daisy023 | REPORT 002 :: ROLL CALL // VIDEO

[There is a blond, 6ft 9in tall woman in a white suit, serving as her temporary alternative to what should have been the UNSC's Navy Service Uniform. She looks at the book, then gathers her breath to begin to talk.]

This is Sierra Twenty-Three, transmitting on an open channel. Any and all UNSC Forces in the area, respond.

[A pause, then an annoyed sigh. She was too used to her world, but she had to try, anyway.]

For everyone to whom I have not presented myself to, I am Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-023, United Nations Space Command, Office of Naval Intelligence Section Three, Naval Special Warfare.

I want to thank those that got me up to speed and assisted me during my introduction into this world. My world never had experience with spectral powers, so my hesitance to believe was... hindering.

[How can she explain the way she was without giving away too much?]

As my title and rank mentions, I belong to the armed forces of my world, so my return to a vaguely civilian life was unsettling in several ways, but I will do my best to adapt, and aid all whom I can.

Sierra Twenty-Three, out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Indeed. I am an Eldarian. I had been sent by my superiors to retrieve Captain Maverick and his First Officer at the request of one of their own. Through a strange string of events, I ended up under Edge's command.

[So he is the Eldarian. The xenotype. Daisy does not respond to the communication immediately.

Thoughts cross her mind, experience and instinct, on non-humans. It would've been her duty to end him. All aliens were threats to be ended. She had known this for five years.

But everything she had thought she knew for the last twelve years had been dismanteled in this very world.

He was a friend of Captain Edge Maverick. And neither of them were Covenant. It was possible that he was, despite being a non-human sentient, the only chance of friendly contact humanity ever had.

And so far, even those that looked like humans were disturbingly as bent on genocide against her race as the Covenant she had slaughtered on the ground.

She decides to grant him the benefit of doubt. She had given it to Valvalis.]

I believe I had been informed.

[SPARTAN-023 finally responds, managing to sound eerily neutral.]

You fought by his side. Correct?

[ He's a little baffled by the hesitant response, but he brushes it off. ] Yes, I did. You know Edge?

I spoke with him over the comms when I took him for UNSC personnel. He mentioned some things about his world. The USTA. His war.

[And you.]

I've heard in bits and pieces about the unfortunate situation his planet is in. It makes my heart ache a little at the mere thought of it.

Truly, when we first met, I found myself even more capable of relating to him due to those circumstances. He is an admirable man, and I still have much to learn from him.

[It's strange to hear these words from an alien being. Unless his race went through the same massacre humanity is going through.]

He reminds me of the famous captains of my world. I think I do as well.

[The ability to bond with aliens, she comes to think.]

What did he do in that war?

It wasn't a war that occurred in his lifetime. I don't think so, anyway. Earth's last war was their final war. The planet is now all but uninhabitable. They live underground.

Earth in that timeline succumbed to intercine wars. He told me about it. But what I meant is a recent one. The Captain Edge Maverick mentioned you two and a group of others stopped a hostile faction.

They did. I was...very little help, I'm afraid.

Support duties?

[SPARTAN-023 damn well prays he was.]

Not quite. I was incapacitated at the time. [ Not entirely untrue. ] However, when Captain Maverick and First Officer Saionji were on their own and without a crew, I was the first to join them. As I said, it was only through a lucky string of events... But together, we discovered and fought the very first sign of that hostile faction. I was their first experience with an extraterrestrial, and I consider myself lucky that they were so open-minded. After fighting the creature that attacked us on those shores, by Edge's side, I am all too aware that he could have cut me down without effort had he wanted to.

...

He is an honorable person. [If only she could be half as open minded.] The Captain mentioned me your race helped humanity in the past. Gave them FTL Travel, in fact.

We didn't give it to them. We simply helped them reach it.

Though to be honest, my race's first interactions with humans occurred a few years before I was born.

The discovery had the same impact as writing, sea exploration, gunpowder, and the digital revolution.

[If it had been another civilization, humanity in that world would've been enslaved.

Or annihilated.

Daisy doesn't know what to think of him, and his race.]

The Captain had good reasons to trust you. [And he was not betrayed.]

Edge is...a very trusting man. And a very admirable one. He has a kind heart, and others should follow his example.

Yeah.

...

Yeah, I should.

[God damn it, why are you a nice alien?]

I didn't mean you, specifically. You seem quite open-minded...for my part. [ A nervous giggle. ]

...

[Daisy remains silent with this response.]

For your part.

I...don't believe I know you well enough to make such a judgment. Not yet, anyway.

...

Do not take it personally, Mr. Faize. I have been fighting non-human sentients for five years. All I saw of them were fanatics without compassion. Old grudges take long to forget.

But for everyone here, I will try.

REPORT 002 :: ROLL CALL // VIDEO

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