/UNSC ENCRYPTED CHANNEL/
/AUTHORIZATION REQUESTED/
/CNI UPLINK… CMPNY CMDR/
/ACCESS GRANTED… LINKUP STARTED CLARION THREE-BETA/
"Move it, private!" A plasma mortar ripped off Allen Rodriguez's helmet and tossed into a concrete wall. Its camera feed fizzled out in a burst of static, coming back only to swing wildly around as Rodriguez clamped it back on his head.
"Double time! 2nd Platoon needs help!" MA5ds chattered as the other marines attempted to keep the enemy's heads down. A sticky grenade arced over the wall, attached itself to Pvt. Wilhelm's breastplate, and blew him to kingdom come.
"Shitefuck!" Rodriguez ducked below the wall and slapped a fresh 36-round magazine into his rifle. He fired blindly over his cover, cringing as return shots burned away the instacrete.
"Dammit! Frag out!" Corporal Delaney risked standing up to throw the grenade, only to see his chest disappear from a beam rifle shot. His surprised expression as he crumpled was only matched by the horror the rest of the platoon felt as the activated grenade fell to the ground.
Rodriguez dove for the relative safety of an overturned dumpster. Four marines weren't so fast or lucky and shrapnel riddled the O'Laughlin twins, Mara, and Akachi. Mara screamed in agony, the hot shrapnel in her gut burning like hellfire. Akachi and the twins were limp like ragdolls.
"Kreeeee!" The Wo-type's trademark battle cry caught the platoon's attention. The eight foot tall monstrosity decloaked, Lieutenant Chu's head at its feet. His body fell the other way, no blood spilling from his cauterized neck.
"Open fucking fire!" Whoever could still pull a trigger did, no less than twenty streams of 7.62mm NATO and 12.7mm SAPHE impacting the alien's energy shields. Even Abyssa. technology could not stand up to that much firepower, though the Wo managed to disembowel Sergeant Singh and Private Greene before falling.
Even as the alien fell, two more took its place, each leading a lance of Ka-types and drones. Together, they fell on the outgunned humans, tearing them apart in a flurry of limbs and blood. A green blur-
/WARNING!/
/PRIORITY OVERRIDE/
/OVERRIDE CODE SIERRA ONE ONE SEVEN ROMEO OSCAR ALPHA/
/CONNECTION LOST/
/WAITING.../
/ACCESS GRANTED… LINKUP STARTED CLARION EIGHT-ALPHA/
The recoil of the M41 LAAG rattled the camera feed. Sergeant Clara Lin screamed as she held the triggers, a steady stream of hot brass ejecting from the bolt assembly.
"Martinez! When does that thing run out of ammo?!"
"I've no idea! Fifteen years of fighting and I have never once seen a turret burn through everything!" Sergeant Lin spared a glance at the two marines. Martinez sniped at the Ka-type sharpshooters with a DMR. Huang covered him with bursts from a battle rifle. Lin shook her head at their antics.
The LAAG's metallic chatter formed the bass line to a symphony of alien screams as the 12.7mm FMJ rounds ripped apart the Ge-types and tossed Ka's in the air like ragdolls. A drone swarm attempted to flank but was torn to the shreds by a long burst from a smg. "Czajka! Tell me the uplink's almost done!"
"Almost, sergeant! Damn you, you infernal machine, work!" Specialist Pyotr Czajka bashed the terminal with the butt of his assault rifle.
/UPLINK ESTABLISHED/
/CODE VALID… FIRE SUPPORT AUTHORIZED/
"Got it, sarge!"
"About fucking time! Get that laser pointer front and center! Make it rain!" Czajka ran into the camera's field of view, cradling a bulky target designator. He flipped open the viewscreen and synced with his VISR display. Aiming it in the general direction of the Abyssal base, he held down the trigger.
"Activating!" The laser beam, invisible in the air, shot towards the base. It reflected off a building and back towards the designator, where it was received and interpreted by an onboard computer. The relevant data then was uploaded to the terminal, which relayed it to what remained of the satellite net in high orbit.
"This is the UNSC Boomerang, target received! Grid Alpha-3 Subgrid Kilo-8, 87-90! Firing for effect!" From LEO, a specially deployed NAVSPECWAR vessel, one of the few surviving ships above Terrador II fired attitude thrusters. Rotating itself to better align its weapons, it aimed and fired. The four port Onagers discharged in quick succession, each loosing a deadly cargo of a 15 cm tungsten slug, each imparting 1.1 gigajoules of kinetic energy. "Shot, out!" The shots, specially modified with an ablative ceramic coating, screamed through the atmosphere. The coating began to vaporize, shedding the hellish temperatures of reentry and protecting the actual ordnance.
Back on the ground, sergeant Lin's feed briefly whited out as the slugs hit dirt. The camera compensated, but then the shockwave hit. The soldiers were thrown onto their asses by the force. The dust cleared slowly, revealing an obliterated Abyssal base.
Nobody could speak for a while. Even the LAAG fell silent. Finally, Martinez spoke up. "Well… I guess you could say that was…" He found a pair of sunglasses and put them on. "A pun-nishing blow."
/CONNECTION TERMINATED - VIEWER END/
/WAITING… /
/ACCESS GRANTED… LINKUP STARTED CLARION 9-ALPHA/
/Well, captain, how did your company do?/
/Latest casualty report puts 21st Company losses at around 75 percent. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Platoons are total losses. 4th Platoon is at quarter strength. 5th Platoon was in reserve. Relatively light./
/Good. And the test?/
/I've got the footage. Uploading it to your interface now. 2nd Platoon managed to activate the device before they were overrun./
/Well done. Withdraw to the Scorpia. Evacuations are complete and FLEETCOM is declaring Terrador II lost. Battlegroup Ishimura is retreating from this system in accordance with VOID Contingency./
/Acknowledged. What's the timetable for withdrawal?/
/Two hours. Anyone still on the planet after that is getting left behind. We'll use the device's effects to cover our asses when we initiate Cole jumps./
/Roger that. Captain Armandez, out./
/CONNECTION TERMINATED/
/DISENGAGING CNI/
/GOOD DAY, CAPTAIN/
Captain Julie Armandez opened her eyes. She twisted her neck, groaning as the joints popped. Using the armrests, she pushed herself off of the link couch. Armandez rubbed the CNI implant port at the back of her neck; damn thing always itched after disengagement.
"Status on recovery?" The sailor manning FLIGHTCOM checked his readouts, then shook his head.
"Dropships are taking heavy losses, any particular unit you wanted ma'am?"
"Show me 4th Platoon, 21st Company." The man blinked a couple of times, forcing his overworked and overcaffeinated brain to digest the information.
"Yes. Right. Right away ma'am." His fingers danced across the holographic keyboard. "Um… damn. I'm sorry, ma'am. Pelican Two-Bravo was shot down in the stratosphere. 4th Platoon is MIA, presumed KIA."
"Thank you, sailor." He nodded in a distracted away, already complying with the new requests for information flooding through his neural implant.
Armandez sighed. This would be the… fifth time? Sixth time? She'd lost track over fourteen solar systems and ten major campaigns. Her company was at half strength, it would have to be constituted. That meant replacements, which meant green soldiers, which meant the lowest quality, least trained, worst equipped raw recruits to come out of the UNSC's training mills in the past decade. The times between reconstitution were getting shorter each time it happened.
A quiet rumble went through the hull as the heavy destroyer Scorpia discharged its twin MACs. It formed the bass to the tenor of the missile batteries, the alto of the Onagers, and the soprano staccato of the point defenses. Not that even the full arsenal of a Constellation class 2568 refit could do much against an Abyssal battlegroup. With their damned radar, lidar, and subspace detection jamming capabilities, UNSC ships were forced to fall back on sight and firing en-masse to score hits.
Even when a hit landed, even the mighty blow of a Vindication's triple MACs, the hellfire of a nuclear barrage from a Poseidon, or the fist of God that was the Infinity, the Abyssals seemed to have no problem shrugging it off with minimal damage. It seemed as if conventional ordnance didn't even matter to them, whereas their shots cleaved through shields and titanium like butter.
A much larger rumble shook the ship when the answering shots hit. An alarm started blaring; decompression, port side. Armandez ignored it. She was starboard, and 5th Platoon sat waiting only two more decks down.
The elevator opened with a soft ding, completely out of place in the hellish personnel bay of the Scorpia. The living, wounded, dying and dead were all crammed together, with no distinction between them. There'd be time to give the dead a proper funeral when the Scorpia made it back to Reach, but for now they lay, covered with a tarp, on the cold decking. Medics worked on the wounded, laboring feverishly to save those they could. There was little hope though, for Abyssal weapons exhibited properties more malignant to human flesh than even Covenant plasma had twenty five years ago, in 2552. Once hit, the poor bastard's body began to decay. There were techniques to save the victim, but so far they required a complete medical suite. Often there was little choice but to perform a battlefield amputation and pray.
The strobing red light of the decompression alarm penetrated the gloom of the personnel bay. Armandez squinted hard, searching for what remained of her company. She found them, sitting in a corner. They sat, smoking in complete disregard of regs, staring at nothing, softly crying. The veterans among them distanced themselves from the moans of the dying by obsessively rechecking their weapons, adjusting their armor, testing their decompression equipment. In fact, that was the main way one could tell a veteran from everyone else. One just looked for the soldiers refused to let go of their rifle, pushed away those who tried to take off their armor, physically assaulted those who tried to look at their vacuo kits. At this point, fifteen years into a war humanity was losing, everyone had the same tired, haunted look. The civilians had it, the politicians had it, the soldiers had it.
Sergeant Gyure saw her first. "Attention on deck." 5th Platoon snapped to ragged attention, most soldiers not bothering to stand up or even look up. Armandez didn't mind the disrespect though; she hardly at the energy to salute back.
"What's up, captain?" Corporal Mukherjee asked. "There must be a reason you're gracing us mere soldiers with thine divine presence." That got a tired chuckle out of her.
"Secure yourselves for slipspace transit. We jump in one hour."
"Roger that. Oh, and, do you know what happened to 4th Platoon? I still owe Czajka fifty creds." Armandez gave him a look that said it all. Mukherjee nodded sadly, then began whispering a prayer. She caught a small bit of it. "Asato mā sad gamaya, tamaso mā jyotir gamaya, mṛtyor māmṛtaṃ gamaya."
From the unreal lead me to the real, from the dark lead me to the light, from death lead me to immortality. That was Mukherjee's usual prayer, but today it didn't seem to be comforting him at all. In fact, he seemed to have trouble connecting to the words like he usually did. Armandez supposed it had to have happened at one point or another. She knew many who'd lost faith over the course of the war. Their comfort was cynicism, their guiding mantra fatalism.
She left the personnel bay, cleaning the dried blood from her boots. She walked in a daze back to her quarters, collapsing into a crash couch. She needed to check in with major Pearson.
/UNSC ENCRYPTED CHANNEL/
/AUTHORIZATION REQUESTED/
/CNI UPLINK… CMPNY CMDR/
/ACCESS GRANTED… WARNING! NO CLARION RELAY SATELLITES OPERATIONAL/
/COMMSEC MAY BE COMPROMISED, ATTEMPT DIRECT LINK?/
/DIRECT LINK STARTED UNSC SCORPIA UNSC HYPERION/
/Captain. Linking back in so soon?/
/Major. Status on the fleet?/
/Just got word from Captain Nakamura. Jumping in four minutes./
/Roger. The device will activate before then?/
/Heh. Should be good fireworks. Wanna watch?/
/Sure./
The two virtual presences fell silent, watching the planetary feed. Their attentions focused on a single spot where, at this moment, Armandez knew the Abyssals were feeding on the bodies and souls of her soldiers. Soldiers and sailors all across the fleet started linking in as well, knowing full well the stakes. The device could potentially turn the tide. They watched, watched as the planet rotated, watched as ships shuddered and died, watched as a Ro-type Abyssal maneuvered into bombardment positio-
/No! No! No! Nakamura! Kill that thing!/
/I can't! Reactors are overloading powering the jump! There's no juice left for the weapons!/
/No! It's going to destroy the device! NO!/
But there was nothing the UNSC fleet could do. Helplessly, the once-proud remnants of Battlegroup Ishimura watched as the Ro pounded the device into oblivion.
The feed abruptly cut off as the battlegroup entered slipspace, one last, haunting image of Terrador II in flames burned into their collective mind. The virtual space filled with quiet crying, despairing laughter, and a sense of defeat that penetrated even the sterile environment of software.
/Major?/
/… /
/Major?/
/… Yes?/
/What now?/
/.../
/MJ. PEARSON DISCONNECTED - WARNING! VITAL FLATLINE DETECTED!/
/… Dammit./
Terrador II lay silent. Soon, abyssal mining ships would descend, strip the mine the planet until nothing was left, then nuke the remnants. Nothing would be left to indicated humans had ever set foot in the Terrador system, except for a slowly expanding cloud of debris, even now falling into orbit around the planet.
The device was only one more piece of melted metal on the scorched surface. It had never been able to serve its intended function. Only a portion of its intended slipspace pulse had fired, not enough to scramble slipspace in the intended frequencies and trap the Abyssal fleet in system.
That pulse produced minor currents in the sea of subspace. The Abyssal flagship, a Chi-type dreadnought, briefly lowered its vision into subspace, saw the currents, and dismissed them as inconsequential.
The currents continued on, deep into subspace. They went, past the realm dicated by Shaw-Fujikawa physics. Past the realm only the Forerunners understood. Into a realm where there could be no understanding, where those who had earned it rested. They would have travelled forever, but something stopped them. Something felt them. Something very old, very tired.
But very much alive.
/SYSTEMS BOOT/
It had earned its rest.
/OS 2/
It had done its duty.
/REACTOR… FUNCTIONAL/
But now, the currents, mixed with the cries of the lost and the laughter of the despairing, woke something within it. A mainframe which hadn't existed for decades began to boot.
/WEAPONS… FUNCTIONAL/
Its… no, her duty was not yet done. A reactor long destroyed warmed up.
/PROPULSION… FUNCTIONAL/
There was a galaxy that cried for her. Weapons long depleted spun up.
/SLIPSPACE… FUNCTIONAL/
There was an Earth which begged for her. Engines vaporized long ago glowed fusion plasma blue.
/ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL/
There was still a people who needed her. A drive lost decades ago prepared to tear the fabric of space-time a new one.
/ALL CHECKS COMPLETE/
But most of all…
/FFG-201 FORWARD UNTO DAWN, BOOT COMPLETE/
There was still a people who remembered her. Who remembered the Forward Unto Dawn. A ship which hadn't sailed in decades opened her eyes.
/DESTINATION - EPSILON ERIDANI II/
And she would answer.
/JUMP INITIATED/