Chapter Four: The Andromeda Galaxy.
"The war taught us many things, but most of all it taught us how to take a beating," – unnamed UNSC soldier.
Following the conclusion of the Human-Covenant war, the UNSC had been reduced to one hundred and fifty planets from their five hundred and eighty one. The Covenant splinter cell, although allied in the last stages of the war during 2553 to 2555, declined rendering aid. Their resources turned to their own worlds, ruined because of ONI Black Operations and the short three year civil war.
The following year, 2556, the UNSC Infinity, with the Spartan battalion aboard, with the newly promoted Commander John – 117 aboard, captained by Captain Thomas Lasky, set out to the first set of coordinates.
Finding the Covenant Shield World Requiem along with the Didact, and his Promethean soldiers trapped within led to a brief engagement that was dominated by the Spartan's. Ending in the Didact's death and the discovery of the Librarian. The Librarian, who was the mastermind behind the repopulation of the Galaxy following the first Halo activation, gave Cortana instructions for performing a procedure that would allow perfect health and passively reverse human aging.
Upon return, the procedure was examined by Dr. Catherine Halsey, Head of the Spartan Operations, and foremost expert on Human augmentation and Heightened Energy Abilities. The procedure was revealed to be creating an organ by cloning, a technique long practised by the UNSC, and inserting into the place taken up by the second Kidney.
The organ was composed of entirely grey matter, which contained neural cell bodies, and passively manipulated energy in cells in the host's body. A clever concept, which increased the body's natural healing abilities, stopped radiation from affecting the body, halted and reversed the age to anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five and on top of that it allowed the development of Heightened Energy Abilities. The organ, quickly name Ichor for granting agelessness, spread across human space, a simple organ cloning and transplant procedure being almost illegally simple to do and the cost almost as low.
By 2560, the upgraded Halycon class was decommissioned, making way to the Marathon II, a mixture of the Halycon and Marathon's similar designed, while integrating ship-wide shields. Four plasma Projectors on each side, one underneath the other, and utilising a Prow mounted MAC, capable of firing three quick shots in a row before powering down thanks to plasma tracks. Utilising two Triple Core Fusion reactor's that made the upgraded Halycon such a threat, despite its lack of Covenant technogy.
In the next two years the Marathon II was completely integrated into the UNSC fleet, utilising new shipyards that were based on the Forerunner Ark, and the newly created Hardlight display capability.
In 2565, the UNSC had retaken most of its former territory, while retiring the Trafalgar II; while the Thunderclap II and the Guardian gradually became obsolete thanks to the Marathon II.
Two decades later, the UNSC discovered a wreck at the edge of the Milky Way, near the Colony world Ironhead V.
The Invisible Man, Serin Osman, had been overlooking ONI for close to three decades now. He knew all their dirty little secrets, and accepted many of them as necessary. But sometimes there was a file that was transmitted to his computer that stumped him, like the file telling her she would be taking over his mentor, Admiral Parangosky, someone she had no short amount of disagreements with over the continuation of the Spartan II and Spartan IV's. Even with the strictly intelligence and sabotage natured Spartan III's; who no one outside of the Spartan Program and herself knew about. They had even stolen their name from the old, failed Spartan III program of Colonel Ackerson.
Someone she had taken great joy in silencing when she rose to office, as a Spartan II washout, she deeply distrusted a man willing to make second rate Spartans.
But the file on her desk even eclipsed her idea of creating an intelligence division of the Spartan Corps. Who manned the Stalker Class, the descendant of the Prowler Class vessels.
And her stumpage came in the form of a report submitted by an AI pair, ELI and EMMA, all AI' worked in gender orientated pairs now, Dual Core technology making it possible for pairs to form and even 'break up' from each other. Although the UNSC had no limitations on pairing types, as long as they worked together. Although the AI's had put their own stigma on the pairs anyway, a great many scientists liked to think that they were developing tastes by limiting their options.
The AI, who had been in service for twelve years now, alternating between civilian and military in short intervals, had been aboard the old Guardian class ship Independence. A long serving ship with more history and scars from the war that gave historians the chance to launch several requests for it to become Heritage Listed.
Delusionist's, why would the UNSC turn a perfectly good, but old, ship into a decorative feature on some tour companies route. But despite its old age the Guardian Class still boasted similar sensor technology to the newer models, that was the one thing on ships that hadn't improved with the war, the Covenant really sucked at sensor technology.
Those sensors, detected a heavily damaged ship on the edge of UNSC controlled space, over the glassed ruins of Biko, a small Colony they hadn't bothered to colonise yet. The ship had found the wrong end of a HAVOC mine, a space mine that detected ships and then shot towards it, detonating its nuclear ordinance on the shields and breeching anything less than a Trafalgar III strength shield. Which held the medal for strongest shield in the Galaxy at the moment.
It was easy to imagine what happened, somehow the vessel had managed to survive the blast, although it had split in two, and its guts was scattered across the better part of the solar system. ELI determining that from the wreckage spread the sight was roughly ten to fifteen years old.
Inside the boarding team had found bodies of above twenty different unknown Alien species, and including humans. They were all determined to be intelligent Species, and as such, designated ET-11 to ET-34, the overs where taken up by the seven former species, Promethean's, Forerunner and Flood. Then shoved in body bags and taken onto the Independence for ONI to investigate. The boarding team, which had taken EMMA, the civilian half of ELI and EMMA, onto the vessel, invaded its computer systems, snatching a copy of everything in its computers.
The amount of information gathered was staggering, it was clear from the data that the vessel was a scientific one, and had simply stumbled upon Biko. Of course like all scientists they seemed to not know when to stay away and going into low orbit over the glassed area. Accidently making them a target for the HAVOC mine in orbit.
The scientific vessel had come from the Andromeda Galaxy, and the information on the ship indicated that the Andromeda Galaxy was composed of a governing body called the Republic. Although little else was gleaned more than personal files, scientific theories about how the ground was turned to glass, they thought it was from a geological event, letters home and several other important things.
Although the limited weapon systems aboard called 'turbo lasers' was a plasma based weaponry that was superheated and super condensed into a short beam that dissipated into the enemy ship on impact, inflicting enormous mechanical and electrical damage. Although for a real comparison a modern warship would have to be captured at some stage.
The ship had on board some small arms weapons as well, which were there in the event of a pirate boarding party, they worked on a different principle. Creating a Hardlight projectile from oxygen and ambient light; and then heating it before firing it. Although the technology was not something that the UNSC had thought of yet, Hardlight display's, roads and bridges only being discovered in the last decade. The idea had enough merit to juggle it down to the scientists on ONI's pay role.
Regardless of the advances that would come just from this vessel, this new galaxy dictated investigation, several of the Stalker class vessels and one of the Spartan III regiments aboard each boat would do, and an investigation of the Andromeda Galaxy was needed. As the capabilities of Hyperdrives and Slipspace drives were similar, the Slipspace requiring a bit more oomph, although the Hyperdrive of the Republic needed routes to be charted to stop ships from pancaking into planets.
Flicking her eyes back to report, Seron Osman took the time to reward the Captain, Commander Tark for sending her the report and no one else, as he had noted in his last paragraph. The young twenty eight year old was a bit too eager in his discovery, but that was too be expected in the younger years. He showed the qualities of a good captain, so doing just that, Seron promoted him to Captain, assigning him to the ONITask Force that would be taking the three month venture across to the Andromeda Galaxy.
Edward Siberious Tark, recently promoted Captain and the reason ten other captains and Rear Admiral Miranda Keyes were meeting in this dark room fidgeted nervously. He was the youngest here, born in 2556 in the post-war baby boom had completely missed the Human-Covenant war. secretly he dearly hoped that Second Contact didn't go that way too. It would be a pity if the strange humans (because they were completely devoid of the small part of the brain that housed the HEB abilities. Of which he had none.
Though the micro-organism found in their blood stream seemed to flock toward the Ichor organ, too bad the organ promptly smashed it too pulp when it entered the blood stream.
Still, he fidgeted nervously, one week ago he'd heard the mission brief, three months in cryo, followed by booby trap setting, stalking, and tagging every single thing they could in a different galaxy was a huge assignment. The fact that they couldn't get caught made it that much harder.
It was at that moment that Director Osman strode into the room, and the Hardlight display came to life, Déjà, the Reach AI; along with a picture of the wreck he had discovered six months previously.
"you all read the files I assume," she spoke in a clipped, measured tone, we nodded, Admiral Keyes, in her twenty year old ageless body, looked like she wanted to bite Osman's head off, "well then, I'm assigning you all to a Stalker Vessel, they've been prepped with eight SHIVA's each, along with a Spartan III team (four body), a Spartan II team (six body), and a regiment (one hundred and fifty body)."
"Spartan III's," a man off to the left interrupted, "I thought we only had two's and four's."
"We don't," Osman replied, "these are ONI's secret. Think of them as the Spartan II's of Black Ops."
The man nodded, a crisp measured response, Edward could already tell he had problems with Spartan's. A lot of people had trouble accepting them, at least now the program was treated as a extremely disciplined school, with summer breaks and the family was moved to the Planet the training was conducted on.
"What are our orders regarding contact," the admiral interjected, looking sharply at the man.
"If they contact you you're to respond, and lie," Osman countered, "we've decoded what they call basic so if you can convince them you're a trading vessel, then do so. We'll be supplying you with cargo to match that claim. But if they call your bluff your to either break off and flee, or Answer with the official first contact message and procedures. Those orders however, are subject to the situation"
"What about just destroying the vessel," grunted a man to Edward's left, "that'd solve first contact problems."
"We can't," grunted another, "we don't know who's the who in their Galaxy, we can't be accidently blowing up some King and starting a war."
"Exactly," said Osman, "but all your ships are going to be the Prototype Hunter Killer class, with all the benefits that comes with it."
"Hunter Killer," he himself asked, "what exa –"
"I am so glad you asked," interjected the AI, Déjà, "I've been salivating about this thing for the last year."
A display was brought up, the ship resembling a Covenant Carrier class from the war. except instead of purple it was black, and there was no break in its symmetrical design.
"this is a Hunter Killer, think all the benefits of the Stalker, gave us, Stealth generator, shields, state of the art sensors and the ability to sit around days in low power mode without anyone noticing. Then double the shield strength, add on four plasma projectors, two to each side. A bottom prow mounted Energy Projector, and eight Phoenix Missile silos mounted on its top prow."
"Phoenix," murmured the admiral, glancing at Osman.
"Energy Projector," grunted another, as they all examined the various assets of the ship.
"Yep, and it's twice as fast as its predecessor."
"Ah hm, excuse me," Edward interjected, "but I seem like the only one here who doesn't know what a Phoenix missile is?"
"Oh sorry," stuttered the AI, her Hardlight face flushed brighter, "The Phoenix missile is a prototype ship to ship strategic armament designed to replace previous missile designs. Its completion two months ago makes use of Republic technology as well as Cove –"
"Just the specifications Déjà," interjected Osman, her face twitching into a smile.
"Oh yes," the AI said, flustered once again, "well the missile is five metres by one metre in length, propelled by three Ion magnetic thins on the end allowing it vastly superior manouvrebility. It is designed to pass through ship shields by sensing the frequency with on board sensors and then adjusting its own shield to match."
A hologram appeared in front of them, of two shields touching each other, and then forming into a single one, a hole appearing inside the area where the two met.
"The hole created from two shields of the same frequency connecting allows the missile to slip in. where upon the missile disengages its shield, engaging a strong fast rotating magnetic field and releasing compressed superheated plasma in its nose to form a drill that is capable of burrowing inside vessel hauls. How far in it drills, and what its target is can be monitored and adjusted in real time by a shipboard AI. Its ordinance is a three metre by one metre compressed superheated plasma that detonates with a fourth of the strength of a Plasma Torpedo."
"So obviously this weapon is set to replace the Archer, Rapier and other missiles," a man on the opposite side of the console said, "those things are going to be a great advantage over in Andromeda."
But another captain was frowning, "though they are more easily stopped than a Plasma Torpedo."
"Yes their strength lies in the ability to disable ships without completely destroying them," retorted the Admiral dryly, "and launching hundreds at the same time will solve most of the problems."
"The Admiral's right," Osman said, nodding, "the missiles, used correctly will probably become our go to weapons on the Boats. They have an inbuilt micro Triple Fusion Reactor as well," she smiled predatorily, "we finally have a decent weapon that doesn't drain our ships powerplants."
"What about the cost of these things," grunted another, "Fusion Reactors, Plasma, Energy Shields, magnetic field generators; these things aren't cheap."
The Admiral smiled, "they'd cost about three times as much as Mjolnir armour, if it we were still relying on pre-war construction technology."
The Admiral smiled over at the man who'd raised the question, "our top production lines can magnetically manipulate molten metal into different alloy configurations. I don't think they'd have a problem with making these."
"The Admiral's right, our production lines are capable of creating there missiles at the same cost as a Archer Missile O'Neill," said Osman, "but we have gone off track."
"Sorry Mam," the one called O'Neill said, not terribly sorry at all.
"no I can appreciate a good academic debate the same as any other person, but as I was saying you're going to be the first to man these vessels," she gestured towards the centre display again, which had taken up the image of the Hunter Killer class again, "they they've been in construction for the past year, and we had to rush to integrate a lot of the stuff we found on the Republic ship into their design. Now they have what they call a Hyperdrive, which, while requiring a star chart to navigate can be initiated much quicker than the Slipspace drive, and its completely silent, as long as you have stealth systems activated before you engage it no one will notice you enter systems. But there's a whole score of different things that this technology makes capable."
She paused, bringing up a picture of a microscopic organism, "this is bacta, a micro-organism that when applied mimics the cells of its inhabitant, forming a living version of bio-foam."
"You're kidding," exclaimed one of the Captains, "you're saying if we apply this stuff to a graze it'll form skin."
"yes, a temporary skin, it can form a perfect copy of the cells it attaches itself too, of course we've already prioritized growing colonies of it for distribution around the UNSC," Captain O'Neill whistled, "but it still won't heal burns and I don't recommend applying it to deep wounds."
"Obviously," grunted another Captain, "how the bloody hell didn't we come up with something like this, with all that research into stem cells for organ cloning…"
"Because we just didn't think it was possible," Edward interjected, "no one thought it was possible for a micro-organism to be versatile enough to mimic cells at demand."
"True," the Captain grunted in reply, "so what else have you got for us."
The Hardlight display morphed into another image, "is that a robot?"
"It is, but other in Andromeda they call these things Droids," Osman answered, "there quite common, and about as good as one of our Dumb AI's, they certainly punctured a hole in our Robotic's engineers ego. But we've already started designing our own, these are the first, over their they call them Astrometric droids."
"what do they do then," interjected O'Neill again, "those tin can's look like a puffed up version of my vacuum cleaner."
"they do a lot more than that Captain, these things are extremely capable mechanics and hackers," Osman said, "we've modified ours so they've got Hardlight Projector's poking out of their heads, ang given them a load of other tool upgrades so they can handle repairs inside and outside your vessel."
"Outside," Admiral Keyes interjected, interested.
"Their robots," Osman answered, "and thus vacuum capable. Of course they need a dedicated Dumb AI to work them, but we've modified our Smart and Dumb AI in the last update we sent around to prepare them for potentially hundreds of them all working in the same area. Gave the Smart AI's queen bee status and a local job server for the robot AI's."
The Hardlight screen blanked, "now your mission parameters and objectives are included in the files I've sent you, I just wanted you together in the same room so I could give you the send-off myself. And to tell you that communication between Galaxies will be limited, since it takes an hour for a Slipspace message to pass through the Galaxy bridge."
Five days later, Captain Tark was looking through his files on board his Hunter Killer class Stealth ship. He had yet to decide on its name, as its first captain he had that honour. But he couldn't decide on a name, despite the Smart AI's insistence on The Black Pearl.
Something was definitely off about that AI, picking the avatar of the pre-space movie character Jack Sparrow, or Captain Jack Sparrow as he insisted he be called.
It was on help that Captain O'Neill was insisting he call it Voyager, his ship was named Enterprise. God knows why, but Captain O'Neill had sent everyone in their twelve ship fleet copies of something called The Simpsons and Star Trek.
At least the other captains weren't badgering him with names, although they seemed to be a little condescending. But Edward expected that, he was the only one who had little to no combat experience.