AN: I have rewritten this chapter and the next fixing some problems and I know they are a little bland but I'm trying to make it better as it goes so please bear with me, All comments and reviews welcome and let me know if I messed something up so I can fix it.
Echoes Chapter 1: Weird beginnings
It was a Thursday afternoon and everybody knew it as the com room was off limits to all wile the heads of the separate branches of the Militia did there biweekly unit update. "A small group of the remnant fleet has broken off of there usual patrol route and stationed them selves above Demeter. They've taken up a defensive orbit to which I can only assume there waiting for the reconstruction group to arrive, but that's all I got for you today Sarah." Said an older looking man with a salt and pepper hair on the right monitor. "Thank you Barker, and I have the casualty list from Typhon for both of you." Sarah replied from the left monitor. Barker responded with a short "Thanks." Then Sarah addressed the com room "Commander Gates what do you have this time?" "Well as you know we have intercepted serval IMC data packs from the core worlds in the past week and had a hell of a time decrypting them, but we just got another one coming in saying that they have a decryption key coming with a package. What the package is we don't know but the key could help solve both our problems, I was planning to take this shipment and spend some time figuring out what the IMC were doing with it." Gates finished with a slight sigh. "How the hell is the IMC getting a shipment from the core to the frontier without the fueling stations at Demeter?" Baker asked with a little frustration in his voice. "From what we can tell they've built a one off, a ship that's been refitted with more fuel tanks but just room enough for the cargo and a small crew of specters." Was Gates reply. "So it cant be used to bring any more help to the IMC out here?" Sarah asked. "No not from what we can tell, but if this cargo is importuned enough to ship all the way out here it might be worth getting on board to see if we could use it our selves or if we need to destroy it." As Gates finished the two of them looked thoughtful. Finally Sarah said "Do you think you'll need any help or can the 64 handle it?" Gates responded almost instantly "We should be fine the IMC doesn't know that we know and there wont be any escort ships as they couldn't make the journey, plus intel says only fifteen to twenty specters on board so it should be simple enough." The video call want silent for a second or two and then they both agreed.
48 Hours later
It was going better than expected for once intel had over estimated the number of enemies on board only ten. The first five went down attempting to prevent the 64 from boarding, two more in the halls on the way to the bridge and the last three in the bridge it self. Gates had ordered Bear and the four rifleman under his command to the cargo bay to secure the package the IMC were now no longer getting, and so that left her and the four rifleman with her to take the bridge. As one of the remaining specters peaked from the corner it was hiding behind only to receive a face full of lead from Gates and the rifleman. "They don't seam that smart do they?" Said one of the rifleman. "No the not, probably they were reprogramed to sever as the crew and had only minimal of there original programing left." Was Gates reply as she put a fresh magazine in her R-201. With the rifle fully loaded she retrained her aim at the bridge where the two remaining specters were. Suddenly the two remaining specters charged them head on with no cover and better yet not even running just a fast walk weapons raised. Ya definitely reprogramed Gates thought to herself as she opened fire on the nearest one, both of the them hit the floor before making it three feet from there original positions. She signaled them forward into the bridge, as they went in and walked around every corner checking the room resulting in a couple of cries of "CLEAR" coming one rifleman or another. Once the room was clear Gates walked over the main computer to begin looking for the decryption key, the computer security was a joke a login with a password of password and no firewalls no back trace no nothing. "Bear this is Gates I've found the key what's the cargo?" "We don't know its three crates one large enough to hold a titan and the next one is six maybe seven feet tall, the last one kind of looks like a personal storage locker. But we cant get them open they require a passkey, can you look in the system for it?" "Yes one sec." She returned to the computer to open it again and after a couple of seconds found another code she opened the comlink again saying "Bear I've got another code I'm transmitting both try them on the locks and on the data I'm on my way down." "See you when you get down here." Was his reply. Ordering the rifleman to stay in the bridge and radio the frigate to confirm successful boarding and control of the ship she began to work her way back to the cargo hold. As she approached the hold she could her yelling and a sudden bang from a flash bang going off, quickening her pace she rounded the corner to see three of the four rifleman unconscious and the fourth in the corner of the room trying to figure what was up and what was down and in the middle of this was Bear on the floor trying desperately not to knocked out by the man on top of him. Which sat on top of him in a text book example of pining someone down, in a back under armor vary similar to a pilots under armor punching Bear over and over with his unprotected hands over and over against helmet and armor. "What the hell is going on here?!" She said raising her rifle at the man in the black suit, he looked up and upon seeing the readied weapon pointed at him he slowly got off of Bear and raised his hands over his head. Bear stood up slowly as well though it wasn't out a caution he walked over to her as the rifleman began to pick themselves up. "Are you ok Bear?" Gates asked as he walked over "Ya I'll be fine." was all he said. "You there who are you?" She said looking at the man not lowering her weapon "Cambel Alistar, and who might you be?" His return question kind of surprised the two of them as not many people on the frontier had the courage to be so openly curious especially when some one was pointing a loaded gun at them. "My name is Gates this is Bear, What were you doing ruffing up my men?" "Well I woke up to find five heavily armed men all staring at me with looks of uncertainty on all there faces and I've seen enough combat to take a guess at were it was going so I tried to defend myself." Alistar said calmly. "Well I can see your point." She said. By now the rifleman had recovered there different weapons and trained them on him, Gates opened the com again and told the other four rifleman in the bridge to come down. Once they arrived Bear bound Alistar at the wrists and Gates and him began walking to the bridge. "Alright what happened?" Gates said once they were out of earshot "Well when you sent the codes they didn't work on the big crate or the small one so we tried the middle crate next and that one worked, inside was this weird tube thing with him in it. Once the crate was fully open a consul next to the tube activated with two inputs on a yes and a no, one of the rifleman walked up and hit yes then the tube began to hiss. After a few seconds the front opened up and there he was just coming to and well the rest is history as they say." Bear finished as they walked into the bridge, Gates sat down in the captions chair and put in a course to Harmony. "Bear decrypt those data packs wile we head home." "Yes ma'am" was all he said as he set to work. She thought the key to finding out who this Alistar Cambel was is probably in there.