Operation: RETRIBUTION: Difference between revisions

Veta followed Mark inside the structure to find it devoid of any obvious occupants. They split up to ascend dual staircases. Both confirmed that the second flood was clear like the first to one another. Veta began to crawl back down the stairs to reconvene with Mark and noticed that someone else must have passed that way recently, as there was a trail of water that had been tracked by multiple individuals. Upon arriving where they had first entered, she was startled by a loud clanging as Mark tore into a weapons locker with his [[combat knife]]. Both he and Veta took took [[BR85 battle rifle]]s with [[sound dampener]]s and [[sentinel sight]]s. She mentioned the trail she had picked up and the pair followed it to an enormous chamber, where they came upon the corpses of Keeper guards that had evidently been executed and disposed of there. Reasoning that the killers must still be within, owing to the Turaco's presence outside, they cautiously retraced their steps up the stairs together with weapons at the ready.<ref name="R8"/> Meanwhile, Ash had also made his way to another location at the base of the Forerunner contemplarium after having steered far enough clear of the ''Stolen Faith''. He was perplexed as Veta had been by the sudden lake which seemed to have appear from nowhere, but in his case he also had to contend with disappearing ships in the distance. Owing to the time differential, what seemed like brief moments to him were actually longer stretches of time beyond the locus of its effects, so the launching of [[Fleet of Glory|the Keeper fleet]] looked instead like the vanishing of the fleet into thin air. Ash also sighted scaffolding surrounding the ''Stole Faith'' that should have taken hours to construct and a breach that formed in its hull. In reality, it had. He was seeing the result of efforts that had not yet happened, if indeed his chronometer were to be believed. It told him that only fifteen minutes had passed since the team was divided, but it had actually been far longer than that. The illusory lake prevented him from seeing the mass of Keepers that had surrounded the ship. Ash could not take the time to appreciate what he was witnessing, however, as he had been pursued by a number of hostile Keepers which now moved to engage him from two directions as he knelt within the grotto's mouth. Having already killed eight pursuers, he readied himself for a final stand with his pilfered spike rifle and plasma pistol. A lone Jiralhanae spoke to him from beyond a corridor with an offer of peace conditional upon his surrender. The contemplarium was supposed to impart a sense of tranquility upon its occupants, and this made violence difficult for those under its spell. Ash refused the offer. When Jiralhanae and Kig-Yar moved to intercept him, he turned their own weapons--a [[Type-2 spike grenade]] and [[M9 fragmentation grenade]]--against them. He shot the Brute's wrist and made it drop the primed spike grenade, then batted away the frag so that both ended up obliterating those that had attempted to use them. He didn't hesitate to finish off a Kig-Yar as it picked itself off the floor, and then faced another pair of Jiralhanae. He made short work of them with his spiker before deciding to abandon the complex and make for the Turaco where Olivia should have been, having finally dealt with all those that had been following him.<ref name="R11"/>

===Out of time===

{{Quote|no=three|q1=Still here. But that's going to change when I'm back inside. There's a time differential ringing the spaceport.|Ash-G099|q2=Time differential? Like on [[Trevelyan|Onyx]]?|Olivia-G291|q3=I guess. It might even be a continuum warp. With as much artificial gravity as it takes to hold an atmosphere over the entire installation, that's a real possibility--especially since it's Forerunner tech.|Ash-G099|Ash shares his theory after figuring out something is off about how time is passing relative to the contemplarium on Taram.}}<ref name="R11"/>

[[File:H4-ONIProwlerShip-ScanRender.png|thumb|left|250px|{{Class|Sahara|heavy prowler}}s like the ''Silent Joe'' are stealth ships, equipped with systems that mask them from both visual and sensor detection.<ref name="catherine">''[[Spartan Ops]]'', [[S1/Catherine|''Catherine'']]</ref><ref name="R10"/><ref group="note">The [[prowler]] pictured here is the {{UNSCship|Aladdin}}, not the ''Silent Joe''.</ref>]]

Shortly after reaching Pydoryn, [[Blue Team]] was ready to deploy to Taram in ''[[Silent Claw]]'', an [[Owl]] [[dropship|insertion craft]].<ref name="R10"/> Before it could leave, however, the team was recalled by Captain Ewen to the situation room. There, the Spartans were made aware of the big picture regarding the status of the operation. The Keepers' fleet had been visibly mobilized around Taram, indicating that the group was expecting trouble. In addition, recordings from the spy gnats within the ''Stolen Faith'' painted an unclear picture of what had happened after the Ferrets had been led off the ship. They indicated to those on the ''Silent Joe'' that the Keepers may have simply been preparing for the Banished assault they thought would be coming, but the sounds of gasping and wailing that followed the point at which the ship had landed were impossible to draw conclusions from. What had made the captain recall them just then, however, had been a microburst of data from just minutes ago. It confirmed that the Keepers had discovered the gnats, since they spoke of them and then presumably destroyed them. But more importantly, it confirmed [[Castor]] was present. Owing to his position as one of the Keepers' most important [[dokab]]s, Ewen was faced with a decision to make regarding the furtherance of the mission. There was nothing to suggest the Ferrets had accomplished their objectives or were even still alive, and if the ''Silent Joe'' pinged their TEAMCOM, it was likely that it would be giving away its position to every Keeper ship in the area. The best option left to them, Ewen thought, might have been to simply eliminate Salvation base with [[Shiva-class nuclear missile]]s. All three Spartans of Blue team strongly opposed this idea, but Fred conceded that he understood the captain's perspective and signaled for Linda and Kelly to stand down. Preparations were made for a launch against the base, but the captain stopped just short of giving the final authorization. He made sure Fred understood that even if they could know any of their own were still alive down there, Blue Team wouldn't be deployed to the surface unless it furthered the goals of their mission. Once Fred stated that he was in agreement regarding that point, Ewen told [[Anki Hersh]] to signal the Ferret team. Olivia responded to their probe with a message wherein she informed them that she was alone within a captured Turaco and had been waiting for more than five hours to hear from the rest of her teammates. After the briefest mention of [[Argie]], whom she named an "uncooperative AI", the message cut out since Argie had terminated the connection in response. In what little she had been able to verbalize, however, she had given enough to hint through precisely-chosen language that [[Dark Moon Enterprises]] might have been involved in what was happening. It didn't take long for the Keepers to get a bead on the ''Silent Joe'''s location following the communication and relocating became necessary. The contact with Olivia convinced Captain Ewen that sending in Blue Team was now justified, since he wanted to know if Dark Moon truly was involved and why. Recovering the Turaco also was added as a new mission objective.<ref name="R10"/>

Meanwhile, after taking just six steps from the grotto mouth, the mysterious waves had vanished from Ash's sight.<ref name="R11"/> He also was suddenly faced with the large crowd of Keepers surrounding the ''Stolen Faith''. To his further surprise, when he activated his microphone once more to contact his team, this time he was greeted with an acknowledgement from Olivia.  She confirmed she was aboard the Turaco and told him that he wasn't going to believe [[Dark Moon Enterprises|who]] it belonged to. Ash figured she could pick him up from where he was, but Olivia let him know that Veta and Mark were still unaccounted for. Ash decided he would try to find them and that Olivia could then pick them all up at once, but Olivia let him know that he might not have to do that on his own, since Blue Team's arrival was imminent. This confused Ash, since he was still under the impression that only minutes had passed since the they had all gone their separate ways. He was unable to see how Olivia thought she could just hold her position for around five hours when a large crowd of agitated Keepers was already relatively nearby. Olivia, likewise, was puzzled by what had taken Ash so long and when he stated that it had only been around fifteen minutes, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place for him and he asked for the time from 'Livi. His suspicions were confirmed and he relayed his conclusion to her: a time differential evidently existed between the contemplarium and the rest of Salvation Base. Since finding the Inspector and Mark could take hours from the perspective of those on the outside, Ash turned and rushed back to it with haste in order to find them as soon as possible.<ref name="R11"/>

===The cavalry's arrival===