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charlie_hotel in econtra_logs

[Thread] Old Friends

Dec 31, 2008 21:23

Characters: OU! Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, OU! Captain Jacob Keyes
Where: Vri-Enas
When: After this
Summary: After his arrival in Econtra, Keyes requests information from his closest friend.
Warnings: Possible Old!Shipping, and tea.

( Halsey had read the reports of a strange, mysterious, yet the most delicious tea in Econtra... )

[halo] dr catherine halsey, [halo] captain jacob keyes, location: apartments

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tactical_loop January 1 2009, 05:10:51 UTC

Keyes didn't do much to prepare for Halsey's arrival--he didn't need to. For one there wasn't much in the way of his to have to mess with; for another, his roommates were both, thankfully, neat and tidy. But ultimately it came down to one simple thing: Keyes was a military man through and through. He would never be caught dead outside of regs in any form or fashion.

He straightened his uniform unconsciously as he walked up to the door to open it. More a habitual gesture than anything else. He opened the door and gazed at Halsey with a typical measuring look from himself. Not nearly as stoic as a Spartan, but he was definitely not a civilian. He nodded, maybe even managed a small twinge of the lips, and stepped aside to allow her in.

"Good afternoon, doctor," he greeted.

charlie_hotel January 2 2009, 02:24:10 UTC

"Good afternoon, Captain. I hope you have rested well." Halsey returned the gretting, unconsciously smiling, and giving him a courteous nod. Her clothing was the usual: A white coat, a gray top, and her glasses on a golden chain. Her attitude, however, carried the careful movements of an Intelligence Officer. Even with having more weeks than Keyes in Econtra, she wasn't one to lower her guard so easily ( ... )

tactical_loop January 2 2009, 03:07:52 UTC

Keyes wouldn't object to getting straight to the point. It was a quality he admired in the woman--because it was a quality he constantly put to good use himself. He waved at a seat idly with one hand and moved back into the main room after closing the door, glancing down the hallway to both sides first out of a cautious habit.

He stood for a moment and crossed his arms over his chest as he decided on which subject to broach first. He was tempted to reach for the constant pipe in his pocket, but that could be viewed as a sign of weakness on his part and he refused to give the doctor any advantages over their working relationship this time around. He was too old and too experienced to be beneath her anymore.

"Yes," he replied, starting with an answer before going on. "Let's start with a relatively chronological order. I'd like to know more about what happened to the Chief--and humanity--after..." he trailed off. Accepting it was the truth was one thing; saying it out loud was an entirely other. "Then we can move on to this war."

charlie_hotel January 2 2009, 03:41:01 UTC

Halsey nodded, "Understood, Captain." She sat on the couch, her hands wanting to instinctively reach out for a cup of coffee, but controlling her urge for the moment, and resting them both on top of her legs.

"After what happened there," Halsey was tempted to trail off when she remembered the footage, but she didn't want to dwell on the moment he died, "John discovered the Flood, and wanted to fire the ring with the advice of the caretaker of the ring, a Forerunner AI called 343 Guilty Spark."

No matter how many times had she viewed John's recordings from the battle of the first Halo, she shivered on the inside by thinking how close everything was to be lost because of the half-truths and omissions of the Rampant AI.

"But when Cortana told him the truth, he escaped. Spark wanted to activate the ring, and with the Flood having been released and the Covenant being so nice to give them the means to escape, John destroyed the ring by overloading the engines of the Pillar of Autumn." She paused for a moment. "Everything that was near ( ... )

tactical_loop January 2 2009, 04:23:05 UTC

Keyes sat down across from her and listened intently to her words. He was not relaxed; his back was as straight as ever and his attentive position gave off the seeming impression that he was hovering above his seat rather than fully sitting in it.

He hesitated over the information that John overloaded the Pillar of Autumn's engines to blow the ship--and with it the Forerunner structure--to smithereens. It would have been a job hard-pressed for a noncom--but perhaps not a smart AI, he mused. Still--

But he had other things to distract him from his initial question as Halsey continued. That last part in particular really boggled the mind. And the fact that Halsey said it so calmly, completely accepting of its truth. That figuratively knocked the wind out of him. He swallowed a breath he realized he had been holding and let it out slowly.

"That's quite the story, doctor," the captain said after a moment. "And before we get on to that whole bending time and space nonsense... I have to ask: how did John get the Autumn's engines to ( ... )

charlie_hotel January 2 2009, 12:30:37 UTC

Halsey paused for a moment. She hoped Keyes would have not asked that, but knowing him, it was inevitable. He was one to want to know the truth. And for the good of his universe, he had to.

"To detonate the engines of the Pillar of Autumn, it was necessary to override the failsafe codes that could only be done with your CNI Transponder." The Doctor managed to keep a tone as neutral as the one she had when describing the events of Halo.

"Something you must know, is that the Flood not only use their hosts as fighters or as means of production. As they evolve, they become smarter. They use the minds of those they take. They learn what their host knows. With time, they not only learn to use weapons, but to pilot starships, as well."

Then, she continued on the events of the ring. Her tone remained the same, but ONI training could do only so much against a personal matter.

"After the Flood was released, they had taken a greater whole of the Covenant Forces and from the crew of the Pillar of Autumn, and they were preparing to escape from ( ... )

tactical_loop January 4 2009, 02:25:54 UTC

Keyes watched Halsey carefully as she relayed this information to him, and was especially interested in her expression and tone. He remained in silence when she did, figuring she would eventually find the way to say what she wanted. When this was not the case he realized just how horrid the situation was--had been. To quiet the doctor Keyes knew it had to be bad.

He tried to think of something to say to get her back on track. His voice was soft, and surprisingly considerate. "He did what he had to do. That will be all, doctor; I understand enough now."

A deeper, profound silence fell over them then as Keyes thought about what it really meant. The Flood had swarmed his squad, and he had been right in the mix of things. It was easy to realize he had been taken over to be host to whatever it was the Flood truly was. About that--he could ask John later. For now, it simply meant he had been one of them, and surely the Spartan had ended his "life" and done what was needed to ensure the safety of humanity. No, of all life in the galaxy ( ... )

charlie_hotel January 5 2009, 00:53:40 UTC

Halsey nodded. She wanted to understand, and she was grateful that her friend decided to drop the subject, but it pained her.

She rose her head when Keyes asked for the rest of the story, then continued her tale, her poker face returning.

"That crystal," The Doctor began, "Belonged to the Forerunner, maybe as a way of travel -- It made our ship go a hundred times faster than it would on normal slipspace. It was the reason Reach wasn't completely glassed. After we left, the Covenant pursued us relentlessly, looking for the Crystal for religious reasons." She momentarily smiled to herself, almost in amusement of the wild goose chase the Covenant just didn't win, "Fortunately, the fact they knew we had the crystal prevented them from outright destroying us."

"On our escape, we also picked the UNSC Gettysburg, because the Covenant ship John and the others hijacked was too damaged to jump in and out of slipspace using their own reactors ( ... )

tactical_loop January 10 2009, 03:55:43 UTC

Keyes listened intently to doctor Halsey's account of the events after Alpha Halo's destruction. It was hard to imagine some of the information she relayed to him and he tried to keep an analytical mind as well as a straight, perfectly neutral face. The latter was much easier than the former with his experience.

There was one thing Keyes noted almost immediately and tagged with a yellow flag inside his mind. He didn't frown, but his eyebrows narrowed together slightly. He had to ask the inevitable question, "'John and the others'? Not 'we'?" Pause. "What happened to you?"

Not that he wasn't thankful for the act the Spartans managed to somehow pull off that ensured the temporary safety of Earth, but he needed to know everything. Or maybe he was simply being selfish; maybe he didn't need to know, but merely wanted the full fate of those he held dear in his mind, and (heaven forbid he admit he have one) heart.

charlie_hotel January 13 2009, 08:52:31 UTC

Keyes was still concerned in knowing the whole truth -- Especially on what happened to her. She made a mistake by even indirectly hinting that she hadn't been with the Spartans. But even if she had lied, Linda and John would've told him of the truth. This was putting her on an uncomfortable position. Keyes was likely to seek for the whole truth in their world ( ... )

tactical_loop March 19 2009, 01:18:53 UTC

Keyes contemplated over this new information for a moment. Even so, his reply was quick and simply to the point. "So you just left on your own to find something--a weapon, a technology, a way--to end the war with the Covenant." Something in his voice said he wasn't quite buying the simple explanation, not fully anyway, but he wasn't pursuing it just yet.

"And along the way--which, by the way, had no direction with what little information you've told me--you just happened to figure out what the Covenant were truly after, and why they decided to start an eradicating war with humanity. Why?As in: why not simply ignore us? Or, if that was impossible, why not invite us into the fold? Why bother with human-kind at all? Did they already know we had planets under our habitation with Forerunner technology on them? No, they didn't seem to know where humans were until after they'd discovered us bit by bit. Why start a lengthy war with a new alien race when they already had so many that obviously weren't from the same planet? (The Grunts ( ... )

charlie_hotel March 19 2009, 08:45:23 UTC

"I can only guess," Halsey admitted, then crossed her hands in introspection, remembering what John had told her about his own universe. "With what I've gathered from John's logs from the war, only humans were able to use some of the Forerunner technology. Especially the Halos."

"According to what John told me happened after the first Halo, the Covenant tried twice to fire the rings -without success-, and on both of these times, they had a human captive they tried to force to do it. They couldn't do it by themselves. They needed a human to do it."

Those very facts told a lot aboout their war. The words that had intrigued her the most, however, were the ones spoken by the first Halo's eccentric caretaker, 343 Guilty Spark, when John tried to fire the ring to destroy the Flood, once and for all:

You are the child of my makers, inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner.Halsey pondered the words: Child of it's makers -a long-standing relationship with the Forerunners, maybe?-; Inheritor of all they left behind -The Halos, ( ... )

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