Hey. It's been a long long time. Mostly because I've been struggling with a lot of problems, terrible problems. But I've been working on them and have made good progress. I don't want to bother you guys no more so here's the:
Second Chapter, or First rather. It begins now.
Bentheguy: One Word, Reapers. That should be enough.
Anonymous: I understand what you're trying to say. But I know what I'm doing, I'm buffing the Reapers to what they should actually be, what a race which has harvested species for millions of years if not billions should be. Not the pansies they were in Mass Effect.
CheesusChrist15: That's a lot of insight from a person on a story which possesses only one chapter. I assume you didn't even read the fact that I'm buffing reapers and as I mentioned above, turning them into what a billion year old 'harvester' species should be. But you can take yourself and your 'generic' insults and shove your holier than thou self into the Gravemind's overly large arse.
Human Territory Border System X-01 'Horizon'
Aboard The Shaw
"So, Doctor Malashenko, what is so important about this frontier system that I and my patrol fleet were pulled out of Earth's defence and requisitioned here?"
"If you're worried about Earth's safety, the Ethereal's been pulled from free patrolling to fill in the void and guard Earth. The UNSC has about 57000 ships right? You're being unduly worried, comrade. The reason you've been pulled from Earth defence is due to what we found here in that icy moon of Planet 36-AR over there. What was a standard mining scan gave back the result of an unknown alien alloy crafted into a shape far too unique to be natural. We think it's an alien artefact."
Lasky's silence was not a sign of his piqued interest, he was thinking about the repercussions this find could cause onto human civilization. And more importantly, how advanced this alien civilization was and if they were overtly hostile, would the UNSC have the capability to take them down.
Malashenko, unaware of the Admiral's thoughts plowed on in his heavily accented English. "The main belief among the science team is that it's an artefact used to observe the growth of civilizations in the particular system it is deployed in. Other theories are that it's a superweapon of some sorts or a primitive two-way monolith for faster than light travel or even a shipyard of sorts which was abandoned due to the civilization falling apart."
Lasky said "You said it's buried in the centre of this moon? I don't like this one bit. It means that it's been gathering dust for thousands of years at the minimum, therefore if it was an observation pod, the makers would want it fully functional, and therefore we can either say that it fell into disrepair, the civilization couldn't afford running it anymore or they were exterminated by a superior civilization which was hostile." When Lasky was poised to continue his own postulation, he and the Doctor were interrupted by a ping from the on-ground scan team.
The on-site head of operations said "Sir, we've completed a thorough scanning of the object and it has a near railgun like shape. I don't think such a shape would be suitable for observation purposes. We're planting the INFERN charges right now, sir. We'll be exfilling from the moon in roughly 26 minutes."
Lasky was in a near stupor "You're already planning to blow it? This isn't safe. This railgun-shape revelation's shaked me, so it's gotta be a two-way teleportation device which just shoots the ship right? Or maybe even worse, a gigantic fucking gun. Either way it doesn't matter. What if the makers are still active but have forgotten the location of several of these monoliths and get pinged by this monolith suddenly getting reactivated? What if they send ships through? I don't care what you say Malashenko, I'm ordering my battle group to assume combat stations. We will not be firing first in the UHI's diplomatic interests, but if they make the slightest hostile move, we're taking down any ships that might come out with Jormungard cannons and blowing up that monolith with a NOVA bomb."
Malashenko raised his hands to placate the irate admiral. He said "You're jumping to conclusions far too early, Admiral. It might just be a superweapon of sorts. If so, we can strip it and reverse engineer the technology. And if it seems to auto activate and decide to fire upon our ships we'll just blow it up with a NOVA bomb like you suggested. However if your monolith theory is true, your suggested defence option seems a bit too….. Aggressive in diplomatic overtures doesn't it, aggressive squared if I may say so myself? We'll just go on with a normal by-the-book neutral-aggressive diplomatic stance. And all this is mere conjecture, my good man, your theory depends on there being hostile ships, even just the presence of ships beyond this structure and that is if this structure is a two way monolith."
Lasky was more than a bit miffed at his suggestion being outright dismissed. But the Doctor had OGI's backing which quite frankly tied him up; he could only follow the Doctor's suggestions for now. He said "I'm deploying all of my ships though, just in case." Seeing the Doctor's plan to object it, he quickly added "They'll just be deployed, not even at combat stations. There's nothing wrong with a bit of foresight now is there?"
The doctor conceded to Lasky and continued to observe the crew planting the INFERN charges on the moon. Lasky relayed the order to Roland, the shipboard AI "Roland, you overhead us didn't you, you cheeky little bastard. Get on with it. Deploy our Infinity, other ships in the Shaw, the ships in the Infinity and ask the other two Infinity's in our group to deploy their ships as well."
Roland, in his dapper aviator's uniform, nodded and said "Alright sir, now there's no need to call me a cheeky little bastard. It is my duty to keep this ship in optimal condition, and knowing everything that goes on in this ship serves to that purpose."
Lasky grumbled and turned back to the video screen. The crew video'd in "We're exfiltrating now; we'll be reaching the Shaw in roughly 16 sec."
Sure enough, 16 slow seconds later, the crew docked at one of the many docking stations on the Shaw. They were heading to their quarters for some rest after their gruelling work. Lasky received the news that all ships were deployed for a grand total of 95 ships including 3 Infinities, 45 Heavy Cruisers, 15 Carriers, 12 Cruisers, 16 Frigates, 4 Prowlers and their ace in the hole, the Shaw.
Lasky said "All our ships are deployed; you can give the order now, Doctor." He whispered to himself "Let's pray nothing goes wrong."
Malashenko nodded and gave the detonation order. The INFERN charges detonated resulting in the entire moon turning into a fireball in a matter of nanoseconds, melting all the Ice and incinerating the residual helium and hydrogen on its surface. As soon as the object emerged unscathed, it was a sight to behold indeed. Not to waste a moment, the crew of the Shaw immediately began scanning it thoroughly before even thinking of pinging it in hopes of a response.
It consisted of two approximately fifteen kilometre-long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving gyroscopic rings five-kilometres across. They contained a massive, blue-glowing core. Based on 1st set scans, it was surrounded by a quantum shield which locked the object in place at a subatomic level. It did not emit heat or radiation either, but the gravitational readings it was giving were off the charts for an object of its size. It didn't take an AI to deduce that this was probably due to the strange core whose reading and composition matched no element or engine used or known by humans.
Lasky was tensed, just waiting for the monolith/railgun to make a move. Malashenko was coolly leaning towards his chair while facing the object, waiting, watching, and wondering if the other entrance was still functional. After ten minutes of this uneasy stillness, the all-clear signal was passed throughout the fleet. Lasky was still on edge but his uneasiness had reduced quite a bit. Lasky inhaled air for 15 seconds before he managed to compose himself completely.
Lasky was also confused as to how such high gravitational readings could have been dampened by its exterior coverings.
Malashenko said "You know what must be done now, Admiral? We must send communication signals on all wavelengths to the object and try to decipher its true purpose."
Lasky waved him away and said "We'll do better than that. Roland!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Establish direct contact through your own processors, the job would be a hell of a lot faster with an AI at the helm trying to establish contact with it."
"On it sir."
In Roland's Mindspace.
"Well, time for a test, old boy, let's see just how good an UNSC 7th Gen AI is at decrypting a completely foreign Alien language with no focal reference points and trying to find out the purpose of this 15-km railgun like thing."
It took exactly 3 seconds for Roland to decrypt the language the machine operated on. He was able to initiate a basic two-way conversation with it as it seemed to possess a severely dumb AI of sorts. "So, we come in peace alien railgun; now tell me your purpose!" Roland said in his best imitation of that pointy eared alien from Star Hike.
The machine responded with a beep which Roland took to be it processing his request and then said this in a heavily synthesized voice "The purpose of this artificial construct, that is, a Mass Relay is for it to be used as a two way rapid transportation corridor between Star System CHA-80N, the system in which this entrance is and Star System ARC-1080, 1349 Light Years away. Mass relays function by creating a virtually mass-free 'corridor' of space-time between each other. This can propel a starship across enormous distances that would take centuries to traverse, even at FTL speeds. Before a vessel can travel, the relay must be given the amount of mass to transit by the ship's pilot before it is moved into the approach corridor. When a relay is activated, it aligns itself with the corresponding relay before propelling the ship across space. There are hundreds of Mass Relays across the galaxy."
Roland proceeded to theorize the ramifications of this knowledge, its strategic implications and the inefficiencies of such a system. He then forwarded this to Lasky and Malashenko and proceeded to capture all intelligence on board the Relay's servers, boot the dumb AI out of its server, and delete all of its copies and replicate this process in its paired Relay, all in a matter of four picoseconds.
"These particular pair of Relays is now under UNSC control." He said to Lasky in form of a report.
Lasky nodded, not bothering to ask Roland how they had come to be under UNSC control, working with an AI does that to one, enables them to almost form an empathy bond and know each other better than they know themselves.
Malashenko nodded and said "Since there's no armada of laser-spewing, death-demanding, servitude-ordaining aliens spewing out of that relay now that we've activated it, I think it would be safe to say that the connected system is empty and bereft of alien presence, therefore we could send a drone through."
Lasky sighed; sometimes these scientists and their desire to push forward human development did not factor in all variables that might be present on the other side of a relay. The possibilities of what might lie on the other side presented themselves to Lasky in a seemingly infinite number of ways. One possibility was that there was a sentient species on a planet in the system ARC-1080 which were not advanced with spacecraft and might be equivalent to 21st century humans. Another one was that such a species might have advanced far enough and might have just discovered this relay and might be preparing to send a probe through. Another one was that the creators of this relay might have detected this sudden booting of the managing AI and had sent out a taskforce to detect what exactly was going on. Another was that this same taskforce's objective was to eradicate the people who no doubt in the creator's eyes would be 'usurpers' and take down their species. Like Lasky thought earlier, the probabilities were endless.
Malashenko said "Well, Admiral? When are we sending the probe through?"
Lasky wringed his hands in defeat at the Doctor's sheer persistence (in no small part due to his OGI connections too) and said "We'll send in a Grade-3 Probe, Ablative Coating, Thermal Dispersers, Gravitational Dampeners, the works. If by any chance, your predictions are wrong Doctor, the Probe will not be detected and could give us some valuable insight on the workings of the ships of this species. Though there is a chance that the Relay displays a new entrance/exit with very vibrant visual works which defeats the purpose of a Grade-3 Probe entirely. But as they say, a precaution is better than a cure. Especially if the only cure is several dozen NOVA bombs."
Malashenko nodded, mentally sighing at this victory, though he knew that the Admiral had no real say in the launching of the probe but could slow down the timestamp accorded to this mission considerably.
Lasky relayed the order to deploy a Grade-3 probe from one of the OGI-prowlers to his Deputy Commander Stewart McKinley. Stewart was a good man and more importantly, a competent officer who could take over as an emergency captain of The Shaw if Lasky ever suffered a fatality in action. The Probe was released from the cargo hold of the Prowler named 'Spectre'. The instructions on how to access a relay were simple; one simply had to upload the Probe's mass to the relay before it was transported.
With a UNSC AI at the helm of the Relay controls, the process was further simplified hundredfold. The Probe approached with the man at the helm of probe control signalling "Probe approaching relay in 5, 4, 3…" Lasky was still uneasy, afraid they had unleashed something which would have been better left untouched. "….2, 1." The Probe accelerated towards the relay when a tendril arced from the Blue Core of the Relay and connected with the Probe causing the probe to drop out of all local area scanners and a bright azure streak to appear parallel to the Relay.
System ARC-1080, 1349 Light Years away from the current position of The Shaw.
The Probe's Video feed. Sergeant George Hamilton at the controls.
The Sergeant spotted nothing at first, his screen being nothing but black (The UNSC had eliminated Static for northwards of 200 years in official military communications). The Probe quickly ran a diagnostic check and found itself to be in optimal working condition. All that happened was very minute frictional damage which could be undergone more than a million times before the Probe would be in 90% of its full operational capacity and therefore due for recalibration and retrofitting.
George activated the Probe's stealth mode which included turning it visually indistinguishable from the space around it and activating all of its sensor disruptors. He began a wide-area scan with the Probe. The results came in a matter of nanoseconds though they could only be processed so fast by a non-enhanced human. There were 4 planets in the system orbiting a Red star.
The second planet from the star seemed to have once possessed suitable conditions for life. It was probably once a verdant world but now desolate, dotted with the spires and arches of what must be once-magnificent cities. It has been devastated by means unknown, its entire surface changed to the colour of rust. The atmosphere shows heightened levels of oxygen. Wildfires, presumably ignited by lightning strikes, can be seen burning on the dark side. This indicates that most - if not all - respiration driven animal life forms have died off. Surface gravity of the planet came back at a comfortable 1.17 standard G's. George groaned softly in pity and empathy for this race, no doubt now extinct.
While humanity had managed to avert a complete destruction of the planet through nuclear war and had advanced extremely well, the same could not be said of this planet. Whether mere territorial expansion or international war was the cause for this destruction or alien invasion, it was heart wrenching all the same.
There seemed to be another relay based on the gravitational readings that the Probe was giving out, possibly one of those secondary relays the UNSC owned relay's databanks had told them about. There was a singular gas giant in the system, 1.5 times as dense as Jupiter and 1.125 times larger than it. What interested George was that there seemed to be an unusually-cuboidal amalgamation of metal in the atmosphere of the gas-giant which also seemed slightly deformed. He relayed this information to Roland.
Roland said "Well, it seems to be cuboidal doesn't it? And it's deformed….. Well it's probably a space station which initially was revolving around the gas giant which eventually lost power after centuries or millennia of disuse and was attracted to the giant due to its immense pull and was absorbed. It must be at least as resilient as Titanium A2 to survive this long.
We'll send an extraction team to pull out the Station and extract any worthwhile information on any servers present inside. Good Job, George, you'll be needed when Malashenko decides to send the probe through that secondary relay soon after we manage to decrypt any information found on that station. It'll probably take two days, so rest up. We'll definitely send in several research teams onto that planet."
Roland shuddered "We'll try to find out what exactly happened to its original inhabitants and… hope not to replicate their mistakes. I'm glad this didn't happen to humanity because such a problem would be amplified through your species' sheer ingenuity and will to survive. Humans who managed to survive on such an Earth would be driven into the Palaeolithic age, reduced to mindless war for whatever food resources might be left."
George nodded and set the probe onto a long-range revolution orbit around the Star. When it had successfully entered its orbit he deactivated its thrusters and proceeded to log off from the controller. Based on calculations it would reach the secondary relay in a matter of two days as was the timeframe handed to him by Roland. He could always take control of it when the second part of the mission began. He knew he wouldn't sleep properly for several days now; the sight of that deserted planet had shaken him to the core. It made him wish he had time-manipulation powers, to right all the wrongs that had been done on the planet.
Shuttle Bay- 6, Spartan-III Fire Team 'Skorpion'
Lieutenant Adrian Whitley
Not 2 hours previously had the rest of the fleet moved into this system using slipspace as Admiral Lasky had deemed Relay travel too risky for utilization by a ship larger than the goddamn relay itself when Lieutenant Adrian Whitley had received orders from Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer to report to the Shuttle Bay along with the rest of his squad.
Lieutenant Adrian made his way to Insertion Shuttle 12 with the rest of his squad in tow. They had been called on by Admiral Lasky for a retrieval mission in high-pressure-in-atmo conditions on a gas giant which necessitated the usage of the sustainable-thruster module for their MJOLNIR Armour which gave them flight due to its raw power compared to the short bursts utilized by the Kinetic Lateral Thrusters present in joints of the MJOLNIR utilized in Quick-Time Combat Situations. They were going to be debriefed while in shuttle transit so as to not waste time.
They made their way in after the flight deck crew nodded and began the process of allowing them access into the shuttle's cabin through a combination of retina scanners, fingerprint scanners with inbuilt pulse detectors so as to not allow anyone whose finger had been cut off to be used to fool the fingerprint scanner, DNA scanners (DNA taken from an area separate from the hand), tag scanner and a beta wave detector to ensure no knocked out management personnel could be used in a theft/defection/desertion attempt by any soldier.
While the management personnel was completing all of these scans, Sergeant Vance Nixon, the squad's demolition expert groaned to Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams "I know that the chance of Insurrection moles being present among us somewhat makes all these stringent security measures justified but don't you think this is a bit overboard? Next they'll have some sort of mass detector and a scanner which'll detect a person's unique gravitational signature and who knows what else. It'll all depend on what those eggheads over at Sector-5 (Weapons Development) manage to dream up."
Ashley sniggered, Vance was always on the impatient side ever since that day he'd been fleeced by 7 pickpockets on their shore leave in Cairo where the squad had stopped to have some drinks and Vance, a man who thoroughly detested alcohol was forced to go outside and roam for 3 hours as in his own words "He couldn't even stand the smell of alcohol. He'd rather jump into the ocean and begin procreating with elephant seals then even have a whiff of that blasted thing them people called alcohol."
Adrian grinned on the inside, but ever the model captain said "Can it Sergeant, I didn't give you permission to speak. The next time you speak without my permission I'll have you removed from my team and transferred to Team Cobra in the Cairo Garrison. I hear they're short a guy who can mindlessly blow up stuff."
It was an empty threat however, Adrian and Vance had been best friends for the better part of 20 years and Adrian would not dream of sending Vance away even if it in some ridiculous scenario would somehow contribute to saving his own life. It was still enough to make Vance shudder and stop speaking completely.
The door of the pod finally opened and they stepped inside. The pilot began the deployment procedure which was completed in a matter of 5 seconds. They began traversing the distance between the Shaw and the target planet. The on-board Dumb AI calculated the estimated time for arrival to be 10 minutes as to facilitate the debriefing.
Admiral Lasky appeared on the video-con. "Gentlemen, your mission here is to retrieve any technology and all data servers on-board a defunct space station which has plummeted into this gas giant and based on Roland's calcs on its structural damage has stayed there for well over several millennia. You'll be looking for any sort of data: star charts, resource clusters, a local area map, weaponry and if the station possesses an on-board AI, you will retrieve it. Well that's all there is to it.
And remember, this is alien tech, be extremely careful not to activate any sort of data charge which might alert the extra-terrestrial originators of this technology. There's a slim chance that this station's technology is not related to the species which once thrived on that planet over there and might actually be an espionage-oriented space station of an invading species. You will also attach gravitational winches to the station after your search so it can be hauled out using one of the Heavy Cruisers and sent over to OGI research facilities for reverse engineering."
The captain nodded and Admiral Lasky's image upon the screen flickered away. "Well squad, you heard the boss. Vance try not to do anything clumsy ya big goof and don't blow up stuff either. The same goes for you Franklin." Specialist Franklin Bertrand turned a shade of pink not unlike the Martian Beetroots he was especially fond of. Specialist Maria Bertrand, the fire team's close range weapons specialist chuckled at this joke at her brother's expense. She was gifted at using shotguns but her true specialization was the usage of High-Frequency Vibration blades. She could cut swathes through several dozen ODSTs with her blades if put to it as she had done in simulations before. She moved like the blades were merely extensions of her limbs and not separate tools. If Death wanted to take you in an extremely gory and violent form it would inhabit Maria's 'arms'.
Franklin was the team's resident long range weapons specialist who handled weapons designed to be used in distances above a couple of miles such as the 4 Standard UNSC issue Sniper Rifles, the 2 Spartan Laser Varieties, handheld mortars and anti-tank weapons. He was also the group's designated Tactical Aid Designator which included calling in Cluster Bombs, Bunker Busters, Precision Artillery and Neo-Napalm Strikes along with the occasional Armour-Shredders from a B-43 'War-hog', the spiritual successor of the 21st century A-10 'Warthog'.
The pilot announced "We've arrived at the exfil point guys, I'll seal off the pilot's compartment and then you can jump out now. We wouldn't me to die of depressurization now, would we?"
Saying so the young man sealed the pilot's cabin off which resulted in Vance chuckling. Vance said "Alright, helmets on and all you AIs begin plotting the pathway to this station. You'll control the thrusters." Ashley said "That won't be necessary Captain; you know how a girl adores these rare chances to be able to fly." Vance chuckled and said "Alright Ashley, it's your funeral, and it won't be amiss if Caitlyn gets mad at you for this too."
Everyone of Team 'Skorpion' wore their helmets and Adrian pressed the button which would open the door. The Dumb AI ran a few scans in a matter of nanoseconds on whether all Spartans had worn their helmets and if the pilot's compartment was sealed off. When the results came back in the affirmative, the door opened. All of them exited with their KLT's righting them as soon as they were free from the artificial micro-gravity of the shuttle. Vance said "Last one to the station is paying at Berty's" and promptly accelerated to MACH 1.
Ashley squawked in surprise before activating her thrusters and chasing after him too. Adrian, Franklin and Maria accelerated to MACH 0.83 flying in uniform pattern just so as to be able to provide covering fire in case the station had on board defensive measures. Adrian grinned internally for all of Vance's playfulness he was an excellent soldier at heart and would stop short at 20 or so kilometres away from the object so as to allow them to form a proper plan in their means of entry. Until then, Adrian was happy to let him roam free.
After 10 minutes of this monotonous travel, Adrian said "Vance, Ashley, hold position, we will accelerate towards you at MACH 2 and then we will proceed to travel to the station at MACH 1.5 so as to maintain a decent timeframe."
Vance and Ashley were 68 kilometres and 67 kilometres away from the initial deployment position respectively which was 11 and 10 kilometres respectively from the positions of the rest of the group and still 700 or so kilometres away from the station. It would take roughly 15 seconds at MACH 2 to traverse 10 kilometres. During these fifteen seconds while Vance and Ashley had halted, Adrian consulted his AI Orion for a long-range scan of the station so they would have a framework blueprint for an entry. The rest of the team had arrived by then. There were 768 kilometres between their current position and the space station. At Mach 1.5 the distance of 768 kilometres could be traversed in roughly 25 minutes, more than enough time to formulate a plan of entry.
"Alright Team, here's how we're gonna proceed: Orion's scans reveal there are two main airlocks, located parallel to one another on each relatively horizontal surface of the station. We know its horizontal due to Orion's X-Ray scans which revealed the position of any fixed dispensaries or such. Maria and Vance, you take the airlock which has a communication antenna protruding from its side while Ashley and I take the other one. Franklin, you'll be providing external cover and attaching the gravity winches to the station's six load-bearing points at a time interval of 7 minutes each."
He paused to catch his breath.
"The station still seems to be producing artificial gravity completely different from our UNSC A-G or like the 23rd Century centrifugal force driven artificial gravity. There seems to be an artificial gravity generator producing a gravitational field not unlike that Relay thing but obviously on a much smaller scale which draws objects towards it. There's no saying what it'll do to our suit systems but Orion says that the chance of this different sort of artificial gravity affecting us to be lesser than a billion, let's hope he's right. I'll activate the Safety-net shield set for a radius of say…. 65 metres just to provide enough leeway for Franklin to move around while the BO-23 Boarding Insertor does its job on both airlocks."
They were set to approach the station in 60 seconds.
"Begin decelerating right now! That goes for you too Vance, no more fancy flying."
All members of Team Skorpion complied, crawling to a halt before the station was finally visible. It was old indeed, definitely showing millennia of rough wear and tear but it still endured, semi-eternal, the last remainder of its creator species.
When Adrian activated the Safety-net, it enclosed the entire structure which ensured that the gas giant's high intensity winds did not damage the interior of the ship when the Spartans entered it. Adrian and Ashley positioned themselves on the Airlock that Adrian has assigned to them. When Vance radioed in that he and Maria were on the other airlock. Adrian said "Insert the BO-23s in: 3."
"2"
"1"
Adrian and Vance jammed the BO-23 into the airlock doors with all of their SPARTAN III strength not sure what sort of resistance the doors would offer. It was slight overkill as the doors were meant to handle meteoric collisions which hit with the force of a charging bull elephant or so, not exertions of any sort of SPARTANs.
The BO-23's micro-scanners inside its piercing end measure the dimensions of the door before making laser incisions which slice the door hinges and made the door or in case of a ship based incursion, make the armour plating fall over. *Note : Useless against Valiant Classes * At the very same instant its second stage, that is, the one that faces the boarding party expands and makes bubble shield 3 metres in diameter which keeps out the physical aspects of the outside world and stops it from damaging the interior of the target ship.
In this case it was redundant due to the pre-existing Safety-net bubble, but it is always good to possess a backup shielding method. The BO-23s shield allows a one way entry, that is, objects from the outside i.e. the side of the boarding party including projectiles and boarders can enter it freely while any object from the inside cannot breach it with anything short of the force possessed by multi-kiloton level weapons.
All this is whisper silent too, so it is near impossible for a boarding to be detected based on ship-board directional microphones or vibration detectors. Though the heavy footsteps of Marine boots landing on metallic surfaces defeats this purpose anyway.
The doors of both the airlocks fell backward with Ashley and Maria pushing it out of their paths respectively. The two squads forced themselves in. Adrian was greeted with what was evidently the data centre of the ship which no doubt contained sensor readings and such; Vance wasn't so lucky and was knocked on the head by what must have once been a mobile medical dispensary which was now defunct and constantly spouting some alien words in a constant loop based on how they sounded.
It took both Maria's AI Gosling and Vance's AI Artemis' combined processing power to decode the language in 3 seconds being as they were, 6th generation AIs unlike Roland.
They forwarded the decoded language to Adrian so he could sync with the device and upload directly translated files from the data centre to his Suit Storage Systems. Adrian sifted through the zettabytes of data on the ship which was mostly useless environmental readings lasting thousands of years of it being in this gas giant's pressurizations. He trawled back, to over a hundred thousand years ago, 111,648 years to be precise.
What he saw frankly disturbed him. It was a video-message in which an alien with many tentacle-like appendages on his skull who was clutching a rifle or a gun which looked very much like an UNSC rifle and constantly looking towards the doors. The alien was saying some words in his own language which were being automatically translated and transmitted to the entire team by Orion. "To any species out there who come across this message, we, the Inusannon here on Ilos fight our final battle with the machine gods. They slaughtered our colonies and have pushed us back to this world, our homeworld long gone.
This is our last stronghold and we will not let these machines destroy it. As I speak, our soldiers die by the thousands and the last ship of our fleet has just been destroyed. The Giant Machines only arrived here as 2 and destroyed the last three thousands of our once mighty Imperial Fleet. They were Jet Black, almost blending in with space." He paused, holding his fingers to his ears and listening to something being transmitted to him. He sighed and started sobbing and continued
"The Emperor has authorized the usage of our experimental neutronium bombs which have an extremely high yield of several teratons worth of what we utilized as conventional explosives several centuries ago. We only have 2 and we hope that's enough to destroy these monstrosities.
But neutronium is completely cataclysmic to Ilos' ecosystem as we realized from a failed neutronium experiment from three hundred years ago which resulted in a massive hole in the atmosphere over the Southern Continent." He paused to catch his breath and continued:
"We imagine that it will cause all our water to evaporate over time and we will die regardless due to the atmospheric voids if not due to the initial explosion. I am transferring all these files to our old space station on Bolos, the Gas Giant in our system and signalling it to meticulously crash itself into Bolos so these machines cannot dispose of our final moments and in such a way that it preserves itself."
The alien began pressing several complex key combinations on a workbench near him when the reinforced door barricading him from the invasion force started folding upon itself due to the sheer impact blows of whatever was outside. He finished his last keystrokes and said "That's it, after these final words of mine, my interface will finish transferring the files and then the bombs will detonate. To whichever species finds this, I hope you have the technology to take on whatever these machines are. The spirit of the Inusannon is with you. Hail Friend! We hope we are remembered for our sacrifice."
The metal portal finally crumbled and the scientist turned around. He fired the projectiles from his weapon which seemed to be some sort of accelerated plasma. The hulking monstrosity that was outside was a techno abomination. It squeezed itself in and Adrian saw its disgusting face. It seemed to be a very crude amalgamation of metallic and biological components. It seemed to be a fusion of several bodies of these Inusannon with an unknown metal. It was no doubt a Brute soldier for these 'machine gods' which was created through some form of incorporation of Inusannon bio-matter and machine indoctrination techniques.
Even in the face of hopelessness of such magnitude, the scientist held his ground and continued to pump round after round into the thing's putrescent face. The thing wasn't even affected and kept advancing. It snagged the scientist with its tentacles by the neck and snatched away the weapon and broke it in half. Adrian couldn't help but feel admiration for this scientist who no doubt had never received military training and yet was showing the abomination what an Inusannon was capable of. The scientist kept head-butting or rather trying to head-butt the thing but in vain.
He grabbed a knife sheathed near his sides and drove it into the sensors which effectively acted as the thing's eyes. It screamed in its rough, metallic, robotic imitation of a cry of pain. It squeezed the scientist's neck so hard it snapped with a very audible crack. But the true victor of this battle had been the scientist as his mission was complete. Adrian could still see the steely determination which lingered in the scientist's dead eyes. The camera cut off when the entire complex began to shake, no doubt due to the explosion. Since there were still remains of Inusannon culture on the planet Ilos, there was no doubt about who had been the victor of the battle though at such a pyrrhic cost it was as well as the worst defeat ever.
Adrian silently blinked back tears, along with the rest of his team. Only Franklin was unmoved as he hadn't received the file. Adrian would petition the UHG to construct a memorial to the Inusannon on Alpha Centauri. They clearly deserved it. There was silence for several seconds, infact for two minutes or so. Adrian managed to gather himself and eventually asked Franklin "Fr… Franklin, how many gravity winches have you attached to the station?"
Franklin, still oblivious of the situation said "I'm nearly done with the 3rd one; you should get out of there soon enough. What's the situation in there though? Found anything useful?" Adrian forwarded the Inusannon's video file containing the unnamed hero's final stand to Franklin, who watched it for its duration of 8 minutes while finishing off the 3rd and 4th gravity winch. He stood, floated rather, completely still, thoroughly shell-shocked at what he had just witnessed. He blinked back a couple of tears. There were no words which came to him to describe what he had just seen; none of them had any words for the event. Franklin floated stilly, shellshocked by what he had witnessed for another 15 seconds or so before finally beginning work upon the 5th winch.
Adrian spoke into his com-system "Vance, Take samples of what that medical dispensary is dispensing, that medical technology could be invaluable to humankind. Have Artemis take a scan of the machine's workings. Maria, scout around and see if there's anything else left lying around there."
He said to Ashley "Ashley, trawl through the secondary data servers for any star charts and the like so we can investigate other Inusannon colonies with Caitlyn. Also see if there's anything related to their technology in there. Those would probably be the ones which are the oldest, surpassing a hundred thousand years and therefore relegated to the secondary data servers. I'll comb through the main servers to see if those bloodthirsty monstrosities ever returned to the system and decided to assault what remains of Ilos to stamp out their failure. It isn't likely though, we saw those cities on the planet earlier." They all worked in silence when Maria announced "I think I've found some sort of data chip. It was enclosed in a quantum crystal of sorts. Gosling is interacting with it right now."
Adrian waited for her response when Ashley said "I've taken all relevant files from the system. I used Roland's data cluster elimination method to find the oldest files which were technologically laden. There's quite a lot of stuff here. Most outdated by our standards, but some of what we have here could have some form of usage. And then there's this weird file about an 'Element Zero' which seems to be the primary catalyst for most of their technologies. It could have seriously kickstarted their growth but also dampened any creativity."
Adrian said "What do you mean?"
"No doubt this Element Zero could have made it significantly easier to make a framework on which to build starcraft and such on, but the same ease would have made it nigh impossible to create anything independent from it and hence made them slaves to only those methods and any and all limitations this Element Zero possesses."
Gosling said on the topic of the data crystal which was forgotten for the moment "It seems to be a primitive AI of sorts, but certainly smarter than any dumb AI we use. Its specs seem to suggest it needs certain specific conditions to come out of its 'hibernation-phase'. It pinged me once, but it wasn't of its own volition, it was an automated response derived from a back-up subroutine and states that this AI was once the personal 'battle-companion' of the War-Marshal who seems to have been the wartime commander of all forces of the Inusannon in the war against these 'gods'. The AI clearly possess direct knowledge of all events that transpired.
Adrian mulled these observations for a couple of minutes, giving it only cursory attention out of piqued interest, not being a philosopher or a scientist and then radioed command as soon as they exited the ship along with the data crystal and any physical materials which were deemed utilizable by analysis. "We're done here, Command. We'll be exfiltrating in 5 seconds. Get the tug boat ready."
"Roger that Adrian."
Saying these words, the entirety of Team Skorpion blasted off heading back to their ship and in turn to the real goddamn Mother Ship, The Shaw.
The Shaw's Command Platform
Admiral Lasky
"Well Malashenko, it looks like my fears were unfound after all, or maybe not, but the scenario is that for now we are safe. Research teams will be dispatched to 'Ilos' as the nat….former natives called it. One day we may even terraform Ilos; make it a… memorial of sorts? Maybe just patch up all their work and put an automated ODP in the atmosphere so if anyone with intentions like whatever those machine gods were comes they take a teratons slug to the goddamn face. Maybe we'll branch out into other systems, see what we can find. We will however, definitely step up our military workhorse, these 'machine gods', just 2 of them were said to slaughter thousands of Ilos' fleet, which, while we're not sure where that puts them in comparison with us but makes them a threat we cannot treat lightly in anyway or form"
The doctor nodded his head, half listening, only pondering what his own trawling through the data from the CHA-80N relay had told him about, how there were a series of Relays in active usage by a species or maybe even a group of species and how they utilized an extremely oversized relay too. This oversized relay seemed to have an extreme range too, far too much in comparison to its lesser brethren. The only reason he'd caught it was the extreme scale of the integer mentioned for this uber-relay's range which his eyes had caught by chance, far outstripping any of its brethren in terms of range.
"Doctor, you here?"
"Uh, Yes Comrade Lasky, just pondering about these series of incidents myself, I'd like to point out something Roland might not have picked up yet, busy as he is in micromanaging what I imagine are that hundreds of problems the newly defrosted relay might be undergoing."
Roland piped in "Would that by chance be that relay with that fucking humongous range? More than a hundred thousand light years blimey, I wonder what the hell's on the other end. No data of that is available for access from this relay; we'll need direct access from that giant relay, but good news is that this relay hasn't been activated in roughly 50000 years or so unless the data available on this relay's servers are faulty and outdated."
Lasky took a deep breath and said "High command will take care of that later, maybe even send an expeditionary force, though chances of that look extremely thin due to these 'machine gods' that might prowl the space between relays and other related problems, heck there might be a black hole in a relay exit but we wouldn't know that. And some relays might even be death traps, if they explode due to hundreds of millennia of disuse and become a singularity or such it definitely would not be good, more like terrible to be honest. So what would be likely is to slipspace into systems with such relays which would seem to be most relays near us."
With that out of the way, Lasky exhaled a sigh of incomplete relief, knowing though that there were no enemies in the general vicinity, there was a strong possible the eggheads higher up might just push for further exploration which would be a tactical nightmare in itself.
The Citadel
Relay Monitoring Chamber
The Turian Technician on duty, Coris Kyius, was notified by the VI with the customary blaring sounds and blinking orange lights that a relay had been activated that should not have been. He swivelled his chair around and approached the console rapidly, what he was greeted with was a jarring cacophony resulting from the protocol that had been added if any of the so-called 'legendary' relays were activated. He was completed shell-shocked as he was notified that it was the Mu Relay, lost thousands of years ago which was said to be activated along with a couple of deep space relays termed CHA-80N and ARC-1080. He quickly began scanning all the data that had been compiled and rapidly created a report to send directly to The Councillors.