Spartan VI
Archon 7
Prologue
1700 hours, January 21, 2572 (Military Calendar)/
Stealth Recon Ship Atlas
Lieutenant Dedisa sat manning the long range sensors in the Atlas' bridge. He stared at the ballet of returning pings and wished that he was back on Earth with his family rather than seven-hundred-billion light years away. He really didn't want to be there, fighting the Covenant. He had never been good at fighting.
With this new thought came a flashback of the fight he got in when he was in 4th grade. His opponent then was half his size yet he still came out with a black eye and the loser. Now his opponent was an entire race. Even if the Covenant were losing they were still dangerous.
The Human-Covenant war had been going on for a little over 3 decades now, making it the longest official war since World War Three. The humans were the under dogs in the first third, and were even pushed back to Earth at one point, but with the help of the Spartan Super Soldiers developed just before the war the humans had been able to push the Covenant back to their last legs. They just might win this war.
Suddenly past the smaller asteroids and general space debris a large planet seemed to appear out of nowhere. Dedisa checked and rechecked the maps of the area. It wasn't supposed to exist. Dedisa keyed the com. "Lieutenant Dedisa to Captain Skye, Lieutenant Dedisa to Captain Skye, please respond sir" he urged into the box next to his post. A few second passed and then a response came.
"Captain Skye here, what is it Dedisa?"
"Sir, I've just picked up an unregistered planet of port zero-zero-one-five, sir."
"Alright I'll be there in 2 minutes. Keep just within range for now."
"Aye, sir."
The Atlas' engines cut and small thrusters in the bow ignited and slowed the Atlas to a halt. Meanwhile, Captain Skye was making his was from his cabin to the bridge.
The bridge doors parted with a hiss and the Captain stood in the door frame. First Lieutenant Larne, who was manning the ship while the Captain slept, turned to face the Captain. "Officer on deck!" she pronounced and gave the Captain a crisp salute. The gesture was returned and the Captain stepped on to the bridge. "So what's all this about an unregistered planet?" the Captain questioned as he eased into the command chair.
"Yes sir, an unmarked, or rather now we believe, miss-located planet" Larne responded.
"What do you mean "miss-located?" the Captain shot back.
"Well sir, while you were making your way to the bridge, we ran some image scans and found that the planet is actually Archon 7."
"Archon 7? Lieutenant you realize Archon 7 is in the Archon solar system, two-hundred-billion miles away?"
"Yes sir, that's why it is so strange."
"And you're sure it's Archon 7?"
"Yes sir, positive."
"Lieutenant Haive…" the Captain referred to a young woman sitting at the Atlas' com station.
"Sir?" Haive replied, looking up from a picture of her husband taped to one of the display screens.
"Send a level 5 message to all ships in the…"
Captain Skye was cut off as a 500 metre wide stream of super-heated plasma cut through the ship vaporizing him and the rest of the bridge entirely. The only part of the ship that wasn't vaporized was a remote engineering station on the bottom of the ship. There was only one man inside this. Who, as the oxygen was being sucked out of the camber explosively, was able to hit an emergency broadcast signal on the wall before he suffocated.
