Into the Breach

When do we go?

New Constantinople
June 19, 2536 — 0932 Local Time

Vice-Admiral Danforth Whitcomb showed no outward emotion as he reviewed the daily intelligence reports along with the troop and fleet status reports. Despite, his outward calm appearance worry filled him as he scrolled through the reports on his display console. So far, they'd contained the Covenant to a small foothold on the planet, but it was only a matter of time before massive reinforcements arrived.

The Vice-Admiral knew if they eliminated the Covenant foothold and rebuilt and reinforced the planetary defense network there was a chance of holding off any further Covenant attacks. There were a lot of ifs involved, but the alternative was something that gave him nightmares. The first objective was to maintain local space superiority around the planet. The next stage would be hitting the Covenant on the ground. This would necessitate taking out the shielded Command-and-Control (C&C) sites and supply depots. Intelligence reported those installations protected by shields, so using nukes to neutralize them would have minimal impact. The only way to take out those Covenant installations would be by ground assault. Fortunately, Whitcomb had resources on-hand to execute this mission. A predator-like grin flashed as he worked on the outline of his counter-attack plan.

UNSC Firebase Mitchell
New Constantinople
June 20, 2536 — 0815 Local Time

Michael was on downtime after his mission in Ravenna. While normally downtime was for resting and recovering after operations this seemed to be the opposite for him. Bad dreams and nightmares plagued him adding to the emotionally drained feeling hanging over him. Despite any personal feelings or misgivings over the mission, ONI considered the mission a success from the treasure trove of information collected. Michael expected questions over his handling of the interrogation, but ONI seemed more occupied with following up on the information collected than any 'minor' gaps in the interrogation recordings.

Not helping Michael's mood was the planetary news feeds. While the fighting took up most of the coverage, the news feeds reported on the fire and destruction in Ravenna. The fire not only destroyed Anders's business, but caused extensive damage to neighboring businesses and properties. Local investigators were labelling the fire as "suspicious" with the recovery of evidence of stolen UNSC materials and supplies at the site. Investigators said they wanted to interview Anders, but he went missing on the same night as the fire.

Michael wasn't worried about the local authorities. It was doubtful the authorities would ever find Anders's body even if they knew where to look. Even if they stumbled upon the body, decomposition and the wildlife would help hide signs of the field interrogation along with the steps Michael took to sanitize the area. Even the explosives used to take out the business were "clean" with any evidence recovered tracing the demolition charges to having been 'stolen' from a shipment months ago. There was nothing to trace it back to ONI. If needed ONI would arrange for 'evidence' to appear to bring Anders's business dealings and Innie connections to light. The local authorities would write off the fire and Anders's disappearance/murder as a business deal gone bad. No one except Michael and ONI would ever know what really happened to Kevin Anders.

Michael tried to shake off the cloud hanging over him. He was a Spartan, and he'd been following orders. To try keep the troubling thoughts and feelings at bay, he focused on his promise to Anders. He had to figure out how he would keep his promise and get Anders's family off-planet. He didn't want to leave it until the last minute, and he needed to do it without ONI getting a whiff of what he was planning. The plan was to somehow use his ONI security clearances to get the family on one of the evacuation transports or at least get them on the evacuation lists. On top of all this, Michael also had to keep track of Anders's family until he could make the arrangements for them to leave.