Captain straightened up.

"If that's all. I'd like you to follow the Marines please. God speed."

Hayha nodded, and began to walk up behind the Marines, sighing to himself as he thought of the operation. Getting in would be the only real problem, unnoticed. Once they were out, clearing the rebels shouldn't even be an issue. As they walked, Hayha swore to himself as he realized he didn't ask which Innie branch they'd be dealing with.

"Dammit."

Sinead had been surprisingly quiet for a while, walking with the rest of the gang she leaned forward and told Hayha. "M is for madness" This brought a smirk to her face and then she mimed lighting dynamite and made a hissing sound before going "BOOM!" At the top of her voice, this caused her to howl with laughter. Things would change the moment they hit the ground well her old record would have said that, this new one would simply list her as insane.

Sasha nodded silently, it was her duty not to screw up and make sure the others didn't get killed. She eyed the team, silently judging them and trying to plan for several possible outcomes while on the ground, none of which would end well without support.
"How are we going to get inside? It's a lobg shot to assume they'll let us walk through the door,"

Hayha frowned as Orchestra gave him an answer for something he'd completely forgotten about, waiting a moment before smiling. Perhaps it was good someone was so upbeat about all of this.

As they walked, he looked back at Winter, and thought to himself for a moment before speaking.

"I've been thinking about that too. I'm not sure how they'd respond to a bunch of unknown, muscled up figures asking to join them, but at the same time it wouldn't hurt. We might need to split up and try multiple points of entry, some of us requesting to join their forces and some others sneaking in until we can get hold of some disguises."

"Well if you ask me I think we should come up with secret identities..." Sinead began with a wild grin that was both comforting and unsettling for someone who was now in charge of things that turned people into lots of little pieces in a single or several fiery detonations. "My new identity is coming to me I shall be Ash Minami, veterinarian on an distant colony world, joined innies after family got killed, best friend is a talking puppy name Frank" This result with her laughing again, suddenly she made an actual tactical input. "Perhaps one of us should surrender to the authorities when we land as an innie, the others may be inclined to rescue them... Then the individual who is not an innie but was rescued by them can get the rest of the team in?"

"Take an M7S, they should give us enough firepower if something goes wrong after hitting dirt. Once we ditch everything, we should at least keep the pistols," She said, starting to armour up.

Hayha shook his head, looking at the SOCOM, pulling down the slide and letting it go with a pleasant clicking noise. He'd always liked the M6C, and despite not using the SOCOM very often, he could still feel the same feeling as always, just with a little extra weight.

"No thanks, Staff. I'm sticking to this thing. One well placed M228 can do a Hell of a lot more than a whole mag of M443s."

Hayha looked around at the other weapons, sighing as he smiled to himself, eyeing the numerous rifles around them, the whole SRS 99 rifle series hanging around them. He reached up and run a hand over one before frowning.
"Procure on-site... These Innies better have some better weapons than the Eradinus Rebels."

"Aww come on man you know I want the good stuff pistols just don't pack it" Sinead protested, sounding more like a child being told that they cannot have a new toy that they desperately want. She eyed the rocket launchers longingly. "Besides if we all roll up with UNSC side arms it is going to look a little obvious that you aren't innes of course me being Ash I am" She grinned at her team before taking several steps towards the rocket launcher and taking it off of the stand. Sinead brought it to her shoulder, aimed at the door and yelled. "Ka-boom!" As she pretended to fire the weapon. This caused her to laugh. "Come on please can I bring this? I promise I'll look after it? I'll love it and pet it, care for it, take it for walkies" She begged, still smiling.

Sasha slammed her shoulder pads down, attaching them to the rest of the BDU,
"No, a rocket launcher would be a waste, we're leaving everything at the drop point," she said to Sinead, before turning her attention back to Hayha, "Maybe you're right, M6's probably would be fine,"

She paused, "Everyone, listen up. We need to get in and out as quietly as possible, so that means we can't trust that the innies will let all five of us walk in. Salazar, you'll be walking through the door with me, if they let us. The rest of you are going to be outside, try to find another way in, but don't raise the alarm. Hayha, you're in charge of team two,"

Hayha nodded, having returned to his locker, and saluted.
"Yes ma'am."

Sitting down, the oldest member of the team began to apply the lower portion of his battle armour, pulling on the thick armoured pants before standing up, ensuring they fit and were comfortable before grabbing the armoured boots, which ran all the way up to his knees.

Left foot first, then right foot, before latching them on tight and giving them each a single rap. They fit perfectly. He'd learnt long ago that a little bit of extra tightness never did wrong.

Sinead pouted seemingly hurt by the refusal to let her bring a rocket launcher to the party. "Fine" She said sounding like a teenager throwing a strop. She placed the weapon back before beginning to dress in her armour, grumbling to herself. "A rocket launcher is a waste she said, yeah well the boss lady says so and that means it is so" It sounded like she was having a conversation with herself. "Well you know how leaders go, lots of shouting not so much fun stuff for us" This caused her to laugh heavily at that. "Just like old times, new faces to join with the old ones soon enough kinda reminds me of the time me, myself, I, Sammie, Ryan and Smit dropped deep... How I loved and loathed those times" She grinned manically as she continued to dress in her armour, while in deep conversation with herself. The thing with Sinead was, though most of the time she was clearly insane every now and then for those who listened carefully, sane, reasonable and tactical advise slipped through the cracks of madness.

Sasha strapped on her boots, and pulled on the fingerless gloves of the BDU.
"It's going to be shit taking all of this off again," She thought out loud, holstering her pistol as she did.

Hayha stood, his breast plate already covering his torso as he began to set his shoulder pieces in place one by one. He adjusted himself a little, stretching out to ensure he still had proper flexibility in this battle suit.

He looked at the gloves before him, smiling. Just like his old ones, fully enclosed. He slipped them on and grasped in the air, taking a deep breath and picking up his helmet, examining it for a moment. Didn't seem like there were any attachments, which he had to admit, disappointed him.

Sinead finished putting on her armour, sliding the helmet over her head, with her visor unpolorized the uncontrolled madness was still clearly visible in her eyes, burning brightly like a roaring fire. It flickered briefly for a second revealing a tormented soul that had seen too many friends, comrades and family killed in war. "This will be fun just like going to school although with you guys and my companions" Sinead gestured towards an unoccupied seat. "Ain't that right Sammie?" She turned back to face the people who existed in the room. "She's just a little quiet, lost her family a few days back but she is good for the drop" Part of her knew Sammie was long dead, most of Sinead simply refused to acknowledge the fact, her body coped with the loss in a weird way.
"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round" She sang with childlike innocence moving topics swiftly. "The wheels on the bus go round and round all day long"

Sasha looked at the helmet still in the locker, seeing her face reflected in the visor, before picking it up and pulling it on, depolarising the visor as she did.

"Give your gear a final check, everyone. We don't want anything to fail when we need it,"

Jesus nodded, as he put on his gear, before giving it a final check over.

"Si, all is good."

Hayha looked around at the team, all decked out in the black, sleek, intimidating armour of the Orbital Drop Shock Troop. He set his helmet on, tapping it a little and looking around, activating the VISR system and smiling, as the whole room changed for him.

"Perfect."
He turned it off and looked over at Winter, holding the SOCOM by his side. The rest of the team would see a small blink go off on their radar, as Hayha indicated he was ready, his arms and armour all set.

"Everyone strap in," Sasha said, sitting down in her SOEIV and checking that everything inside was in working order.