Halo: The Dunes of 2560

Chapter 17: Ethics Question

Two Spartans are holding onto David by both of his arms, lifting him up just high enough so his feet can't touch the ground. They're walking down a large hallway, he's unconscious, and he's covered in his own blood. All of his armor was removed, and his back, which is exclusively metallurgic and mechanical, is tainted a brownish red with dried blood. Two men in doctor's garb stand outside of a doorway, the Spartans approach with David and they're led into the room. They drop him onto the operating table, and he immediately woke up, gasping for air. The two Spartans turned, but one of the doctors stopped them, "Lancer will be here in five minutes."

David tried to stand, but fell to the ground due to having lost feeling and control in his left leg. He felt the left side of his skull pounding profusely, "What are you fucks doing to me?" The two doctors grabbed him and put him on the table, one of them leaned over him, "We have some work to do. Lancer wants to talk to you." He spit in the doctor's face, "I'll fucking kill you!" David pushed them both, and they hit the walls, falling to the ground. He sits up and looks at the small table next to the operating table, none of the tools were sharp objects, but he grabbed one and stabbed his forearm. The doctor looks up, "Killing yourself won't wor- What the hell?" David plunges his hand into his forearm, and when he pulled his hand out, he had a shiny object in his hand, the doctor jumps, "Run!" David points the shiny object at the doctor, and plasma ejects from it in the shape of a sword, penetrating the doctor's shoulder.

Chief Architect Lancer walked into the room with two Spartans, inside the room, Khyvo was sitting on a bench, staring down at the ground. Lancer waved the two Spartans off, they stayed outside of the room and closed the door. Lancer walked around the operating table, and looked down at Khyvo, "How much did David tell that lady?" Khvyo leaned back, and looked up at him, "You should focus on the real issue at hand Phil." Lancer crossed his arms, looking over his shoulder at the door, "We have far too many issues, believe it or not, you're nearly at the top of the list right now." Lancer scoffed at him, "Me? Being a major issue? You're full of shit. You're losing real estate to the Flood, the Covenant is making quick work of conventional UNSC forces in the Halo Ring Wars,. Also, you guys are about to lose all of your funding from the UNSC when word gets out about the War Crimes." Lancer shrugged and smiled, "The UNSC commits many war crimes themselves. Say, I'll cut you a deal Khyvo." Khyvo sighs, and slides over on the metal bench, letting Lancer sit next to him, Lancer continues, "The deal is, we won't go into your Temporal Foreknowledge Array and reprogram you. In return, you will collect some intel for us, and we'll let you go back to David's crew. David's Array is being reprogrammed right now, so he will be staying with us." Before Khyvo could respond, a female Spartan walked into the room, "Chief, David killed one of the programmers, and is holding the other hostage." Lancer didn't seem surprised at all, and just motioned for the Spartan to wait outside, she did. Khyvo looked at Lancer, and down at his knee, "How about we arrange this deal a little differently? I collect the intel, you let both me and David go?" Lancer nodded, looking away from him, "Yeah. That's the deal. I need you to go to Sanghelios, his name is Rosun 'Trazumai, otherwise known as Rose." Khyvo stood up, and leaned on the operating table, "And what is it exactly I'm collecting from Rosy?" Lancer stood back up, looking Khyvo in the eyes, "Rosy, as you know, is an Auditor. He's stuck on Sanghelios with some shit, you have to go and bring it back here. He's in Ontom. Here, you'll need this." Lancer grabs Khyvo's striped helmet off the table, and hands it to Khyvo. He looks down at the helmet, and drops it, "I don't need it. I'll be back soon."

As Khyvo walked down the hall, he sees several armed Spartans standing outside of a door, he stands behind one and taps his shoulder, "Hey, is David in there?" David yells as the Spartan turns to him, "Yo, Khyvo, is that you!?" He walks out in front of the doorway to see David holding an energy sword up to a programmer's neck, David's wrist is bleeding. Khyvo walks in and looks down at the dead programmer, "Are you okay David? What happened?" David chuckles nervously, "Yeah, yeah I'm good, you see, I stored one in my wrist. I know it's weird, I'm more augmented than you probably think. So what's the news?" Khyvo turned to the doorway, and pushed the button on the wall to close the door. He turns to David, "Lancer is making me do bitch work in exchange for our freedom." David nods to him, "Only thing as valuable as our freedom, would have to come from something high up. Let me guess... Auditor?" He snaps points at David, "Dingo!" "Uh, it's Bingo. Not 'Dingo.'" He drops his hand to his side, "Whatever. Yeah, Rosun 'Trazumai, Rosy the Artist. Apparently I have to go collect intel from him cuz he's stuck in Ontom territory on Helios." David sighs, "Fucking Servants of Anarchy have been crawling all over that shithole since the Nobles were killed in 2553. Well, better get a move on." Before he opened the door, David yelled, "Wait! He's a rat!" He turned to David, "He's a rat?" David nods, "Yeah. You're not collecting intel on him. You're going to kill him. He ratted on the SFA. Which well... We're trying to do on a legitimate level, but he did it differently." Khyvo blinked hard as he looked at him, "David... Are we Rats?" David grimaced, and looked at the terrified programmer in his arms, "Hey, are we rats for telling the entire universe the SFA is the most evil military organization that exists, detailing all its crimes?" The programmer shook his head shakily. Khyvo felt estranged by David's coldness in this situation. He felt disappointed in being made to feel like a rat.

Several hours later, Khyvo was on a small five-man SFA cruiser, traveling to Sanghelios, whilest he was cruising, Vasi 'Vusam was searching for Khyvo and David from the Spark. She managed to ping Khyvo's signature, and set up a Secure Communication Channel. He got pinged, so he answered the call, "Vasi, is that you?" She adjusted the connection, "Yes, I hear you. I'm unable to teleport-" "I know, just listen. I haven't been reprogrammed, the SFA is making me do some dirty work to gain freedom. I need to speak with Osa now." Osa walked out of his room on the ship, Vasi turned in her chair and motioned for him to come over. He walks over, "What is it?" She links Osa to the channel, "It's Khyvo."

"Hey Khyvo, is everything okay? What's going on?"

"Hey Osa. Good to hear from you. Say... I have an ethics question."

"Ethics Ques... Okay, yeah, what is it?"

"Are we rats?"