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Of Traitors and Betrayal (-=Part-Two=-)
Posted By: Lance Johnson<jett_mann@msn.com>
Date: 16 May 2004, 1:24 AM
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"Prosecution, call your witness."
"I call Major Darren Gregory to the stand."
A black uniformed officer walked briskly up to the stand. An ensign held up the Bible.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"
"Yes."
Aaron stood, hovering about three inches above the ground.
"What is your assignment in ONI headquarters?"
"I work as colonel Ackerson's second-in-command."
"Did colonel Ackerson ever order you to have a prisoner executed?"
"Objection, the prosecution is using a biased statement."
"Overruled. Let the AI say at least three sentences before objecting to it. And AI, try not to be as blunt, it can be viewed as biased."
"I repeat the question major."
"No."
"But he did order you to assign two squads of ODSTs to the prisoner's barracks. Didn't he?"
"Yes."
"Why would he do that?"
"I don't know."
"You don't even have an idea?"
The major looked at the roughly dressed AI. Its eyes were a very dull grey, unlike their usual color of white.
"I believe he was going to have the prisoner executed."
"Objection, witness is speculating."
"Overruled, the witness is given some leeway, but very little."
"Thank you sir."
"Major, if you had been given the order to execute the elite, would you have followed through with it?"
"No, the president of the UNSC had given direct orders to keep it alive."
"But Ackerson didn't follow those orders, why?"
"I have no idea."
"Huri, this is Lieutenant Walker, could you come back to the lab. We have some final equipment upgrades to attach to your armor."
"Yes sir, I'm on my way."
Huri walked into the lab. Inside were all sorts of new gadgets.
"Over here, these guys are going to upgrade your wrist computer, and neural interfaces."
Huri allowed the four men to open up his wrist com-pad, and his neural interface CPU.
"With these new enhancements you will now be able to carry an AI inside this computer. Your enhanced neural interface will allow your armor to interface with your emotion chip, inside your cerebral cortex."
"Huh?"
"Your armor will respond to certain emotions now. Like anger, it will enhance the adrenaline flow in your bloodstream, if your body uses adrenaline. This will increase your speed and strength considerably."
Huri nodded.
"Also, each wrist socket has been upgraded with new weapons, other than the pulse guns, of course. The left arm contains a small, but powerful napalm flamethrower. The right contains a sonic blast gun. Combined they create a powerful vibrational flame cannon."
Huri stared at the scientist.
"What did he say?"
"He said you have a flamethrower and a noise gun."
"Ah, cool."
The scientists all looked up at the elite. So far it had only quoted movies, now it was saying cool.
"I swear that is a human in an elite costume."
"How many movies did it watch?"
"About two hundred."
Huri tested the flamethrower. It had a respectable range of two hundred meters on full stream, but the power cell drained quickly when that was used. On spread it could be used for a longer amount of time with a wider range of fire. The sonic gun fired powerful vibrational blasts. The highest setting clocked at almost three hundred decibels, enough to punch through any obstacle.
"Your witness."
"Major, has the colonel ever given you strange orders?"
"Not that I can recall. Well, the one time he had some marines go against a Spartan on an obstacle course, but that was quite a while ago."
"What about strange transmissions, ever any of those?"
"Not that I can recall."
"So this man is being accused of being a traitor, on no grounds that he betrayed anyone."
"He did seem to be acting strangely the days after they fitted the elite with the new armor."
"No more questions. I have what I need."
"Defense, call your witness. This witness had better bring up the rest of the evidence."
"Yes sir. I call Colonel Ackerson to the stand."
Aaron rolled his eyes (no one can see it because of his really cool eyes though). Ackerson was going to lie his head off.
"Colonel do you swear to tell truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"
"Yes."
"Sit down colonel. Colonel, did you order two squads of ODSTs to enter the prisoners barracks and execute the covenant prisoner?"
"Not to execute it, they were escorting it to ONI headquarters to enlighten us on some of the information he gave us."
"Objection, I have a video and voice recording of the colonel giving those marines orders to kill the elite."
"Sustained, watch yourself colonel."
Ackerson flinched almost unnoticeably.
"Did you assign marines to retrieve information from the elite with the use of force?"
"Yes."
"Did you have the elite tortured?"
"Yes."
"Did you, after being ordered not to, go to the facility and attempt to kill the elite yourself?"
"No."
"Objection, I have a video and voice recording that will show you that the colonel was trying to get into the facility to kill the elite."
"Sustained."
Ackerson turned a slight color of pink.
"Your witness."
"Colonel, did you ever assign an android to infiltrate the covenant homeworld?"
"Yes."
"What did you use to get the android into the covenant homeworld?"
Ackerson didn't answer.
"Answer the question colonel."
"Objection, the prosecutor is badgering the witness."
"Overruled, but watch yourself AI."
"I used a group of teenaged male and female children to help infiltrate the covenant homeworld."
"No more questions."
The group of generals got up.
"Give us the evidence and we will choose a verdict."
Them papers were handed over. The JAG members filed out, and Aaron disappeared.
"Could we possibly win with that?"
"I don't know, we'll have to see."
Huri looked at Aaron's holographic form.
"You're coming with us. We'll need you."
"Android, or in that fancy new wrist thingy."
"Either."
"I'll take my body, but have a memory chip in that wrist thing to have you constantly updated on me."
"Sounds good. How did the trial go?"
"Pretty good."
Huri looked at the Spartans. Jesse called them "freshies." Walker called them "newbies." But they were warriors in his eyes.
"Alright Spartans, load up!"
"We have come to the verdict of disregarding and disobeying a presidential order on the grounds of a personal vendetta, guilty as charged. For placing children in a position of 100% chance of death, and thus murder in the first degree, guilty as charged. Your sentence, death, in the Albany penal facility on colony Orion."
Ackerson slumped. What could he do now? Then it hit him. He smiled.
"Alright Spartans, you've been briefed and are prepared for this mission. Let's see if all that training was put to good use."
Jesse, after giving his little speech, nodded to Huri. The ship blasted off and almost immediately entered slipspace. And on a direct course with the one place in the universe that Huri didn't ever want to see again.
Ackerson held the controls of the prowler steady. The pilots were dead, and the guards unconscious. He was determined to get his revenge on the elite, even if it was the last thing he ever did. After a long three day search, he found what he was looking for.
"Covenant vessel, I have information that could lead you to earth, but I will not give it to you until I am granted amnesty."
The covenant destroyer slowly turned, but didn't fire. Soon Ackerson's ship was inside the warship and Ackerson in the hands of earth's greatest enemy. The first willing human traitor to the covenant.
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