Three Little Piggies (Colonies)
I piloted the UNSC Haka out of slip-space. The bow emerged a few seconds before the stern, so I felt a tingling in my ghostly toes. The tingly feeling is not a bad one, although I have not got toes anymore, or legs or anything else. My body and my mind are a computer phantom in the smart AI of the battleship.
Now I shall tell you a tale, little ones, of the three little colonies, and the big bad wolf! This all happened a long time ago, but not so long before the covenant invasion, and not so long after the big bad wolf, in all her arrogance, was created by the scientists and generals. The big bad wolf is also called Vinh-030. Her wolf ears are super-senses augmented by drugs and cybernetics. Her claws are all the weapons in my armories, nuclear or otherwise. Her breath are 3 heavy accelerator cannons, 2 MAC cannons, and 332 missile pods, that I control, but Vinh commands.
"Shaw," said Vinh-030, for that was my name. "Tell me again about these three little piggies, and their houses, which I should subdue, because I have been in cryo-sleep, and I may have forgotten."
"The planet we orbit is a gas giant named Lupus-Epsilon, for it is the 5th planet orbiting the star, Lupus-417. Lupus-417 is so called because it appears to shine within that constellation and is seen from Earth. There are 16 moons around Lupus Epsilon, numbered from largest to smallest. UNSC has assumed, on the barest evidence, that all three inhabited moons are in rebellion. They are Epsilon-11, Epsilon-12, and Epsilon-16." I didn't wonder if Vinh-030 did not lick her chops, thinking of the war and violence she was about to perpetrate. These cybernetic, chemically-enhanced things were called Spartans, and the young ones were always eager to use their powers, and kill, whenever they were given the chance.
She twisted her armored head toward me and mockingly asked me, "Are you sympathetic to every traitor, Shaw? This planet has stockpiled weapons, which is illegal, regardless of whether it has declared a rebellion or not. UNSC intelligence says there are batteries of 60 heavy accelerators, at least, and dozens of nukes, any one of which would crack you like a nut. We cannot blow their house down, we cannot even approach them on the other side of this planet. I shall sharpen my claws, and I shall subdue them, and this is why I am master, why I am chief, and you are subordinate." She did not look at my hologram, which wounded me, because I had no body left, except the hologram. She looked at the viewscreen instead, where a great pink storm of liquified helium swirled in a sea of grey hydrogen.
"See if I care," I said. "Your Pelican is ready in aft launch bay 3. The Longswords also are ready to launch, they will provide cover." Vinh-030 stood up from the command chair and left. I watched the Pelican lift off, then through the eyes of a Longsword interceptor, spiral downwards to the planet's surface, spitting countermeasures.
"Lambs to the slaughter," said Vinh-030, when she had returned. "Tell me about the prophetess again."
"Intelligence identified Sora Ulyanov as as impetus for the Lupus Epsilon moons to stockpile their weapons. She predicts that a covenant of alien races shall invade human space, and preaches that every planet should arm themselves in preparation. This in violation of UNSC ordinance 1024-256 of the solar code. Our agents report Ulyanov is a preacher, but also a visionary. Intelligence suggests that without Ulyanov, a new regional governor could impose himself on the planetary governments, and face minimal resistance." Such is the way, I thought to myself, with movements led by figureheads.
Vinh-030 was disappointed. "Epsilon-11 has been pacified. A nuclear detonation in her largest city was easy to accomplish, but Ulyanov escaped. I escaped in a Warthog before the detonation, and could not pursue a fleet of shuttles and freighters that escaped to Epsilon-12. I shall send a message to Epsilon-12 and Epsilon-16. Power up the laser antennae."
Epsilon-12 was armed like Epsilon-11, with super-heavy mass accelerators. The laser signal would be bounced off the icy moon, Epsilon-9, so that the Haka did not have to put itself in danger.
Vinh-030 spoke to the planet, "Little pig, little pig, let the marines in!"
Even at lightspeed, there was a slight delay in the response, "Not by the hair on your cyborg chin." Epsilon-12 had a sense of humor.
"Then I'll land and wreck havoc, and blow your house up," said Vinh-030, with salacious irony. She did not wait for a response, but stalked out of the command pod, back towards landing bay 3.
The attack on Epsilon-12 was more difficult, Vinh-030 reported to me. "They were in earnest against letting me land, so we dodged the mass guns all the way down. I hid out for fourteen hours in their capital, after they discovered the wrecked Pelican. They were fools not to assume I had escaped, so I killed them all." She looked peaked, but gave no indication that she was not ready to inflict a similar fate on Epsilon-16. I could not verify that she had "killed them all," but clearly the prophetess had escaped again, because Vinh-030 was determined to go on to the next planet.
"Little pig, little pig, let the marines in!"
There was no answer. "I calculate with 76.8% certainty, that the government of the three moons has collapsed," I told her.
"I will chase any prey within my reach, Shaw. Do not try to stall me with your humanitarian estimates," she whispered through clenched teeth.
"Another Pelican is ready."
The wolf descended to Epsilon-16, which was the smallest of all the moons. It was like an empty world, because the moon's inhabitants had been warned, and only the last refugees were still escaping when Vinh arrived. Their refuge was better than a brick house, it was a fortress sealed behind a nearly magical gate, like Wonderland or Never-never-land.
The colonists had begun their flight into that refuge as soon as the Haka had arrived. I could not use the laser antennae without Vinh-030's knowledge, but radio could also also be bounced off icy moons, and there was no flash of light which the Spartan might notice.
Vinh-030 discovered, amidst the common human buildings on the surface, a tower that rose like a sculpture of bound shards of obsidian glass, far higher than any structure humans would build on an impoverished colony. In the center of this tower was a control room whose readouts were inscrutable, and function obscure. I was sure of one thing: the prophetess would protect her people, and the Spartans were little better than ravening wolves.