Chapter Two

Spartan-A196, surface of unnamed planet, near unidentified energy source. 1229 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

The view in the binoculars became Lisa's whole world, her eye fixated solely on the town that wasn't Insurrectionist in origin but was possibly Insurrectionist friendly. None of the houses rose above two storeys, built with thatched roofs and wattle and daub walls, the select few that dared rise above the rest boasting fully wooden constructions with wide glass windows and balconies that ringed whole floors.

Several rivers cut through the town with small stone bridges running across them at places, emerging from the woods and winding their way into the distance between rolling hills before getting lost from sight, and directly across from Lisa were a few farms, identifiable by their barns and wide swatches of orchards and tilled fields awaiting the planting of crops. Again, they were built from wood with an old fashioned bent to their design, exactly the opposite of what humanity would build in this day and age.

Was this worth breaking radio silence over?

She had discovered a town built by aliens, or at least strongly believed this to be the case, which was home to some sort of gravity tether if the speculation was to be believed also, which warranted the following of UNSC first contact protocols though making contact with Shadow Boxer required her to send a signal which anyone could home in on. Encrypted or not, all it took was a person with an RDF device, or radio direction finding, to get a ping off her location the moment she began transmitting.

There was no concrete evidence hostile forces were in the area, or if any were that they had an RDF tuned to communication frequencies, but soldiers in the field didn't last long if they rolled the dice too often and on such important matters. She was down here in a strictly observational capacity which required her to remain hidden for as long as possible. Like with the prowler, stealth was both her best defence and most potent weapon.

Besides, Commander Colbert would just tell her to continue her observations and radio with major developments only, even if a new alien species had been discovered. They had near enough deduced that for themselves within minutes of seeing the surface pictures. No, she'd stay silent for now.

Lisa shook her head and flexed her muscles, loosening herself up, and resigned herself to watching the town until dawn broke and whatever creatures inhabited it came out of their homes to carry out their version of everyday life. Once the sun had set, the Spartan would think about setting up some kind of camp within the forest behind her.

Spartan-A196, surface of unnamed planet, near unidentified energy source. 1652 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Dawn wasn't long in coming, a faint glow on the horizon consisting of purple and orange hues that gradually grew brighter and brighter and slowly shifted to a more uniform blue colour until the sun finally peaked out from behind the hills to bathe the entire region in soft rays of light, illuminating everything Lisa had seen only through her scope and an augmented night vision.

Like all Spartans, her eyes had undergone procedures to make them superior to that of the average human, able to see in perfect darkness and in better clarity, with the systems in her armour acting more as supplements to ensure there was no situation in which Lisa would find herself unable to perceive her surroundings. That being said, sometimes it helped to see the world with some source of illumination to wash away the shadows and provide some depth to features.

That, and the break of day meant the inhabitants of the alien town would soon be waking to go about their routines, giving Lisa an opportunity to see just what she might be dealing with and whether or not the Insurrectionists were here as well. She doubted she'd see them given the small scale of the town, even if it did house a gravity tether, but expectations were always being broken and Lisa wouldn't be surprised if hers was amongst them.

It struck her as ironic, or maybe a cruel twist of fate, that she was doing exactly what the Covenant had done all those years ago of silently watching a less developed species ahead of making contact, and that she might soon be firing the opening shots in yet another galaxy spanning war based on what she saw, though Lisa didn't think the UNSC would call for the complete eradication of the locals simply based on religious views. The more likely course of action would be to engage their armies, negotiate a ceasefire and enter into peace talks, tell their side of the story and show the Innies for what they really were.

That is, assuming the locals had sided with the Insurrectionists after hearing their tall tales.

Lisa shook her head minutely as the first of the sun's rays touched the town to summon the first of the inhabitants, who the Spartan assumed would be bipedal in nature after years of fighting the Covenant. Her assumption was proved wrong when it seemed they were actually quadrupeds similar in shape and size to horses and ponies, though with a much wider colour palette to choose from and, apparently, the ability to fly.

One emerged from their house and shot straight up into the air, aiming for a low lying cloud that they then pushed, or at least they appeared to do through the binoculars. They were at the full extent of their magnification and some resolution had been lost as a result, meaning they could be doing anything to make the cloud move, though that in itself raised a number of questions Lisa couldn't easily explain away. Even with their technology, humanity could no more make the clouds part and collect at their command than they could halt plate tectonics, so how might a species that lived in such primitive dwellings be able to do so?

She didn't know and redirected her view to another part of town where a house that seemed to be a strange fusion of a gingerbread house and a birthday cake sat in the middle of a junction, spotting a pink equine alien as it stepped out of the front door. It seemed to then undergo a seizure or spasm, the far off pink blur become distorted by rapid movements until it stopped and waved in Lisa's general direction, moving off out of sight once it was finished.

Before the Spartan could try and process what she had seen, something screamed overhead fast enough to leave behind a faint sonic boom and Lisa focused her binoculars onto the fast moving shape, able only to see it was sky blue with a multicoloured contrail as it raced towards the town. It then arced upwards to join a number of others as they herded a collection of clouds into place above one of the far off farms, apparently directing them on where to go and how.

With each new discovery this place grew stranger and stranger, though Lisa saw no evidence that the Innies were in the town. Of course, she hadn't seen any evidence to say they weren't, or that they weren't in one of the larger towns or cities to dot this planet, but her gut was leaning towards there being no Insurrectionist presence anywhere in the country. The same couldn't be said for the rest of the planet though, and Lisa felt fairly confident in her instincts. After all, Lieutenant Ambrose had often instructed her and the rest of Alpha Company to listen to those little whispering voices in their heads, and there were no end of times it had saved Lisa from a deadly ambush, or allowed her to get the drop on hostile targets.

The next step would be to get hard evidence Innies were present, or prove they weren't, but observations from a static location a mile or two outside her target location wasn't going to tell her much. She needed to go into town and check potential hiding spots or gather hard intelligence in the form of documents and computer files, and while Lisa had full autonomy in how she operated on the ground she felt it was prudent to let Colbert know of her observations, and possibly receive a shift in her operational parameters.

Stowing her binoculars, Lisa glanced backwards over her shoulder to rough out a route back into the forest, where she had some cover against anything that might come for her, and started the long process of crawling into the dense woodlands.

Spartan-A196, surface of unnamed planet, near unidentified energy source. 1701 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

'You're certain there's no Insurrectionist presence in the town?' Colbert asked once the Spartan gave her a rundown of the observations and assumptions she'd made.

'Affirmative,' Lisa said. 'I saw no indication there was a human presence, or had been, based on what could be seen from my location. I'll have to venture into town, or relocate to a more populous area, to see if there's any actual evidence to suggest they made landfall.'

'Do you believe you can do so without alerting the locals?'

'Affirmative, ma'am. They seem to be civilians only with no police force or armed guard of any kind. I'll remain in an observational capacity for another day, try to observe any security, then plan my next moves accordingly. If there are Insurrectionists within town, I'll try to install observational equipment in their buildings and acquire any hard intel I can.'

'Understood, Spartan. Proceed at your own discretion and report- Wait one.'

'Ma'am?' Lisa said.

'We're detecting movement from the local gravity tether towards your location. Satellite feeds show a cluster of six figures, the locals presumably, in roughly the same location as it, though we can't actually see the tethering system itself.'

'Camouflaged, maybe?' Lisa speculated.

'Maybe,' Colbert said in agreement. 'But I don't want to rule anything out just yet. If it comes your way, assume an overwatch position nearby to try and discern the cloaking systems in use. Do not initiate first contact with any locals without my express permission. Understand?'

'Affirmative,' Lisa said as she called up a feed from the satellites, seeing the same small six figures walking along a dirt path out of town that would bring them close to her current location, and her observation post. Curiously, two of the aliens were the same ones she had seen earlier, specifically the blue one that had moved fast enough to break the sound barrier and the pink one that had undergone the full body spasms.

That was too much of a coincidence for Lisa's liking as she drew her battle rifle, especially as the pink alien had waved in her direction. Did it know she was here? If so, how?

'Maintain radio silence during the approach and observation, just in case they're somehow monitoring communication channels, but radio through with any new developments you see. Their cloaking system might only work against long range scanners, not people looking physically at it.'

'Understood,' Lisa said. 'Out.'

Spartan-A196, surface of unnamed planet, near unidentified energy source. 1715 Hours, December 03, 2552 (Military Calendar)

The six figures closed the distance between the town and where Lisa was camped out quickly, following the path for the most part before veering off it to go cross country towards the spot she had observed the town from, forcing Lisa to stop just before the trees ended in the forest lest she be seen by them. It merely confirmed that they knew she was here, or the pink one did given it was leading them all to the spot, which caused the Spartan alarm given she hadn't gone anywhere near the town, or done anything to attract attention to herself.

She dropped to her knee beside a gnarled looking tree and rested her battle rifle on a thick branch, placing the crosshairs of her scope on the pink equine as it continued leading the others and getting a good look at them all. Up close, she saw they were oddly similar to the equine species already known to humanity in terms of shape and gait, though with much more expressive facial features that seemed eerily like those of a human. Colour wise, none conformed to what was typical for regular horses and ponies in terms of mane, coat and eyes, and all six sported some manner of tattoo or branding on their hindquarters, each with a unique design.

The pink one had a brand/tattoo of three balloons whilst the blue flyer had a rainbow coloured lightning bolt coming out of a cloud. Actually, the number three was quite a common motif amongst the designs with all but one, the purple pony, having three of something. Three apples or butterflies or diamonds, or colours in the case of the blue one's mark. The purple pony had six stars; one larger than the others which surrounded it, though what any of them meant was a mystery.

In addition to the colours and symbols, four of them appeared to be mythical creatures. The blue flyer with the rainbow mane and a yellow one with pink hair were both Pegasi, the white one with a styled mane coloured purple was a unicorn, and the purple one boasting a mark of six stars was a mixture between the two, boasting both wings and a horn and Lisa searched for the right term to describe it. A winged unicorn? A Unicus? A Pegacorn?

Not important right now, Lisa thought, shrugging the idea away as her battle rifle came to rest on the pink pony, the one that apparently knew she was here without actually having any visible means of determining this beyond body spasms. Even now it was walking around, jabbering away in the local tongue that sounded high pitched, melodic and bubbly, pointing to the bush Lisa had used for cover and at the trees though away from where the Spartan was now.

Lisa panned to the other five as they crowded around, gazing into the woods with excited expressions, trying to spot the potential gravity tether but saw nothing, nor could she imagine why they felt the need to bring it out to such a remote location, or do so and still keep it protected from view. Scans with her binoculars' thermal setting showed no anomalous heat sources, nor did she see anything on any other spectrum. As best she could figure out, these six alien ponies were the gravity tether. More worryingly, they had pinpointed her exact location almost perfectly and with minimal time between her making landfall and them arriving on location.

Drawing back into the forest, Lisa called up her communications system and opened the messaging submenu. If the locals had RDF equipment set up, verbal communication with Commander Colbert would require her to transmit a signal long enough that they might get a lock on her location before too long. Triangulation of hostile signals was a field humanity had long since mastered, starting way back in the 1940s with the Huff-Duff equipment carried by Allied navies to pinpoint U-Boats as they transmitted convoy locations back to their commanders.

One way to potentially avoid this was by sending a brief text message containing as few characters as possible, enabling large amounts of information to be sent in just a few milliseconds. People could still home in on this; Huff-Duff sets had revealed a U-Boat's location the moment the radio operator hit the transmit key, but the higher frequencies might throw them off for a short period. The only major downside was that composing the message was very laborious, requiring Lisa to call up a keyboard on her HUD and look at each specific character in turn, blinking to signal that was the one she wanted.

EYES ON LOCALS – RESEMBLE OLD EARTH EQUINES BARRING COLOUR/FACIAL FEATURES, FOUR DISTINCT SPECIES OBSERVED: UNICORN, PEGASUS, WINGED UNICORN, AND REGULAR. NO EYES ON TETHER SYSTEM, NO OBVIOUS CLOAKING DEVICES, NO OBVIOUS CAUSE FOR RELOCATION TO PRESENT LOCATION. POSSIBLE ORGANIC BASED TETHER SYSTEM. REPEAT – NO EYES ON TETHER SYSTEM, POSSIBLE ORGANIC SYSTEM. LOCALS MAY BE AWARE OF PRESENCE – DISCOVERED OBSERVATION POINT WITHOUT DIFFICULTY. PLEASE ADVISE.

Lisa hit send and awaited a reply, getting it just a few minutes later and on an open channel. While it was a risk sending messages, receiving them was perfectly safe.

'Spartan, how close are they to your present location now, and have they made any moves towards it? Are they showing hostile intent?'

APPROX 80 METRES FROM PRESENT LOCATION, MAKING NO MOVE TOWARDS ME AT THIS TIME BUT POINTING INTO THE WOODS, THOUGH AN AREA 100 METRES TO MY LEFT. NO HOSTILE INTENT SHOWN – REPEAT, NONE SHOWN – THOUGH CANNOT PROPERLY ASSESS ALIEN BODY LANGUAGE AND FACIAL FEATURES AT THIS TIME – INTELLIGENCE LACKING IN THIS REGARD.

'What does your gut say?'

NO HOSTILE INTENT, NOR INSURRECTIONIST PRESENCE OR CONNECTION, THOUGH CANNOT GUARANTEE RELIABILITY OF THIS SOURCE.

'It hasn't failed us yet, Spartan, though I see your point. Okay, we'll take this nice and slow. How confident are you in your ability to tackle these six should they engage you?'

FAIRLY.

'All right, then. Initiate first contact with these six equines to begin with, Spartan, and play all resulting situations by ear. If you feel they're leading you into a trap, or stalling for time until Insurrectionists can arrive on scene, you have permission to engage as you see fit. Otherwise, follow established protocols whilst continuing your search for evidence of Insurrectionist activities. Shadow Boxer will remain on station until such a time as you no longer require direct support. Is that understood?'

UNDERSTOOD. SPARTAN-A196, LOGGING OFF.

Lisa closed down the communications system and blinked several times to clear her eyes, shaking her head to help clear it, and settled her gaze on the six ponies as they began fanning out across the hilltop and walking towards the trees. She was sitting more or less between the white unicorn and the pink pony's paths, and though she could see them clearly they couldn't see her, not with the sun in their eyes and her armour's subdued colour scheme.

Standing with her rifle held somewhere between at ease and ready to fire, Lisa started walking towards the tree line and into full view of the six aliens that had come to her observation point, stopping when they did and looking at each in turn.

Whichever of them made the first move towards Lisa was likely their leader, and their actions would likely decide the fate of everyone present. Would war come to engulf this planet, or would peace remain?

For some reason, Lisa got the distinct impression that dark days lay ahead for everybody gathered here on the hilltop.