| abstract | - "Are you certain?" Captain Giovanni Betancourt sat in his command chair as he peered over to the Communications console, the young Ensign reading over the new communiqué. When he looked back to the Captain, he could already tell what the answer was despite how much he dreaded to hear it. "Yes sir, the UNSC Compton has confirmed the destruction of the Putnam. Wreckage showing visible plasma damage all along the hull. Whoever attacked it was definitely Covenant in origin." Betancourt sighed in frustration. The Putnam was the third UNSC ship in the past two months to be destroyed in this region by unknown Covenant forces. HIGHCOM had dispatched Task Force Victor-12 to investigate two weeks ago and already the mysterious raiders struck again, destroying the Strident-class while it was patrolling an unexplored star system. "Forward the report to Command, I'm certain they'll love hearing this." And sure enough they did. Once the Compton's report was transmitted to HIGHCOM via the Slipspace COM system, they quickly sent a request for real time video communications, something Betancourt felt was a bad sign. When he reported to his Ready Room several minutes after the initial request, he was greeted with the sight of Admiral Quincy Stewart. "Hello, Admiral. What can I do for you?" The aging officer looked Betancourt for a brief moment before responding, "We've received the report given by the Compton on the destruction of the UNSC Putnam. As you can imagine, this had several members of the Admiralty scratching their heads, considering we sent your task force out there to stop these attacks." Betancourt could feel the Admiral's eyes burning through him even through the monitor. To say the man was intimidating was an understatement. He led thirteen engagements against the Covenant during the course of the war, and achieved rare victories in four of them. After the war, he was promoted to Vice Admiral and made part of the highest parts of the Navy's hierarchy. "Yes sir, we're aware of the loss of the Putnam. They were on patrol in an unexplored system when they were engaged and destroyed by unidentified hostile of Covenant origin." "I can only presume you gave them those orders, Captain." The way the Admiral said it, it almost sounded as if he spat the last word out with disgust. "Yes, Admiral, I did. We deployed probes to take initial scans of the system and detected nothing that would hint at an enemy presence." "Well clearly your probes were wrong in their assessment and now hundreds of good men and women are dead. This can't go on any longer, Captain. We sent you out there to put a stop to this, but since you've already lost one ship in an alarming quick amount of time, I can see you can't handle this on your own. The Admiralty gathered for a special meeting in which we reached out to the Swords of Sanghelios for assistance. They have rerouted the CCS-class battlecruiser Undying Retribution to your position. You and their commander will work together to solve this conflict. Do you understand?" Betancourt simply stood their for a moment, not even realizing that his mouth was slightly agog. He shook his head lightly before focusing back on the screen and the Admiral, "The Swords of Sanghelios? You want to bring split-lips in on this operation? Sir, we can't let them this far into our territory, it could be disas-" The Admiral abruptly cut him off, "We can and we will, Captain. The Arbiter and his allies are our only real friends out in space, just ask the crew of the Putnam or the Bristol. You need their help, we need their help, and they're willing to provide it, and if you can't do it, we'll find someone who can." And with that, Admiral Stewart's imagine winked out, replaced with the black of the monitor screen.
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