Grace Augustine was pissed. She had almost gotten to sleep but instead this... thing happened, nobody had bothered to elaborate yet. She ducked out of the elevator and quickly made her way to the small section of the ops centre where she could actually stand up straight in her now permanent Avatar form.
"What the hell happened Max? If this was the RDA..." She asked as she leaned on the holo projector.
Max turned away from the console he was seated at. "No, it isn't. In fact, it may even be worse."
"How could it be worse than those corporate pigs showing up?"
Max snorted. "Try a few thousand comets materialising out of nowhere. That and we all got a high dose of radiation out of that event, nothing fatal but if it happens a few more times... well, we won't be around much longer. If it doesn't happen one of those comets will hit us sooner or later. We could deflect them using the Valkyrie, for a while at least. It'll drain our full supply quickly though and after that... well, I hope you've got a deep impact shelter up your sleeves."
"Crap, Jake is just going to love this. Are you sure the satellites are working properly?" She hoped it was just a glitch in the system.
"Petty sure this is real Grace, can even give you visuals if you like. I also think whether or not Jake likes this is the least of our concerns." He responded sourly.
"Ma'am, contacts on radar." Called one of the men at a work station. "IFFs read Jake, Nay'tiri and Samson sixteen; Trudy with the wounded." She had volunteered to retrieve them.
Grace sighed. "I'd better go explain the situation."
Rear Admiral Juliana Mellstorm was pissed. She had only just gotten off her shift and now HIGHCOM wanted to send her off to investigate some anomaly and for some she was stuck with some historian as a civilian adviser.
She marched on to the bridge of her Trident class heavy cruiser the Tinkerbell, coffee cup in hand. Everyone thought it was a ridicules name for a ship and she said so to but secretly she kind of liked it. It was funny and confused the shit out of Insurrectionists.
Trident class heavy cruisers were deadly three thousand meter long craft (3km). Armed with a heavy MAC (900 ton slugs), two medium MACs (600 ton slugs), a belly mounted energy projector turret, a large array of Long Bow missile pods and an equally large array of point defence weapons including CIWS system of sixty millimetre ato-cannons and pulse lasers. It could also carry a large contingency of marines, orbital drop shock troopers, fifteen squadrons of Long Sword fighter bombers, twenty squadrons of katana fighters, various drop ships, armour support, artillery and recently even a pair of orbital drop capable Armadillo assault platforms or a single Salamander but you had to ditch a pair of hangers to make room for their drop bays.
She sat down on her comfy command chair on its raised platform at the back of the bridge. Tridents were built with leading battle groups, task forces and small colonial defence fleets in mined so it had a commanders chair as well as a captain's chair.
"Morning Ma'am. Sleep well?" Captain Patterson teased.
"You know very well how I 'slept'. Give me a status report; how's the task force?" She asked the crew.
The com officer off to her left responded. "All ships report green Ma'am. TellMeAgainreports a few discrepancies in their reactor but nothing serious."
'Hum,good.' She thought. "Vicky? I know your there, quit flirting."
"Oh, but the Stalingrad ODP (orbital defence platform) AI is so cute." A full height holographic avatar of the ships AI Vicky appeared.
Juliana rolled her eyes at the AI's antics. "Just get HIGHCOM on the line and find out what on IO we're meant to be doing."
"Consider it done." She disappeared and the main screen, the middle one of three sheet of glass between the captain's chair and the foreword view port that displayed information, lit up.
On it was Lord Hood and Fleet Admiral Miranda Keys. Hood spoke first. "Ah, Miss Mellstorm. Mr Patterson. No doubt you're wondering what you're going to be doing."
"Yes sir, I most certainly eager to find out." She said in a flat tone.
"Very well I will let Miranda explain." With that Lord Hood disappeared off screen and Miranda stepped forward to take his place.
She cleared her throat and began. "At sixteen hundred hours long range sensor stations nine through twelve recorded a slip-space rupture five light years out. Before you ask what makes this so special this slip-space rupture was over a hundred astronomical units in diameter. In addition its coordinates match those of Alpha Centauri."
An eerie silence spread over the bridge. Everyone had heard the story, or rather fairy tale, of Alpha Centauri and Pandora. How the RDA had come back to Earth in shambles and demanded retaliation against the natives. Most people thought the whole thing was a fabricated publicity stunt of sorts. The RDA soon collapsed under its own wait and Earth moved forward. But the strange thing was that twelve years after the supposed Pandora incident the light from all three Alpha Centauri's suns stopped reaching Earth. When FTL travel became possible through the use of slip-space drives an investigation team was sent out to find out what had happened and what they found caused grate confusion. Nothing. All that remained of Earth's nearest celestial neighbour was a dissipating Oort cloud.
She thought about it for a moment, the implications could be massive.
Patterson broke the silence first. "So the old legends could be true... and you want us to go check it out."
"Exactly. We also need that system secure. If the Covenant Loyalists find out about an empty solar system on our front door step..."
"They could hide an innovation fleet behind it's sun and catch us with our pants down. So to speak." Juliana realised.
Miranda continued. "Not to mention if the Innies found out about this. They could have a base set up in months if we don't get there first."
"I understand. It's a threat to Earth's security that can't be ignored. I thought I should also mention that the civilian advisor mentioned in the communiqué hasn't turned up yet."
Vicky appeared. "Um, by any chance dose this man have light brown long floppy hair, blue eyes, circular glasses and no sense of direction?"
"That sounds like Milo all right. Have you seen him?" Miranda asked.
Vicky bit her lip in nervousness and answered. "He's in the brig. A man matching that description was apprehended near engineering."
Juliana sighed. "Tell security to release him and bring him up here."
"One more thing before you leave admiral; you will be joined by a pair of Sangheili battle cruisers will be joining you in system. Now, I will leave you to get under way." The screen reverted to showing ship and fleet information.
"You heard the lady! Get a move on." Patterson ordered as he stood up to observe crew members more closely.
Juliana sat back in her chair. 'Today is going to be interesting.'
Authors Notes: Wow, this stories popular for only one, now two, chapters so far and I've got a dozen favourites and subscriptions though only one review.
As for the involvement of Miranda and Grace I've based this on the 'everyone survives/gets home safely and lives happily ever after' endings that you'll have to imagine on your own. The main reason is I can't think up OC names worth a penny. Yes; I know I'm lazy but at least I'm honest.
I should also mention I wrote a lot of this a while back, about ten to fifteen chapters worth but it's all jumbled up in one document so I'm just separating it out and re-writing it a little. If the reviews get too bad I might do some more re-writing.
In response to Valerianus's review: Yes, I'm having a lot of fun playing around with the initial arrival, as you can imagine both sides aren't going to kick off to a great start, peaceful but not great. I will never write one of those 'we're all good their all bad' sort of stories. As for the slip space porthole all will be explained in due time. Hope you enjoy!