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Halo: First Contact

Chapter 12: Unpleasant Designs

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing...

-General Stanforth, siege of New Athens

Corneria, James Mccloud Medical....

Matthias paced back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital. The tiny odd shuttle containing the injured Liam and Katt Monroe had arrived at the starport a few hours ago. She had radioed in for a swift response team and they had taken him straight to the nearest hospital.

Matthias had wanted to treat him in their own medical facilities aboard The Immortal but acquiesced to the fact that cornerian medical technology was superior. He had arrived at the hospital only a few minutes ago. He had been talking with Sanders and the UEG reps, smoothing out the talks a bit more. They were talking about whether they could keep control of Eladard when news of their coming trickled down to them, along with the ODST's critical condition.

So with a guilt ridden heart, Matthias had headed over to the hospital to check on his godson. But when he walked in, he had been denied entrance to his room on the grounds that they were currently working to save his life. From what the doctors told him, Liam had received a severe 3rd degree burn on the entirety of his throat and most of his clavicle area. The injury was deep, through several tissue layers. They were doing what they could at the moment, but they would have to wait until a human doctor came down from the UNSC fleet. So he could guide them in the proper way to handle human anatomy. Their technology was better, but they had to make sure that they didn't make any mistakes during the surgery.

Liam was in far more dire straits then suspected. He also had a few burns on his lower spine and left leg. His armor had stopped the lasers, but it would seem that the heat from the energy beams would pass through the armor slightly. His spine was damaged so he would not be able to move his legs for a week or so. But that was treated relatively easily and only required a spray and patch. It was his throat that remained the most concerning wound.

Matthias sighed mightily and finally sat down on one of the many padded chairs placed throughout the rectangular room. The doctors had no idea how bad it would be or how it would affect him, not until the human doctor came in and they could take a closer look at the problem. But on a quick deduction, they suspected that he would lose all ability to speak, and there was little chance of him regaining it.

The admiral brushed a hand against his bald scalp and leaned back into his soft chair. If Liam's father was here, he was sure that Dale would be disappointed in him. The condition of his son was directly due to the mission he had sent him on. Matthias scowled, he should have never listened to that sleazy Voorhees. But the prowler captain had been insistent and ONI has some sway in the control of the fleet.

Matthias calmed down and tried to stifle his restless limbs. He had fought in countless naval battles, seen men die, sent men to their deaths and stared unflinchingly into the face of adversity. But this was not quite the same as those times. The life he had gambled with was that of his godson, a kid he had watched over for most of his existence. It had a different weight to it, one he was uncomfortable with bearing. Yet it was he who sent the order so he would have to own up to it.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when the doors to the waiting room were flung open widely and a flash of blue whizzed past the startled admiral and straight to the receptionist's desk. Matthias looked up to see what had just zoomed past him and saw a deep blue female fox leaning over the counter to aggressively speak with the poor female dove who manned the desk.

Only mildly curious, he turned away to worry about his own problems. Although he was certain that she looked familiar, but he could not place her at the moment. Matthias tried once more to focus and was stopped when the doors opened once more to omit six more individuals. They all made his mind itch; now he knew that he had seen them before. The admiral concentrated his thoughts on them and figured it out quickly. They were the group that Liam had been assigned to. Yeah, Matthias saw them at that academy a week or so ago. They must be here to check on him as well.

The azure vixen (Krystal if he could recall), flagged her tail and turned from the desk in defeat, having received the same denial that Matthias had. She trod away from the desk to sit at one of the chars at the far side of the room. She plopped down heavily on the one closest to the doors to the emergency room and gingerly brought her tail to lie in her lap, stroking it softly. The other members of the team sat around her and began to talk quietly.

Matthias studied them curiously. They were an odd bunch for certain and somehow, had seemed to become good friends with his godson in a short amount of time. That's the only reason he could think that they would be here. And that blue vixen, if Matthias had taken her concern correctly, was more than friends with him. A consideration that made the man grin. It would seem that loved prospered no matter the place or people, to mention he never figured that Liam would go for it. The kid was always so focused on his duty as a soldier that Matthias thought he did not desire something like that.

The vixen's ears perked suddenly and she looked up to stare directly at the admiral, almost as if she could read his mind. Her eyes seemed to light up and she stood to walk over to him. Wary, Matthias watched her approach. She stopped a few feet away from him and nervously played with her tail eyeing him with cavernous emerald eyes filled with sadness. "You're admiral Matthias right? The one we met a while ago?"

He nodded slowly, unsure as to where this burgeoning conversation was heading. Matthias had only fleeting seen them.

She nodded back confidently, almost as if she had already known that. "They wouldn't tell me anything about Liam, and I was hoping you could."

Matthias considered her inquiry and saw no harm in it. So he proceeded to fill the vixen in, watching sadly as her muzzle steadily dropped as she was hammered by the cold hard facts. It was not easy news to swallow, doubly so if his assumption was right about her and she did indeed have feelings for his godson.

"By the gods..." She trailed off, steadying herself before she collapsed.

Matthias was quick to assure her. "Liam is a tough kid; I know he'll be alright. Once Parks gets down here, he'll fix him right up. Parks is the best doctor in the fleet and I am confident she will do her best."

She seemed to perk up slightly at that but it didn't last long. She talked with Matthias a little more and said goodbye, walking back over to her friends. They talked with her almost immediately, probably quizzing her on what they had discussed. As their muzzles fell, he knew that she was telling them about Liam.

Matthias sighed and straightened in his seat. He didn't like waiting; it made him feel helpless, even though that's exactly what he was. The admiral was a man of action and did not do well when things slowed down and fell out of his control.

The wait was long, but after half an hour, the doors opened and three people entered swiftly. One was an older human woman in a billowy lab coat and had a hardened expression forming her demeanor. Behind her were two other humans, a man and another woman, dressed in similar attire. After them a fourth person entered, a cornerian dressed in a closefitting white and blue uniform, that of their doctors. The male spotted feline walked ahead of the group and led them into the emergency room.

The older woman had been Parks and she brought her colleges with her. Now that she was here, the real operation could start. He had called her in because she was the best and as cruel as it sounded, they needed what him to explain what he had found out and did on that planet. They recovered his TACPAD from his armor but needed him to give it clarity. Matthias grimaced as he remembered Captain Voorhees delighted expression as heard the news that Liam had come back, uncaring off the condition of the soldier who had taken on the mission. Yet the admiral had relished the frustrated frown that replaced it when he ordered him to head back to his ship for now. He disliked the ONI man and his scheming methods.

Matthias grabbed his pad from the table and used it to pass the time, waiting until the first news about Liam would come from the emergency room. It would be a very long wait.

******

The first thing that Liam was greeted to upon his return to awareness was a continuous dull heated ache in his throat and a lesser pain on along his spine and the thigh of his left leg. He blearily forced his gummed up eyes open and took in his surroundings. He was in some sort of hospital room, and judging from its looks, it was cornerian. The walls were a soft blue and the lights were bright but unobtrusive, something he appreciated. He turned his head left and right and saw that he was currently alone in the room. His only companion was the steady and quiet beeping of the machines he was hooked up into.

The tired man looked down at his body and saw that he was no longer wearing his armor but rather an odd looking gown that covered his decency. The white cloth was soft and did not irritate his skin; the blanket for his bed was at the foot.

The last thing her recalled was a mind bending pain in his throat and after that it all went fuzzy and his memory was patched with holes. He assumed that Katt had gotten them out and taken him back to corneria or another allied planet.

Liam brought his gaze to focus on the left and saw a large window displaying what could only be the cornerian capital. The white steel spires seemed to glow even in the darkness of night. The helljumper gathered from the time of day that he had been out for quite some time. He just hoped that it was not long.

Liam tried to lower his head but could not. All that happened when he attempted to do so was an unpleasant and sharp jab of pain.

Hesitantly, he moved his right hand to his throat and warily prodded it. The poking had hurt but he also discovered that the area had been wrapped in a thick layer of some type of rubbery material. It was a little moist and he had no idea what it did, but he hoped that it helped. The wrapping made movement a little constricting but he didn't really need to move much anyways.

Sighing in frustration, he closed his eyes and relaxed. He was stuck in this bed for quite some time. He tried to move his legs but he was unsuccessful. That had caused him to panic but he eventually calmed down. There was nothing he could do about it so he would just not give it any thought.

For some reason he was incredibly tired so he let himself drift off back to sleep. Hoping that next he woke, things would be different.

Liam was brought back around by the sound of voices...arguing.

Dazed, he shifted his head to the sound of the disturbance and saw Matthias in a heated shouting match with that damned Captain Voorhees. His hearing was a little incoherent so he could not make out the words but it was clear that Matthias was not at all happy. The admiral's veins were bulging as he all but roared at the placid faced ONI man, who simply weathered the assault and handed Matthias a datapad.

The admiral snatched the pad and glanced over the electronic lettering, the fire in his eyes dying and the look of defeat replacing his anger. Matthias gave Voorhees a dark look and looked right to strike the smirking man down. But whatever was on that pad must have stopped him. So instead he looked back at Liam and saw his open eyes, turning away in shame he walked out of the room.

Voorhees' expression shifted into a malignant and victorious sneer as he watched the defeated admiral leave. He saw Liam's open eyes and his sneer brightened to an almost sickening grin. He grabbed a chair and scooted it over to the helljumper's bedside.

It was at this time that Liam's hearing returned to him.

"Ah...here meet again Lieutenant. And my offer I so graciously extended to you is now a demand. I have many friends in the higher echelons of the department. So it was little trouble gathering the power I needed." He looked down at the immobile ODST, still smearing that despicable grin on his face.

Liam wanted to shout at him, to yell and deny his control. But his voice would not work; he remained silent in the face of this man's evil. There was nothing he could do as Voorhees continued to speak, every word driving a nail into his coffin.

"I told you, ONI always gets what it wants. You are no different. Oni has need of an operative, for a new experiment. We have just recently come into some very intriguing knowledge, courtesy of your efforts." The man's eyes were alight with something that sparked fear in Liam's heart. "And from the knowledge we have attained and of our own practices, we can move into the final phase of a plan ten years in the making. This is all thanks to you Liam; everything has been opened because of you." The ONI man's tone was a mix of mockery and earnest truth. "You will be the first step in our plan."

He stood up from the chair, staring down at the bedridden soldier, and he flashed a dark smile full of malevolence. "I guess what I'm trying to say is...._welcome to ONI _." He chuckled mockingly and walked out of the room. Soon afterwards, four men in dark black suits entered and forced Liam into a wheelchair.

Three of them walked in front as the fourth guided Liam out of the room and into the hallway. Outside he could see a furious Matthias staring at the back of Voorhees' head as he whistled down the corridor. His snarl was quickly replaced with a helpless shame filled gaze as he watched Liam get dragged down the corridor.

Unable to even move or even speak he was forced to sit in the chair and watch as he was taken away to where the only thing that awaited him was more suffering. It was at this point that he wished he had put a bullet in his head when he had the chance.

Liam was led into the waiting room and his heart plummeted as he saw Krystal and the other's sitting there. Their gazes lifted to see him and they all were going to smile but they only frowned as they saw the intimidating men surrounding him.

The black clad man continued to move him towards the exit unheeding of the onlookers. Krystal, with a frightened look, tried to head over but was roughly stopped by one of the men, forcing her back and away.

That lit Liam's blood ablaze and he began to thrash his upper body in his chair, but a swift cuff to his neck stopped his anger brutally in its tracks. From there the men rolled him out of the waiting room, and subsequently, the hospital. Liam heard the harsh whine of a pelican dropship and saw the usually olive drab gunship tinted a dark black, dully shining in the sunlight.

It was only the beginning of his pain...