Serin Osman: Difference between revisions

Fleet Admiral Hood arrived in the system aboard the {{UNSCship|Iceni}}.<ref name="G14"/> Osman and Phillips met him in the ship's crew room. Upon greeting the man, Osman steered him away from Phillips so they might have a word alone. She was pleased to learn that he was already well aware that [[Thel 'Vadam]] did not speak for all Sangheili and that there were a great many of his kind that thought peace with humans to be anathema. She also briefly brought up [[Venezia]] in order to see where he stood on recent events there, at which he expressed unease at the hardship that lay ahead of him with respect to the [[Outer Colonies]]. In the ''Iceni'''s shuttle bay, Vaz and Devereaux were waiting and ready to go when the rest of the shore party joined them. Dev piloted them down through the planet's atmosphere, flanked by an escort of the Arbiter's, to a discrete subterranean entrance. The gaping hole in the earth led to a tunnel that ended beneath [[Kolaar Mountain]] with a landing platform. The ODST, [[Xenoanthropology|xenoanthropologist]], and naval officers traversed a connected corridor until they found themselves in a small audience chamber and face-to-face with [[Thel 'Vadam|'Vadam]] himself. Osman resigned herself to being a passive observer of the exchange that followed, in which the Arbiter and Hood agreed to the [[Treaty of 2552|end of hostilities]] between their peoples, as far as it was within their power.<ref name="G14"/> As they were on their way back to the ''Iceni'', Osman told Hood she thought he had pulled it off. He asked her if she knew about any Sangheili prisoners [[ONI]] may be holding, as he had agreed to release any in exchange for the return of any human captives the Arbiter's people had. Serin deftly dodged the question. A message from one of Thel's underlings was already waiting for them when they got back to the ship. It turned out that the Arbiter was interested in having Phillips return at his invitation for a tour of Sanghelios. Osman only said that they would discuss the proposal, turned down Hood's offer of drinks, and took her crewmen back to the ''Port Stanley''.<ref name="G14">''[[Halo: Glasslands]]'', ''chapter 14''</ref>

{{Quote|Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, I have orders to detain you and take you to the nearest secure ONI facility on charges of committing acts likely to aid the enemy. You are now under military jurisdiction and do ''not'' have the right to an attorney. The maximum allowable period of detention before being formally charged or released does ''not'' apply. Come with me, please.|Serin dispassionately recites the appropriate litany before Halsey is arrested.}}<ref name="G15"/>

[[File:HM-Crew of Onyx.jpg|250px|thumb|left|There had been some worry that the Spartans of [[Blue Team]] might defend Halsey, but they only watched as she was led away in handcuffs.<ref name="G15"/>]]

The ''Port Stanley'' maintained orbit around the massive shield world, now designated ONI Research Facility [[Trevelyan]], for a few days following Halsey's arrest.<ref name="G16"/> Despite originally planning to hand Jul 'Mdama over to the ''Glamorgan'', plans for the [[Sangheili]] prisoner changed with the circumstances so that he was instead taken to be held within Trevelyan. Osman oversaw his voluntary binding at the insistence of BB and escort by Naomi to the dropship personally. His total length of stay on her ship had been eight days. The survivors that had been with Halsey had all come aboard along with her, but on Osman's (and Parangosky's) orders they were forbidden from having any interaction with her. She would only remain onboard until the {{UNSCship|Compton-Hall}} arrived to pick her up. Where it would take her was not shared with Mendez or the Spartans, but they were informed that their own next stop would be [[Sydney]] on Earth for debriefing. While they waited for the ''Compton-Hall'', Serin invited Mendez into her day cabin to chat. Vaz paid the captain as visit while they were speaking there to ask permission to view a file related to Naomi's abduction and its effects on her family, as the Spartan had asked him to look over it for her. He dared to ask whether Serin would look at her own related file now, but she flatly said that she still would not.<ref name="G16">''[[Halo: Glasslands]]'', ''chapter 16''</ref>

{{Quote|no=two|q1=Good team, Kilo-Five.|[[Margaret Parangosky]]|q2=They've really gelled. A bit baffled and inpatient without real fighting to do, but they're adapting to intelligence work very well.|Serin Osman|Osman and Parangosky reflect on Kilo-Five's first actions over the past few weeks.}}<ref name="G16"/>

[[File:Attend2.PNG|thumb|right|250px|The memorial service was attended by the Arbiter as part of the deal struck between he and Admiral Hood.<ref name="G16"/>

The ''Port Stanley'' was waiting for them just beyond Earth's orbit, ready for a fast slip.<ref name="G16"/> On March 16, just before arriving at [[Sanghelios]] again, Osman met Phillips and Devereaux at in the hangar to see the professor off.<ref name="G17"/><ref>[[Jessica Shea]] on Twitter[https://twitter.com/bsangel/status/710159126056165376=en]</ref> The plan was to extract him in one week's time. During his stay, Osman told him to simply be himself. He was there to observe and report back, but she worried that if he was too obvious in prying about certain things he could be in danger. Evan was fully aware that he could be terminated by BB at any point during his deployment and as much as it troubled her, Osman made sure to remind him to wear the radio that could deliver the toxin at all times. She gave Phillips an awkward pat on the back before taking her leave. As Dev flew him to the surface, the portion of Black-Box that remained aboard the ''Port Stanley'' approached Serin with something Parangosky had asked that he brief her on: the construction of the massive [[Infinity-class supercarrier|supercarrier]], {{UNSCship|Infinity}}. Parangosky had warned her in advance that the A.I. would be bringing her up to speed on something like this when the time was right. Upon viewing blueprints for the ship, she took a keen interest. BB informed her that its development had been ongoing for years in complete secret within the [[Sol system]]'s [[Oort cloud]] and that [[Andrew Del Rio]] had been selected to serve as its [[captain]]. The day Osman would be taking over for Parangosky was drawing close, and it was important that she be brought up to speed on certain things. BB gave her reassurance that he wouldn't allow the likes of [[Damien Hogarth|Hogarth]] to mess up her trajectory toward the [[CINCONI]] position. When he finished speaking with the captain she continued to pore over the ''Infinity'''s schematics.<ref name="G17">''[[Halo: Glasslands]]'', ''chapter 17''</ref>

{{Quote|no=three|q1=I'm having second thoughts.|Serin Osman|q2=We couldn't have turned down that chance. The Arbiter would have thought it was suspicious, too.|Black-Box|q3=Maybe.|Serin Osman|BB tries to assure Osman she was right to send Phillips to Sanghelios alone.}}<ref name="G18"/>

Soon after Phillips left them, ''[[UNSC Port Stanley|Port Stanley]]'' received a message from Agent [[Mike Spenser|Spenser]], relayed to them via the [[GC monitoring node Bacchante]].<ref name="G18"/> All it said was that Osman might find Venezia interesting were she to swing by soon. Resolved to see what this was all about, she checked in on Phillips before ordering the jump to the [[Orso system]]. She let the professor know they were leaving but that they would regularly drop out of slipspace during their journey in order to sync BB's fragment that was with him to his core processes on this ship. After severing the connection she confided to BB that she was having second thoughts about sending him into Sangheilli territory alone. She also asked whether [[Vasily Beloi|Vaz]] had told Naomi everything that was in her file, which BB acknowledges he had. When the [[A.I.]] broached the subject of her own continued refusal to learn about her past, she stated that she was avoiding her file out of shame. As long as she didn't know anything about her parents, she said, then she didn't have to feel guilty about never reaching out to them. Right before they finally jumped the ship, BB said that any parents of the [[Spartan-IIs]] still alive might come forward after Parangosky's testimony.<ref name="G18">''[[Halo: Glasslands]]'', ''chapter 18''</ref>

Captain Osman had [[Lian Devereaux|Devereaux]] identify the best covert insertion sites outside [[New Tyne]] before they even left Sanghelios behind them, so by the time they dropped out a few hours from Venezia and took up station at 100,000 kilometers from the planet, a clear plan was in place.<ref name="G18"/> All they needed were coordinates from Spenser regarding where to meet him. Stored video footage from Phillips' worn camera begin to play the moment they entered Orso space. The ODSTs went to ground. Mal and Vaz met up with Spenser wile Dev waited at the dropship, now named the {{UNSCship|Tart-Cart}}. Both Osman and Naomi eventually went to the captain's day cabin to go over the ''Infinity'' specs some more. In the middle of their studying, Black-Box suddenly projected himself right between them with urgent news from [[Ontom]] on [[Sanghelios]]. Professor Phillips had evidently been clandestinely handed a message from 'Telcam that indicated the Servants would be moving against the Arbiter soon and that they could shelter him in their sanctuary. Osman wanted to talk with the Bishop right then, but BB was unable to establish a connection. Naomi offered to extract Phillips, but Osman knew she BB might take him out before that became an option. As it turned out, 'Telcam actually approached Phillips then and Osman and Naomi had a live view of the encounter via Evan's hidden camera. The former field master guided him to the entrance of an ancient building and without warning, a huge explosion from somewhere knocked the professor off his feet. It was impossible to tell exactly what was going on, but 'Telcam was adamantly shouting that the blast hadn't been the Servants' doing. Osman wasted no time ordering Dev to get Mal and Vaz and to return now. Their priority was Sanghelios again.<ref name="G18"/> She sent a message to Admiral Parangosky to update her and asked that she enlist Hood's assistance with rescuing Dr. Phillips.<ref name="TTW1">''[[Halo: The Thursday War]]'', ''chapter 1''</ref>

{{Quote|no=three|q1=I'm not being callous, but it would be very useful to monitor the situation as well as finding the professor. If this is the revolution, we don't want anyone winning outright, after all.|Margaret Parangosky|q2=When you say monitor... you mean hands-on assistance.|Serin Osman|q3=I mean a route into both sides of the argument, but it might require more than just supplying hardware.|Margaret Parangosky|The admiral leaves Kilo-Five's mission parameters open-ended, with only the goal of keeping the Sangheili divided of tantamount importance.}}<ref name="TTW4"/>

Osman was seated and bracing for the transition to [[slipspace]] when the three ODSTs finally returned and took their own seats on the bridge.<ref name="TTW1"/> She asked how the brief meeting with Spenser had gone, but Mal told her she'd want to wait until she had at least five minutes for them to go over it in detail. She didn't hesitate, however, to give them the rundown on what was going on with Phillips. After they jumped, she began to put together a plan for exfiltrating him. Before she could get very far with it, she asked Mal to now fill her in on Venezia. He hesitated and Vaz answered her instead, saying that they had seen [[Naomi]]'s [[Staffan Sentzke|father]] and that not only was he still alive on Venezia, but he was an [[insurrectionist]] on the [[UEG]]'s [[terrorist]] watch list.<ref name="TTW1"/>

As Kilo-Five proceeded further into the temple complex, comms between they and ''Port Stanley'' eventually broke up and then disappeared altogether.<ref name="TTW7">''[[Halo: The Thursday War]]'', ''chapter 7''</ref> When contact was reestablished, Mal apologized to Captain Osman for the unfortunate circumstances of an escape they were forced to make.<ref name="TTW8"/> An unruly Sangheili mob, enraged by the fact that humans were traipsing all over the temple, had started a firefight that left four of them dead. Now ''Tart-Cart'' was airborne about twenty kilometers from Ontom. Osman didn't disagree with returning fire in order to protect themselves and suggested that this turn of events actually could actually play well for the Servants, so it wasn't that bad of a thing. Since they hadn't found Even within the temple, Serin counseled they they continue the search from the air in the surrounding area, but BB noted that it seemed he had accessed a [[portal]] and could have been transported anywhere by it. He might not even be on the same planet anymore, for all they knew. The A.I. advised they try to get Hood to sweet-talk the Arbiter into releasing a full list of Forerunner sites on Sanghelios in order to narrow their search of places he might have emerged. Serin agreed with this and signed off with instructions to make another sitrep in one hour.<ref name="TTW8"/>

{{Quote|no=four|q1=The Arbiter can't old out much longer.|Serin Osman|q2=Well, Hood's come to the rescue, but you're going to have to make sure that he's not ''too'' successful.|Margaret Parangosky|q3=I know, ma'am. I've been wargaming the worst scenario.|Serin Osman|q4=We can have the best of all worlds. We need to degrade what's left of Sangheili space capability, but we have to degrade it equally on both sides, which is generally harder in practice than it sounds.|Margaret Parangosky|Captain Osman and Admiral Parangosky plan to secretly undercut the newly-formed alliance between the UNSC and the Arbiter.}}<ref name="TTW10"/>

[[File:HM-BloodingYears.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The concealment of Osman's actions against the Arbiter fell to Black-Box, who tricked [[Aine]], ''Infinity'''s A.I., into thinking weapons fire from ''Port Stanley'' came from a Kig-Yar vessel.<ref name="TTW10"/>]]

Osman maintained communication with the rest of Kilo-Five as the struggled to return.<ref name="TTW12"/> A fire broke out on ''Tart-Cart'' after it cleared the planet's atmosphere which cost it its propulsion. ''Infinity'' offered to send one of its {{Class|Strident|heavy frigate}}s to to assist them. Mal checked to make sure this was okay with Osman, who conceded that they really couldn't refuse the offer.<ref name="TTW11"/> As the ''Infinity'' began to turn the tide of battle in the Arbiter's favor, extracting 'Telcam became a chief priority. Osman got a hold of him and demanded that he try to get off-world, but the former field master refused to listen. Once ''Tart-Cart'' was adequately repaired ''and'' significantly improved by Huragok on the ''Infinity'' in a very short amount of time, Kilo-Five was directed to return to the surface, this time with the goal of extracting 'Telcam. Osman made sure her people knew that he was going to be resistant and gave them permission to kill him if they could not capture him. The Huragok had outfitted the dropship with a [[SFTE]], so it could flee the system as soon as the prisoner was secured. Osman, for her part, would assist the evacuation of four of the Servants' frigates. They would all regroup on [[New Llanelli]].<ref name="TTW12">''[[Halo: The Thursday War]]'', ''chapter 12''</ref> The captain confirmed with BB that ''Infinity'' would be unable to track them once they engaged the Arbiter's ships, which were being fed intelligence about the Servants' frigates by Hood.<ref name="TTW13"/> The Arbiter had five [[Covenant cruiser|cruiser]]s standing by to open fire on the fleeing frigates but they evidently had orders not to fire until they had cleared the planet's gravity well and were just about to jump. Once Kilo-Five had 'Telcam in their possession and were flying through slipspace toward the Brunel system, Osman was able to contact them thanks to the Huragok's upgrades. She had Mal give her 'Telcam and was able to convince him he needed to tell his ships to accept a message from a Kig-Yar shipmistress, whom she would pretend to be. Osman ensured that BB would cut him off if he deviated in any way from those instructions. The ruse worked and in the role of a shipmistress named "Lahz", Osman advised the frigates to jump as soon as possible. ''Port Stanley'' opened fire with its [[Rudra-class nuclear missile|Rudra]] and [[Shiva-class nuclear missile]]s, destroying in sequence the cruisers ''[[Devotion]]'', ''[[Far Vision]]'', and ''[[Axiom]]''. She was imploring [[Galur|the shipmaster]] of the ''[[Cleansing Truth]]'' to initiate a jump sequence when it was struck and destroyed by the ''[[Swordsman]]'', having waited too long.<ref name="TTW13">''[[Halo: The Thursday War]]'', ''chapter 13''</ref>

===Mission on Sanghelios===