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Kelly crouched in the forest, ready to leap forward at any time.
She didn’t care for being defense instead of offence, but Blue Team was running Kurt’s kids through their paces. Linda was flushing them into open terrain with warning shots from her rifle, but Ash was doing a good job of being a distraction and keeping attention on himself so Mark could attempt to return fire. And Kelly hadn’t seen O at all since the mission start.
“They’re doing a good job of locating Linda,” Fred said over COM from his station somewhere East of Kelly’s position.
He was right about that. Linda had relocated nests twice. “Not at catching her,” Kelly replied, shifting ever so slightly so she could give her surroundings a visual check. Nothing showed on motion sensors, but she swore she heard... humming?
“We can barely catch Linda on a good day,” Fred pointed out.
“Don’t tell Saber that,” Kelly said. She wasn’t imagining the sound, she was sure. It was too rhythmic.
“Blue Team,” he reminded her.
She grunted to acknowledge the adoption of Kurt’s Spartan IIIs. They had also added Tom and Lucy to the roster. However, that pair was back at base. The humming intensified and Kelly muted her COM as she spoke to her armor. “That you? Jerrod?”
The humming continued for nearly two seconds before the AI seemed to recognize his name. “I am actively running, yes, Spartan-087.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m cleaning redundant code left behind by the recent firmware update.”
“Is that going to screw with me using my armor?”
“No, no,” Jerrod said. “It will make functions more streamlined, quicker.”
“Good. I need to keep my reputation intact around the rookies.” She watched Ash and Mark make a forty meter jump from an outcrop. “What’s the humming?”
“Brothers in Arms composed by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori in the early 21st century,” Jerrod replied.
Kelly rolled her eyes. “I meant, why are you doing it.”
“Dr. Halsey often used classical music to help with her concentration.”
“You need help concentrating?” Kelly asked, brow furrowing.
“No, of course not.”
Kelly sighed as she watched Ash and Mark roll down a steep hill and dive into the underbrush.
No one knew Kelly had the micro AI hidden in her armor. She saved Jerrod once, from the crash of the Beatrice, and after that couldn’t leave him behind on Onyx or in ONI’s hands. She had a bad feeling an AI belonging to Halsey would be decommissioned simply for who created him. Or worse. She didn’t know if an AI could be tortured, but she did know ONI would know how if it was possible. And after seeing Kurt, Kelly was more inclined than ever to listen to her gut feeling.
It wasn’t difficult to hide Jerrod’s tiny crystal matrix in her armor. No one was going to question her. If they did, well, she’d shoot those questions right back at them. Belligerence usually worked to get her way.
So far as Kelly was aware, Halsey never mentioned Jerrod when she was being taken into custody. Kelly wondered if she forgot--not likely--or if she wanted Kelly to have done what she did. Or if Dr. Halsey didn’t care one way or the other. Kelly hadn’t said anything it to the rest of Blue Team, at first, because of likely surveillance from ONI on their rescue ship. Then it just slipped her mind.
Most of the time, Jerrod remained dormant and seemed content with that. Kelly once asked if she should find him a system he could be in, slipping him into a ship or a subsystem at base wouldn’t be difficult for her. But he declined, saying he had been created to be in a closed system with limited communicative abilities. Though he did miss his files.
“What’s the purpose of the activity you are currently engaged in?” Jerrod queried. “Why are you attempting to attack other Spartans?”
“To make them better Spartans,” Kelly said as O appeared for the first time and sprayed Linda’s hiding place with assault rifle fire.
Fred let out a whistle of appreciation. “Kurt did a good job there,” he said over COM. Linda’s preternatural ability to sense attention had given her enough warning she was on the move when the bullets shredded the leaves of her perch. Mark managed to nearly clip her from a kilometer away, indicating more collaboration than it previously seemed.
“Allow for thirty years of combat experience and they will rival us,” Linda said, crashing to safety through the canopy and vanishing.
Kelly unmuted her COM, “No chance. By then, we’ll have like sixty.”
“You intend to still be performing combat operations in another thirty years?” Jerrod asked curiously, beginning to hum again. All caught on open COM.
Linda’s status light flickered amber four times in sequence, silently asking if communications were compromised. Fred’s light went yellow for standby. Grimacing, Kelly flashed her light green that all was clear, source of the abnormality was a known entity.
“Kelly?” Fred said, voice stiff. “Who’s with you?”
“Could you believe no one?” Kelly asked as Ash launched himself between two rocks near her location. Reckless. She could appreciate that, but she was still going to jump him if he didn’t clock her presence within the next ten seconds.
“Spartan,” Fred said in his serious tone, which, after seeing their old drill instructor again, sounded a lot like Mendez.
“Can’t talk right now, LT. About to spring an ambush.”
There was a pregnant pause before Fred replied: “Report to me after training is over. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
She closed outside COM and spoke to Jerrod. “Now we’re in for it.”
“My apologies,” Jerrod said in a timid tone. “Will this cause you difficulty?”
“It needed to happen,” Kelly said as Ash unknowingly dashed beneath her position. She grinned to herself and leapt into motion. “Get ready to meet Blue Team.”