AN: This has been stuck in my head for a couple months now and I have gotten to the point where I had pretty much written out an outline of where I wanted to go with this and researched out what I think would be needed to at least bring about the first couple of chapters.
As of the moment I will be putting out chapters with little to no regularity in when they will appear as I am not the best of writers and find it hard to put writings following a schedule.
I do not expect anyone to find my writings to be pieces of art or anything like such and will say that I may be inconsistent at times. When, or if it becomes unbearable to you, the reader please let me know so that I can hopefully make some corrections. Nitpicking will be ignored if its small things however, not everyone is a writing God.
I would like to credit keiranhalcyon2010 for being the first to give me part of the idea that brought this story about.
I have created a forum to handle my chapter thoughts and ideas as well as functioning as a place for me to answer more pressing questions on the story or other things that may come up without taking up space in the main story.
It can be found under Unknown Skies: Authors Corner in the forums for those who want to take a look at it.
12/1/12: Fixed some of the more glaring issues that were present in the chapter to improve readability.
Disclaimer: I do not own either BioWare's Mass Effect or Microsoft's Halo, this is a work of fiction as written by Hunter152 for the sole purpose of entertainment.
Time Unknown Hours, Date Unknown (Military Calendar)/
Location Unknown
He cursed as yet another sneeze made its way into the silent darkness.
The only reason that had him coming down here in the first place had been because of a random urge to go looking through some of the older files that had to do with his most recent posting.
He had been looking to see if he could dig up some more intel on this new ONI base that had just appeared from the ether. Not that it had just been built, no it, like most sites and bases that ONI controlled, had existed for a while. It just was that they didn't exist on paper to anyone outside the Brass and those who worked there, like he did now. So rather than try to make his way past all the 'Classified' restrictions that had popped up when he had first started looking around he had started with looking for info that had to exist, like old colonization reports of the area for one.
He had come across the report completely by accident, and what had caught his attention was what it had been written in it.
If it hadn't started off with the words incident and gone on to mention mysterious circumstances, he probably would have passed it by like it seemed everyone else had. Even 'she' had apparently missed it as well.
/Colonial Administration Authority Report
From: Survey Team Manager Dr. Charles Mosburg
To: CAA Survey Branch
Subject: Incident with survey team member
13:42:43, March 24, 2259
It's a total mystery as to what had happened to one of our surveyors over here. The man, Raymond Szas, just randomly reappeared after disappearing [incident report 120-6587] for the past 3 days from his post at what has recently been designated as the Menachite Mountain, part of the Highland Mountains.
We are unsure as to what brought the disappearance about as Raymond seems to have suffered some kind of mental break of some sort as he has been rambling ever since he got picked up 11km from where he had set up camp. He did have a recording device on him but it has received some form of radiation damage and only the data from the first couple of hours of his disappearance seem to remain in a recoverable state.
What data remains seems to be a recording of him exploring some sort of cave system, most likely an old lava tube as many are exposed only a couple of km east of his camp. He makes mention of seeing something before the data was corrupted. Pretty much everything else on the device had been completely corrupted so we'll probably never know for sure what it or what happened. That is of course unless Raymond recovers, which doesn't seem be likely considering his condition, anytime soon.
We attempted to find the lava tube that he had explored but with the number that are in the area and them running for scores of kilometers we haven't had much luck as of this report.
We recovered his survey data and sensor logs to find that he had, apparently, found the mother lode of the century in titanium right beneath his feet. Shame he had to go and lose his senses right when he would have gotten the biggest finder's fee so far to be awarded. In the interim, the claim would have defaulted to any remaining family, of which he has none. This has left claim in a legal gray zone for the time being, most likely going to the CAA in the end.
There was only some gear missing, presumably he had it with him when he disappeared and left it behind. He did apparently carry something out, and it's like nothing we have ever seen before. When they had initially tried to take it from Raymond the poor man went crazy and we had to sedate him to get him to let go of it. It's a crystal of some sort and outside of it composition and ability to defy testing seems rather normal.
It is similar in look to quartz, cloudy with a purple blue coloration, but unnaturally smooth and shaped. We attempted to test it as a whole and got nothing. When we attempted to take a small sample for further testing, it cracked rather prominently and we deemed it too destructive to attempt anything else. Strangely no shards of it came off when it cracked, but as I said, we decided not to push our luck.
We've put it into storage with the other samples and maybe we can get someone else to look at it but until I get someone specialized in crystallography to look at it. Until then, it's going to be collecting some dust in the stores for the time being.
End of file/
He had been looked through the attached files of the report. Digging around a bit he found that apparently the crystal hadn't been moved from there in that whole time.
Dr. Mosburg had died in a rock slide only a week after the report when finishing up survey work in the southernmost continent, apparently without following up on the report or the CAA doing so either.
That's how he had found himself down here in the old colonization and survey section of the planetary government's storage in New Alexandria. He had to move slowly and carefully with his investigation and as he hadn't wanted 'her', Parangosky, to catch wind of his find.
This was his first break in finding something of these 'Forerunners' that had ONI running around shutting everyone up anyone who so much thought the words, whether they knew something or not. He only knew because he was Naval Intelligence himself, and had heard the whispers and stirrings that brought word to him of it.
He knew that if Parangosky or his rivals found out about his find he would be lucky to keep his position, let alone his head as the organization promoted taking the initiative, they only did so when they got to pull the strings from behind the scenes. So his chances of having any sort of future in Intelligence, or being able to do much of anything, as he would either be dead or disappeared if he was found out, would be rather poor.
With that thought in mind he finally found himself in front of a locker marked only by number and short designation.
CAA ST OS 000777
He found the box he had been looking for about midway through his search of the locker.
Rather than sitting down and opening it up there and then, he carefully replaced everything in the locker and made sure not to leave anything to show that he had been there.
He didn't have to worry about the dust as he had gotten some low level government functionary to go and retrieve something from the very same locker only a few days ago, without having any link or connection to that at all of course.
He made his way out of the records and storage section and after wandering the maze of tunnels and passageways made his way out onto the streets.
The sun had just reached the peak of its trek across the sky, telling him that he had spent more time than he had thought would be needed to do his retrieval, but it couldn't be helped at this point.
He would later spend the rest of the day going around the city and getting to know the lay of it and what was around. He was still new to this posting and had only been on planet less than a week. That and it would serve to through off any tails he might have gained with his trip to the city.
Later in the day he would make his way back to base and eventually to the temporary apartment he had while he secured a house for his wife off base.
While getting an alien artifact onto the base hadn't even problem as he been waved past the gate, getting the package through security to where it could be properly studied would be a whole other challenge. He would succeed however; he was intelligence after all he thought with a mirthful shake of his head.
It would only be after he had swept his suite of rooms for bugs and made sure that he was as secure as he could be that he placed the box on the table in front of him.
Despite its thick plastic look that hadn't changed at all over the past centuries, he knew what lay inside was infinitely more valuable than anything he had ever seen or known.
Popping the latches, he raised the lid to look at the crystal that lay innocently on the foam inside.
The crystal indeed looked much like it was described as being, smooth and tapered, purple-blue and indeed, having a large crack running through it.
The only difference was the soft luminescence that it gave off in the dark with small fluctuation in the light that illuminated the face of newly promoted Captain Ackerson.
