Grace walked up to Jake where he had landed, Norm jogging to keep up with her longer strides. Ney'tiri had gone to help with the wounded.
"Grace!" Jake called out as he dismounted his Ikran. "Any idea what the hell just happened?"
"Armageddon; a fuck load of comets just appeared out of nowhere. That and I wouldn't stand too close to a reactor any time soon." She explained sourly.
"Armageddon? What do you mean Armageddon?"
In the back ground Norm responded to someone on his radio.
"Didn't you hear me? Comets, a lot of them; if we don't get hit soon we will later. It's only a matter of time." Grace sighed and shook her head. "We can use the Valkyrie to deflect them, at least for a while."
Jake grew cold all of a sudden. "Damn, that's dark..."
"Jake, Grace." Norm called. "We have a situation. Need to head over to the ops centre, like now." He looked a little pail.
As they began to walk Jake asked; "What kind of situation?"
"A fleet of kilometre long space ships kind of situation."
"Ma'am, we have contacts, rouge comets and lots of them." Reported the sensor station.
"The destroyer Nickelbackreports a glancing hit, no major damage." Called the com officer.
"All ships are to move to standby status, have all fighters ready to lunch." Juliana then began dishing out orders. She assigned a frigate to scout out every known planet and moon in the system and sweep the asteroid belt. Another group of frigates to move any threatening comets on a collision course with the gas giant. Two cruisers, a carrier and six destroyers were to go to the other side of the system in case there were any ships hiding there. Their sensors were good but they couldn't see through suns.
Meanwhile Milo had finally arrived on the bridge. "S, sorry I'm late, Ma'am."
She looked him up and down. He had a scrawny frame, had his arms loaded with a suitcase and other personal belongings. Poor kid had probably never set foot on a war ship besides the mothballed museum kind. "No, my apologies Mr?"
"Thatch, Milo James Thatch."
"I should have informed my security we had a civilian on board. Speaking of which, why are you hear?" She asked.
He set some of his things down beside him. "W, well I'm a his, historian and an archaeologist, of sorts. I specialise in, well lost things... including the lost Alpha Centauri system, and Pandora. Most think it's a myth but if you know where to look the proof is undeniable. At least that's what I know. No one ever really bothers to look, and now..."
Juliana chuckled at the young man. "Well, now we're looking and you've got to tell us what we're seeing. Can you give me a background on what we might find?"
"Yeah, sure." So Milo explained the supposed events that happened on Pandora. The natives apparent inability to listen to someone outside their society making negotiation difficult. The RDA's miss treatment of them in return. What little the UN could scavenge from the RDA's wiped mainframe computer. It implied the natives struck first but nothing was really clear.
"So, the natives, these Na'vi, could be anything from highly xenophobic to peaceful but suspicious or even so passive they don't actually exist outside of centuries old propaganda. They could have even industrialised in the four hundred odd years we've been out of contact or even wiped each other out with nuclear warfare." She summed up.
"Essentially; yes."
Juliana took a moment to think. "You're the one who knows the most about them, that makes you our de-facto ambassadorial adviser until someone more qualified shows up. I have no intention of waiting that long so if it is okay with you I want you on the first bird down."
Milo went wide eyed at the opportunity. "The that, that would be great!"
Juliana was about to continue when the com officer spoke out. "Ma'am the cruiser WarMachinereports the far side of the system is clear. The frigate TurnandStand reports it is hold position over a moon that fits the description of Pandora. They've also sighted a base on the surface just under ten square kilometres in size; Extra Solar Colony one, Hell's Gate." He said it like he almost didn't believe it.
"Very well. Bring us and our half of the battle group into orbit. Get a squad of ODSTs to prep for drop and recon as soon as night falls over the base." She ordered.
"I, I thought you said that, well I would be one of the first down."
"I said; you will be on the first bird down. If you want to get down before that I'm sure there's a spear HEV" (human entry vehicle) "you can borrow." Juliana joked.
"Uh, I'll wait." Milo knew a few ODSTs, he didn't consider any of them to be quite right in the head.
"Ma'am, contacts slipping in... it's the Elites." Called the sensor station.
"Good, ask them to meet us in orbit. I have a feeling this is going to be a long day."
Authors Notes: I know, I know; I'm certainly no model fan-fiction writer that updates regularly every week or month. Still I think I did warn you my updates can be irregular.
On a personal note I can really Sympathise with Sully; one of my Aunts is suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, no one really knows what cases it but the effects are obvious; slowly increasing paralysis. When I first met her (well, remember meeting her) she needed a walking stick and couldn't go up stairs without two people helping her. A couple of years later she was confined to a wheel chair. These days she can't get out of a hospital bed and can only make incoherent moans, you can forget about solid foods but at least she can still laugh, sort of. Apparently she used to be good at languages and literature, university level good. A shame really.
As for disabled war veterans I can claim some pride in the fact that due to the UK's NHS by comparison we treat them better than other countries. Earlier this year a group of them from Britain went on a trek to the North Pole. These were no minor injuries either most of them were missing a limb or two, one guy hat two knee down prosthetics! Another had a back so mangled his doctor originally said he would never walk again. It doesn't stop there either; there's a rally team made up of them who built their own car. The head mechanic has nothing from the waist down!
The Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has done more to draw attention to the cause than any other celebrity alive. It makes me rather proud compared to most countries who just give their soldiers a medal and leave them to fend for themselves.
Now, Reviews!
angelus288: I have in fact thought carefully about this topic and while I respect your argument I must ask; have you ever seen a picture of Earth from orbit? Even from the air in avatar? In the directors cut you do get a clip from inside an enclosed part of a mega city but you never get the wider picture. Both worlds display 'massive urban expansion' and in the first level of Halo 3 your fight through a set of overgrown hydro-power plants indicating some level of abandonment that theoretically could be linked to the colonisation boom giving nature room to breathe. Besides, they say Earth is dying not dead, not yet. Later on I will cover this in more detail. As for the ruling corporations the time lines are quite convenient in that mater. Avatar takes place around 2150 and Earth has a large interplanetary war around 2160-2170 (can't be bothered to look up the specific dates right now but you can go look for yourself) fought against communists and dictatorships that have risen up on Mars and the Jovian moons. Slip-space travel doesn't become available until at least 2210. There is one minor detail that solidly opposes my story and that is that the Spartan Jun is born in the Alpha Centaury system but I believe that is a small enough detail to sweep under the rug.
Valerianus: About the 'dead characters back to life' I will admit I'm having some doubts about that too but none of them will be making any major appearances for a while yet. As for Earth not being in as bad as a situation as most make it out to be I agree, the only description of Earth as a hole comes from a down on his luck ex-marine who could have his legs fixed but can't afford to, living in an apartment the barely bigger then my bathroom... and has to pay over twelve dollars for a Starbucks coffee. No offence intended but anyone in that situation is going to be more than a little pessimistic. Also; yes, a lot can happen in four hundred years. Four hundred years ago we believed the Earth was both flat and the centre of the universe that didn't extend beyond Neptune, were still hitting each other with pointy bits of metal and had barely mastered sailing without the assistance of oars. Now you only have to look at the device your reading this story off of to understand how far we've come, especially if you're reading this off your fancy touch screen, GPS capable phone that you can use to contact people on the other side of the world with. As for the Halo/Mass Effect cross over's I do agree to a point, they make decent stories and could be plausible if we were further from the galactic core then we are. Though I will admit while Citadel explored space only covers barely one percent of the galaxy but is well extremely spread out according to the maps, in addition there are estimated to be over one hundred billion stars in the galaxy (100,000,000,000) so one percent would include one hundred million star systems give or take a few regarding binary and trinary star systems. Of course most of them would be relatively baron. Add to that a good fifteen, twenty percent (just a guess) are locked up in the galactic core makes it unlikely that the Citadel Council would miss an empire as large as the Covenant. Of cores there was one story that did away with the Covenant, the Forerunners and the Flood and just had the UNSC butting heads with the council but that was just a 'lets role over the Citadel races and pretend they're too weak to fight back in any significant way and nobody dies unless they use orbital bombardment or asteroid warfare and oh yes the Reapers seem plausible so let's start mass producing nukes because one guy who was zapped by alien tech thinks so'. I HATE those kind of stories, sure their fun at first but after a while they get boring, like playing a game with all the cheat codes on... or being God.
Prototron MJ Tornada: Thanks for the support and while I have no plans for the Arbiter I might try to work him in, as for the Chief he will be making an appearance though he will be taking a side roll to Cortana in an unusual twist. Any more would be a spoiler. I do not like it when people cast Cortana's existence off as token or 'just a friend' to the Chief, I think there more than that but at the same time it's a little out of their reach considering who they are. Very hard characters to portray, especially if they're alone in a cross over.
Wow, almost as much AN as story. Sorry about that, I'll try to keep it short next time or cut the chapters into larger blocks. Keep the reviews coming and tell me if you like. For Democracy! Scope Eva over and out.