Danger and Opportunity

Mission Year 41.

Base sensors have detected an unknown Scout Patrol within striking distance of Ivory Tower. All defensive troops are at Yellow Alert. The presence of these forces on my soil allows for several inferences. First: Another faction's landing pod must have fallen on a nearby island. Second: Their research has proceeded more quickly than mine in exploration technology. While my own researchers have discovered Doctrine: Mobility and wheeled Rover technology, the rediscovery of sea travel, codenamed Doctrine: Flexibility, still eludes them. In the script of Great China, the character for Crisis combines both Danger and Opportunity, and both are surely present here as well. Although my researchers have developed deadly Particle Impactor technology, the first troops equipped with them have not yet been prototyped, so I must avoid open war until the advantage is clearly mine. As the unknown Scout Patrol approaches Ivory Tower, sensors have begun to make out details.

As Scouts they are given only the lightest of arms and armor, but nonetheless these troops appear confident and well-trained, their formations precise, with no wasted movements. As my vidscreen zooms in, I can make out heraldry patches on Scouts' armored pauldrons, an arrow in a hexagon, pointing downward, on a black field.

Spartans. Corazon Santiago is alive.

Of course she is alive. A consummate Survivalist... the probability of her surviving Planetfall approached 1. I remember... our forces clashed on the Unity, my engineers against her commandos. Blood on the walls, shredder pistols echoing in the corridors. She led from the front, commanding her troops in battle, but the repair of the Unity's damaged fusion core was my first priority, and we never met face-to-face. And yet, her image captivated me. Proud and controlled as she held Lieutenant Skye captive in the greenhouses, staring defiance at the security cameras, her eyes as hard and dark as spheres of buckminsterfullerene.

Dangerous indeed. A pre-emptive strike by her forces would prove an intolerable detriment to my research efforts, especially considering her unassailable position across the seas I cannot yet cross. And yet, of all the beings on Planet, perhaps she is the only one who could understand my passion, my mission, my clarity.

If an alliance could be forged between us... My purity of mind and vision, her purity of form and action... my hand to forge the weapon, hers to wield it...

I must speak with her. Soon.