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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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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."

"The catch of the Crystal, was that radiation it emitted was so strong, it was practically a beacon for the Covenant to follow. If we kept it, they would have followed us to no end, with no way of returning to Earth." Halsey then remembered Corporal Locklear, who acted the very way she predicted he would in his troubled state of mind, "Someone of the crew destroyed the Crystal, finally leaving the Covenant with nothing to track."

The Doctor paused for a moment, thinking quickly. If Keyes returned safely to his world, and with information about what would happen, her plan to save the Spartans from the coming storm would not only fail, but beside being charged with treason against the UNSC, more of her Spartans would have died at Earth.

She wasn't even sure if the John of Keyes' timeline would be lucky enough to end up winning the war as he did in his own universe and in the one of the Arbiter. Should Keyes ask about her own fate, Halsey would have no choice but to say the same lie. She decided to continue with what happened to John's crew after she left aboard Governor Jiles' ship.

"John and the others found a docking Station of the Covenant, which was the definite proof that not only did they know about Earth, but were ready to launch an assault against the planet: The Unyielding Hierophant. The Spartans destroyed it, and nearly all of the five hundred docked ships with it, giving the UNSC Forces in the Sol System more time to prepare for the Covenant Invasion."

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.

However, on the outside, she didn't even flinch. Still with a tone that did not betray her true intentions, she spoke. For her, this was another game of half-truths and omissions, and Keyes was not only a smart companion, but a worthy contender for that game of hers. She had to hide the truth of her plot.

"I had to to leave them to look for something that would've helped us in the war." Halsey spoke. Even if she was speaking to close friend that was able to keep many secrets, the repercussions of telling Keyes more than enough could compromise her plans.

"You are familiar with my most famous co-worker, Ackerson?" Halsey asked in a deadpan manner, naturally because 'co-worker' was the worst term anyone could use seriously. After Reach was burned, she wouldn't have been surprised if he had actually felt joy at the assumption that she could have been dead.... Even at the assumption that no Spartan remained.

"After taking cover in Reach for days, I found out he was hiding a few things that could've changed the tides of the war. He hid them from UNSC, and even from the rest of ONI. Had we known about that Crystal years earlier, we might have stood a chance."

Halsey naturally omitted a few things. She took Kelly with her, she called the Spartans from Earth to aid her at Onyx... and the discovery of the Spartan III project. If Keyes knew the truth about that project and he returned safe to their universe, his life would be in great danger.

"During my mission, I realized the reasons behind our war." The Doctor lifted her head to meet Keyes'. "The Great War -our entire war- was over the Forerunner Artifacts all along: The Halos, the Crystal. Everything."

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 confirmed that. They couldn't live on a planet with the other, oxygen breathing, species of the Covenant.) Why kill us all for seemingly no reason? Why not just ask? Did they fear our refusal so much? Why should they? They had far more advanced technology than we did. There just wasn't any logic to it all.

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, the Ringworlds, the Ark, the Crystal, everything-; And that John was Forerunner. So many hypothesises. That AI could've been of use for humanity to reutilize Forerunner technology, had it not gone rampant... And yet, before they could learn anything else, John had no choice but to kill him, carrying the secrets of the Forerunner and of humanity with him.

"So, if the technology was meant for us, and the Covenant came to realize we could've gained as much power, if not more, than them, then our war could've been a preventive war." She thought out loud, then looked at Keyes again, "It's merely an hypothesis. However, their Leaders' desperation to fire the rings for religious purposes debunk it, but doesn't change the fact humanity's relationship with that technology has something to do with the Covenant wanting to hunt us."

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