1
Atlantis
"Sierra bird access code 55943837 requesting landing." Sparx said from the large cabin of the Mythic Dawn Frigate. Sparx was the AI of the Mythic Dawn. Downloaded for the ship specifically from Fleet Commander Terrence Hood. The Commander needed a new AI for his own Frigate ever since they lost AI Cortana.
The Frigate was flying as if it was lost over the Atlantic Ocean. But the Frigate wasn't lost. These were the exact coordinates that they were looking for.
The Commander stood on the deck of the Mythic Dawn and looked carefully on the water's surface. All that could be seen for miles to come was the rolling tides of the Atlantic Ocean.
After a few moments there was finally a response.
"This is Atlantis Command, authorizing landing codes." The voice was a hoarse one but it was a confirming one.
Suddenly out of the Ocean was a splash of a protruding pike. The pike started rising and rising till a building formed in front of the Frigate. After the building was another building and another. Finally some small buildings were on bottom and the growing stopped.
"Welcome to Outpost Atlantis Command Hood." The voice on the COM unit said as the Frigate orbited the metal island for a few moments. Finally a large hanger door opened and the Frigate slowly pulled into it and hovered to a landing.
Marines filed onto the hanger in front of the Frigate exit and stood in tight uniformed position. The Frigate's hatch opened and Admiral Hood stepped down the ramp onto the hanger floor.
Suddenly the hanger doors opened and a lieutenant came rushing in up to Hood.
"Admiral, welcome to Atlantis. Sergeant Carter told us of your immediate arrival and we prepared quickly." The young lieutenant said. His words were so fast the Admiral had trouble understanding him but he got the most of it.
"At ease Lieutenant. I actually came to see the Sergeant in person. Where is he?" Hood said looking around at the soldiers standing at complete attention.
"He is at the bridge sir. I will lead you there sir."
"Good." Hood said. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a microchip. He walked to the doors to the hanger and placed the chip onto a computer pedestal. Suddenly a hologram of a computized man appeared.
"Sparx I'm taking you with me. I want you to reassign your Mythic Dawn duties to AI 517." Hood commanded.
"Excuse me sir but AI 517 is not nearly efficient for taking over command of a magnificent ship like yours sir. Magna is a new program and…" Sparx was cut off by Hood.
"Come now Sparx, we are with friends. I'm sure Magna can handle herself until we return to the Dawn." Sparx replied with a sigh and said,
"Yes sir. I'll reassign command of the ship now."
"Thank you Sparx. Besides, I need you in briefing the Sergeant. You know the most on the Odin project." Hood said. Behind him the lieutenant heard this and said,
"Excuse me sir, but what's the Odin project?" Hood looked back at the lieutenant and said,
"Sorry son. It's on a need to know basis and I have to tell you that you don't need to know at this time what the Odin project is. You'll learn in time but right now you need to lead me to the general. This matter is urgent." The lieutenant saluted and said,
"Yes sir." Hood saluted back and looked back at Sparx.
"There." Sparx said. "I've reassigned the Dawn's command to Magna until I am put back into the Dawn's controls. Yank me." Hood placed his hand over the holographic figure and pulled the microchip out of the pedestal and with the chip went the figure.
"Shall we go lieutenant?"
The lieutenant led Hood out of the hanger and as he did the large doors of the hanger began to close.
"Excuse the noise Admiral. We're going through the submersion process. The wonders of Atlantis is that it can continue defense systems as well as transportation systems around the station without interfering with the submersion process." The lieutenant said as a noise started to rumble throughout the station.
The two entered an elevator and it quickly shut and started to shoot up the small tunnel. There was a large window that the Admiral looked out. At first he saw only many loading docks and hangers of the lower levels of the station. Once the lieutenant press a button the elevator shot up to a beautiful view of the Atlantic.
Suddenly a voice came onto the intercom.
"All dive zones seals. Advancing in submersion process." Suddenly Hood looked down and saw the lower levels of the station start to dive into the Ocean. The water created waves and shot out of the way of the giant piece of shielded metal as it submerged under the blue mass. Even as fast as the elevator was going the water soon caught up with the lift and quickly started to submerge the pod. Hood was amazed at the quick process as the water went over the pod and yet the pod kept shooting up.
Suddenly the pod shot into a tube and finally stopped.
"Here we are Admiral. We've reached the Bridge and at the perfect time. The submersion process is always the best at the bridge." The lieutenant said with a hint of excitement in his voice. Hood nodded. The doors of the elevator opened and the two soldiers walked out of the pod and up a step to a large circular room. The lieutenant led Hood over to the window and they looked down. They saw the water quickly submerging them until finally it passed over them and everything but the last pike was submerged and in a few seconds the pike would join them.
"Entertaining the Admiral, lieutenant Jones?" a voice said from behind them. The lieutenant Jones was startled by it but Hood turned with a smile. He knew exactly whose voice that was.
Standing behind them was the decorated Sergeant Major Ender Carter. The Sergeant was tall and had short black hair. He was dressed in a blue uniform and looked magnificently as a Sergeant.
"Admiral I understand this is your first visit to Atlantis. Quite a station is it not?" Carter bragged. Hood didn't blame him for bragging. It was quite an incredible station.
"Yes Sergeant. I am greatly impressed. Especially the improvements I've heard you've done with the station since you took control." Hood complimented. The improvements he spoke of were the large defense cannons just below the bridge.
The Sergeant nodded in pleasure of the Admiral's compliment and said,
"Thank you Admiral. Well lieutenant. I must ask you to retire. The Admiral and I have a great deal to discuss, or so I've heard." The lieutenant nodded and saluted. He then saluted to the admiral and marched back to the elevator. Once Jones left, the Sergeant walked to Hood and personally shook his hand. "I never said Welcome to Atlantis sir." Hood laughed. "Please, follow me to the situation room sir."
Carter led Hood across the Bridge to a door that went through a small hallway. The small hallway finally led to another circular room where they took a right and into a room with a rectangular table in the middle with a pedestal similar to the one in the hanger in the middle of the table.
"Well Admiral. You traveled all the way from the Cairo to talk to me about something. How about we get to it?" Ender said. Hood nodded and quickly reported,
"Well I know who can explain it better than I can." He walked to the center of the table, grabbed the microchip again and set it on the pedestal in the middle of the table. Once again the holographic figure of Sparx rose from the pedestal, this time bigger than he was in the hanger. "This is AI 516. AKA Sparx. Sparx meet Sergeant Major Ender Carter." Hood introduced once he had Sparx' attention.
Sparx turned to Ender and looked surprised. "Well, well, well. The famous Ender Carter. The man who held off battalions of Covenant to create a road for Sergeant Major Johnson God rest his soul. I have to say I'm a little disappointed Sergeant." Ender was surprised by the comment.
"Disappointed AI 516?"
"Oh please. Call me Sparx." Sparx answered cockily. "Yes disappointed. I thought the great Sergeant Major Ender Carter would be much older to be running a place like this. I downloaded your system the minute I arrived here and I have to say this is one of the most sophisticated systems in the UNSC's defense system. So I'm still wondering why something this sophisticated would be put into the hands of a man so young." Sparx scoffed. Ender was taken aback by the comments but he laughed it off and said,
"Well I've done my best Sparx. Now Admiral Hood tells me you can brief me on this situation." But Sparx looked at Hood and said,
"I thought you were kidding when you downloaded his picture to my system Admiral."
"Sparx! We are short on time now brief the Sergeant on the situation." Hood snapped. Sparx sighed and started,
"Alright. As you're probably aware of, since our alliance with the Covenant fleet lead by the one they call the Arbiter, his fleets have been patrolling the galaxy looking for remnants of Covenant loyal to either the Brutes or the Prophet of Truth. Any covenant looking for any Halos or anything related with that Forerunner technology are on the Arbiter's most wanted list."
"Of course. I have sent several of my fleet to support the Arbiter if necessary and if it is in range." Carter answered. Sparx seemed not to be interested and continued,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah whatever. So 72 hours ago we get a transmission from the Arbiter. He says that he's in a different system and he has found something."
"What is it? Covenant?" Sparx gave an annoyed look at Admiral Hood and said,
"No, its not Covenant. It was a Colony of humans. Far beyond any of the UNSC's or any human colonies have ever traveled." Carter gave a confused look to Hood and Hood answered with,
"At first we thought it was a lost pilgrimage ship that found a habitual world and decided to inhabit when they lost communication. I mean its not the first time something like that has happened." Sparx took the spotlight again.
"But then the Arbiter received a strange transmission from them. He sent it back to the Cairo and we couldn't match it with any of the transmission signatures in any human database. The Arbiter ran it through his systems and no matches were found."
"So these are humans that have no connection to Earth? How do you know they're even humans maybe they're similar to humans but have a different genetic compound?" Carter suggested. Sparx was impressed with the comment. Hood butted in,
"That's what you need to find out." Ender was confused. "I'm assigning you to go out to rendezvous with the Arbiter. Make contact with the inhabitants of that planet and conduct an experiment to see if they are actually terrestrials. If they are you must inform them of co-existence with us. I'm sure there are roots of that world that link back to our world and its only fair they know of that link." Hood explained.
"And if they aren't of the same origin?" Carter asked. Sparx and Hood looked at each other. It almost looked as if they hadn't thought of that part of the plan. But Hood answered.
"Still continued with a plan for co-existence. We want to avoid another war like the one we had with the covenant. We can't have these wars just because we find life that is different from ours." Carter nodded but he still had one more question.
"Why are you sending me Admiral?" Hood was surprised by the question but didn't protest yet. Ender wasn't done yet. "I mean you hear this news and I'm the first person you think of to send off into the galaxy?" Hood smiled and turned his back. Both Sparx and Ender watched him. Unknown to the other, they had the same question in their heads. Finally Hood answered,
"Of course you've seen the drastic rebuilding Earth has gone through throughout the last two years. We've made drastic improvements as well and we're comfortable for being attacked two years ago. Yet humanity is still scarred." Hood said bluntly. "If you've seen the cities you know that there are curfews still. People are scarred to look into the sky because they are afraid fleets of aliens are going to come plummeting down and make their cities burn. And ever since heroes like Avery Johnson, Miranda Keyes and Master Chief were lost…" the Admiral paused. The AI and the Sergeant wondered if this was an emotional topic for the Admiral. Finally the Admiral turned and said, "Humanity needs their heroes Carter. You're the last one left from the Covenant retaliation. Soldiers know your name and will be inspired if they hear you're going out to ensure that humanity is safe from the unknown of space." Ender was inspired by the speech right there but he was still unsure. He turned and looked out the window into the vast ocean depths. Finally he turned and said,
"I'll do it. Where are my men?"