Episode 00: The Only Deliverable

Previous episode:	The Story of FERO
Next episode:	Episode 01: Cube B-349
Episode 00: The Only Deliverable
Series overview
Series:	Hunt the Truth
Season:	Season 2
Episode specifications
Episode:	00
Air date:	September 22, 2015
Run time:	11:01

Episode 00: The Only Deliverable was the intro/prelude for the second season of the Hunt the Truth audio drama. The episode was originally released on Soundcloud on September 22, 2015.

Official summary

“

A rebel rally ends in slaughter, FERO is unmasked, and a new hunt for truth begins.

”

Plot summary

The episode starts depicting an insurrectionist rally being held by FERO - an insurgent leader stirring the outrage caused by the arrest of Benjamin Giraud in the finale of the first season of Hunt the Truth. The rally is interspersed with chatter from an ODST team on station in a dropship, who mutter derogatorily about the nature of the protest and the rebels below. As she talks, FERO attempts to reason with the rebels and urge for peaceful means of change rather than outright civil war, which begins to kick off tensions in the crowd with some of the more hard-line supporters. Eventually, the ODSTs are activated and begin to deploy into the crowd, firing on the civilians and kidnapping FERO to bring onto their ship, before quickly extracting. At this point, it is revealed that FERO is an alias for Commander Maya Sankar, an Office of Naval Intelligence who had been placed undercover to work within the rebel cell to mislead Giraud and help bring stability to the sector. Sankar is furious with the ODSTs and expresses her outrage at how the troopers had massacred the civilians below, which draws their ire and accusations of rebel sympathies.

At this point another agent, Noah Reibach, intervenes and informs Sankar that she is being recalled as punishment for her murder of several other agents while undercover - despite her mission having been to aid Giraud while undercover. Sankar protests, but Reibach informs her that it's simply the nature of intra-ONI political maneuvering by the officers and not personal. At this point, Sankar notes that she had looked up the personnel profiles of the agents she had killed due to her guilt surrounding the incident. Reibach also reveals that after the biting message released by Petra Janecek after Giraud's arrest, she was also arrested on a freighter while trying to go underground. He then goes on to mention that Sankar had been tasked with the assassination of Mshak Moradi, a conspiracy theorist also aiding Giraud, and that her weapon did not register as having fired in the operation. Combined with killing fellow agents and beginning to foster genuine friendships with the rebels she was working with, ONI brass fear that Sankar may be beginning to reconsider her loyalties. Sankar responds that her weapon was not fired while killing Moradi as she didn't use it to kill him - alluding to a much gorier fate. One of the troopers interjects with the final count on the civilian massacre, and then Reibach informs Sankar that she will be going back in undercover - but first she needs to visit ONI's top-secret Midnight Facility.

Sankar then narrates the final section, noting that she was familiar with every single civilian killed at the rally and that for ONI, people are simply statistics to be used and discarded - and that her five years spent infiltrating the insurrection has made it difficult to draw the line between the ONI agent Maya Sankar and her insurgent alias FERO.

Audio transcript

(crowd yelling)

• Maya Sankar (to crowd): That's what they do. They conceal their atrocities in a lob work theater. They invalidate the truth with their coordinated swarms of lies!

• Ground Trooper #1: Got visual on FERO.

• Sankar (to crowd): We have the attention of every man woman and child in occupied space. Even the moderates in the inner colonies are starting to wake up! But the UEG got on the networks and sang them a lullaby, putting the masses back to sleep, smearing those who would speak the truth! That's what they did to Benjamin Giraud.

• Ground Trooper #1: What's the headcount down there?

• Pilot: About 130, 140, plus half a dozen VIPs.

• Ground Trooper #2: Looks like a bunch of Innies in a field to me!

• Ground Trooper #1: Perimeter secure, sir.

• Wiley: Roger that, hold positions.

• Sankar (to crowd): They convinced the public that it was them who lit this fire in the Outer Colonies, but we've been burning for decades! Not because a journalist cried injustice, but because our children cried in pain. We offered our resources. We saluted their flag! But when we cried for help, no one came.

• Pilot: Check your three, Wiley.

• Wiley: Roger that.

• Sankar (to crowd): While our cities were choking under the Insurrection, the UEG called in the cavalry. They leveled our homes. When our families were melting under Covenant warships, the UEG, our government, stood by and watched us die! Whole planets! But now, they tell everyone that our struggle was Ben's fabrication?

• Crowd Member #1: No way!

• Sankar (to crowd): That I was his invention?! No. I wasn't invented. I was born in these colonies and our struggle wasn't fabricated. It was forged in the ash and glass that was left after the Covenant attacks. We survived.

(a crowd member cheers)

• Sankar (to crowd): And no matter how many lies they shovel on top of us, this fire they started, the ideas we stand for, will never burn out!

• Ground Trooper #2: Man, that's some scraggly looking Innies.

• Ground Trooper #1: Cut the chatter!

• Ground Trooper #2: Oh, we got ONI working as CO now, boys?

• Pilot: Shut it down, Wiley.

• Wiley: Yes, sir.

• Crowd (in unison): Free Giraud! Free Giraud!

• Sankar (to crowd): I hear you! And Ben will get the amnesty he deserves, but not until we have the strength to give it too him.

(a crowd member cheers)

• Sankar (to crowd): We need to send a message to the UEG, a clear sign that--

• Crowd Member: We need to drop a thermal nuke, and spread fear to their guts. That's the message we need to send.

• Crowd (in unison): From Fire to Blood

• Sankar (to crowd): A UNSC recruitment center or some federal com target isn't going to free Benjamin Giraud! We have screamed from fire to blood for decades, and for decades, blood is what we've been drowning in. That's what they want, a shooting war, something they know they can win!

• Ground Trooper #2: There's movement at the refinery.

• Pilot: Structure's out of range! Stay focused on the target!

• Sankar (to crowd): The day we plot revenge, they grow stronger. We toss ourselves into the flames calling it revolution? No, this needs to be a war of ideas. Not fenced in by battlements, but lifted up by economic prosperity! Building a force that the UEG will have no choice but to bargain with. That's the war we can win.

• Crowd Member #2: You've had us sit here for weeks! It's time to strike!

• Sankar (to crowd): No! It's time to stop blindly tossing our sons and daughters into--

• Crowd Member #3: I was at Mamore with the FLP in the year 2511!

• Wiley: Mamore?

• Crowd Member #3: Where the hell were you?

• Wiley: I heard they all got scooped.

• Crowd Member #3: You weren't even born yet!

• Ground Trooper #1: Guy's all bark.

• Crowd Member #3: Stand up in front of a bunch of real freedom fighters and talk soft, like Sekibo? That's the only suicide mission I see you going on!

• Bostwick: You need to back up!

• Crowd Member #3: You need to watch yourself young'n. Grown ups are talking.

• Bostwick: I said backup.

• Sankar: Bostwick, it's fine.

• Ground Trooper #1: Old school rebel rat approaching the target. Dud looks ready to go!

• Sankar (To Crowd): {Hidden under Extraction teams talking}

• Pilot: Alpha team, watch your flank.

• Wiley: Rodger that. Alright.

• Ground Trooper #1: Go in, now!

• Pilot: Extraction's a go in 3, 2, 1, GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!

(the ground troopers open fire, Insurrectionists scream as they die)

• Wiley: Target acquired!

• Pilot: Copy that. Get back to the ship!

(ship door closes)

• Pilot: We're clear! Let's roll!

(ship takes off)

• Sankar: What the fu... Get off me!

• Lance Corporal: Whoa, whoa! What the hell?!

• Sankar: Who's op is this, huh?! Who authorized it?!

• Lance Corporal: Whoa, calm down "FERO"! (laughs)

• Sankar: Hey, I outrank you, Lance Corporal! You don't get to call me FERO! It's Commander Sankar to you, copy?! And you just ran guns blazing into an active civilian operation, you corn-fed cro-mag! Who authorized it?!

• Lance Corporal: Hey, I didn't see any civilians down there. Just looked like a bunch of rebel rats to me.

• Sankar: Where's your CO? Your ass is getting put on ice, I can guarantee you that!

• Lance Corporal: Huh, yeah, good luck with that.

• Sankar: You wanna to make a drop without a pod, trooper, huh?! You wanna slap a KIA on that jacket?!

• Lance Corporal: Oh, you're gonna kill a marine now?

• Sankar: You know, from this height, you might just live. Those "rebel rats" could send you home a piece at a time as a weekly care package to your mom.

(calls through the ship)

• Noah: Maya.

• Lance Corporal: Damn. That rebel stink must be sinking into your brain.

• Sankar: Do not test me.

• Noah: Maya!

• Sankar: Noah? What in the hell was that?! You authorized that strike? What kind of--

• Noah: Maya, I'll explain everything when you get here. Are you okay?

• Sankar: I... No! No, I'm not okay, Noah! I'm not okay at all! Half those people were civilians, and you've got neanderthal helljumpers going in hard with full ordnance?! I mean what... (sighs)

(gunshots are heard)

• Sankar: Wait, there's still another team on the ground?

• Noah: Yes, there's a second team--

• Sankar: Call them back, now!

• Noah: I can't, it's still an active op. Bravo Team's on clean up.

• Sankar: That's not clean up. That's a slaughter house! Sounds like a bunch of trigger happy jumpers killing civilians! Pull the rest of your team, now!

• Noah: No. You were the only deliverable asset.

• Sankar: The only deliverable for what?! What is this?! I've risked my cover more times than I can remember and I haven't gotten so much as a whisper from you or command since I wrapped on Giraud! I am com--

• Noah: I know, I'm sorry. Command put us on strict no coms three weeks ago. My hands were tied.

• Sankar: I have been in the dark for almost a month and right now I am in pitch black on whatever the hell this op you're running is, so please, tell me, what?!

• Noah: We had to pull you. It came from the top and it happened fast.

• Sankar: What is command even doing? When they activated me for Giraud, the whole point was to create more regional stability! I thought they'd have it all locked up by now!

• Noah: They do.

• Sankar: Tell that to Petra Janecek. After her last message, people are still pissed.

• Noah: You didn't hear? Acquisition team picked her up hiding on a transport freighter out in the fringes.

{recording of Petra's kidnapping plays "---" signifies parts that can't be heard clearly}

• Petra (In recording): --- To what to what, god what am I missing.

(A door is heard opening, followed by a siren.)

• Petra: Don't stop! Don't stop looking! Connect the dots before it's too late!

• Sankar: What?

• Noah: Things are changing inside ONI. What you did... killing those agents in Ben's apartment.

• Sankar: I can't-- (sighs) I can't believe this.

• Noah: I know, listen--

• Sankar: They--

• Noah: I know.

• Sankar: Section Three orders me to murder fellow agents and now they're laying it at my feet?

• Noah: It's not official, it's just a political move.

• Sankar: (sighs) God.

• Noah: Someone's trying to appease some of the other commanders.

• Sankar: I looked 'em up, ya' know? The two agents.

• Noah: Why would you do that?

• Sankar: The younger guy had a three year old daughter. Did you know that?

• Noah: (sighs) Maya--

• Sankar: He was twenty-seven. And the other agent was a year behind me at the academy. I killed both of them, and for what?

• Noah: Maya... I wish I knew how to make this easier for you. Everything's just... I tried to do what I could, even though I couldn't reach you. There are questions.

• Sankar: Questions?

• Noah: Mshak Moradi. Your weapon never registered as fired on that mission. The kill was never recorded-

• Sankar: It didn't register because I didn't use my weapon.

• Noah: What do you mean?

• Sankar: I'll spare you the gory details, 'kay?

• Noah: You didn't have a choice, Maya.

• Sankar: I know.

• Noah: He was about to blow your cover, if you had--

• Sankar: I know. (sighs) They listen to me, Noah! They believe in me, or FERO. They want a better life, they really do. They've just never been shown how to get there.

• Noah: Believe me, I know. Nobody could have predicted what you've been able to accomplish, but the fact of the matter is--

• Sankar: It's outside the scope of my objectives, I know.

• Noah: Yes.

• Sankar: God. Well we're gonna have a hell of a time sealing up my cover after that joke of an extraction. We need to assess the post-op ground narrative as fast as possible for the release.

• Soldier: Excuse me, sir. Casualties ready to report.

• Noah: Go ahead

Soldier: Twenty-six rebels down, two VIPs, forty-one injured, survivable.

• Sankar: I need to get back in Noah.

• Noah: And you will, Maya... but not yet. They're bringing you to Midnight Facility.

• Sankar (voiceover): There's something that ONI doesn't understand about human cost. Maybe the people do, the individuals, but as a collective when you look at people as numbers on a chart, as probabilities, just factors on a bigger equation... what happens is you actually lose the bigger picture. They... They run these complicated algorithms. They weigh the cost/benefit analysis of what a human life is worth. I recognize every single name on that list of sixty-seven casualties. To ONI they were just sixty seven insurgents, but I knew what their voices sounded like. I knew why half of them were there that night, what they wanted for their lives. Seven people who had sworn allegiance to me... who I'd known for years... were dead. I'd lost two of the best friends I'd ever had in that operation. And as the person who was sworn to protect them... I... I didn't know how to process that loss. But... what terrified me most... was after five years living as FERO... I had no idea what Maya was supposed to think about any of it.

Blog posts

The following blog posts were released on the Hunt the Truth Tumblr blog to tease Episode 00, and immediately after the episode's release.

Interrupted

Black bagging is a tidy term. Very ODST. The reality is, of course, something else. Somewhere between asphyxiation and vertigo. There’s very little tidiness about it.

Body cameras

Main article: Hunt the Truth body cameras

Like with the prior episode, a number of bodycams were uploaded to the Hunt the Truth blog depicting footage of Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris in combat on Meridian in the midst of a Guardian Custode's awakening. Uploaded following Episode 00's release included PORTER-CAM-A, HART-CAM-B, PEET-CAM-AB, ORTIZ-CAM-B, and CHEN-CAM-AB. They can all be viewed here.

Credits

• Janina Gavankar as Maya Sankar (aka "FERO")
• Alan Tudyk as Noah Reibach
• Cobie Smulders as Petra Janecek

External links

• Episode 00: The Only Deliverable on Soundcloud
• Episode 00: The Only Deliverable on Apple Podcasts

Preceded by The Story of FERO

Hunt the Truth episodes Episode 00: The Only Deliverable

Succeeded by Episode 01: Cube B-349