Chapter 7: The Grave I Missed So…
May 11th, 3239, 0345 hours (local extrapolation)
Slipspace Transition
RAF Cargo Shuttle Emerald Fox
"What's Vanguard?" Vennettilli asked.
"We already said. We're a private military corporation that does a number of jobs such as espionage, research, and the occasional wet-work." Samantha Jackson said. "We're also a publically traded corporation."
Roan came in, "Specifically we were contacted by the Office of Naval Intelligence to send agents to hunt you down. CEO Gustaff considered it, but eventually discarded the offer."
"Why?" Hera asked. "There's a sizable bounty on his head now." She hooked her thumb to indicate Chris.
Roan folded his arms. "CEO Gustaff didn't like it, said that there was too much cloak and dagger warfare going on, and decided to send us to make sure that nobody compromises you."
"What, would you say that he cares?" Chris asked.
Allen shrugged. "Don't know if 'care' would be the right word to use here, but he can definitely use you."
"Whoa, use me?" The Captain said with his hand up defensively. "What do you mean 'use me'?"
Roan said, "I understand that sounds ambiguous. Let me explain," He drew some files from his backpack. "I brought these along in case you were apprehensive. Looks like they came in handy, huh?"
"Give me the files."
"Alright." Roan said nodding. He opened it; on the front was a picture of a smiling man with a neat goatee. "Know who that is?"
"President Troy Marshall." Chris said.
"Right." Roan nodded. "You also know who the man in the picture behind him is?"
"Yes, President John Cleary. He died not too long ago, accident or something."
"Are you sure?"
Hera and Chris looked up at Roan. Jackson folded her arms and laughed.
"I love that look!" She said chuckling.
"Sorry?"
"Captain, after all the events that have happened to you, are you honestly going to believe that a simple 'accident' was able to claim the life of the most powerful man in Human space?"
Chris shrugged. "I mean, these things to happen with miscalculations and everything."
"Hmm." Roan said. "I wasn't expecting you to say that, but I have something to change your mind." He pulled out a box the size of a brick. "Know what this is?"
"It's a black box." Hera said. "A Flight Data Recorder. Most craft carry around three to five in order to gather information on everything that happened before a crash or before the ship was destroyed. "
"Right." Roan said. "But you might want to see this first. This FDR doesn't belong to the President's starliner. This is the Data Recorder to the CSS Starskimmer, a cruise-liner that was decommissioned roughly fifty years ago. It was around the same size as the President's craft."
"Point being?" Chris asked.
"Watch." Samantha said. "Mind if we hook this up to a computer?"
"Go right ahead." Hera said, not really knowing what to expect."
The Private Soldier hooked up a wireless link between the FDR and a computer. On the sceen, it appeared that they were on a wing.
"Yes, this camera happened to be on the wing of the Starskimmer." Allen explained. "Keep your eyes peeled. We're focusing on this…"
The Starskimmer emerged from slipspace into a dense asteroid field. Rocks started immediately pounding the ship. Vibrations shook the camera and the hull stressed. One rock punched through the hull, but no plume of atmosphere shot out, meaning the ship was already vented.
"Alright, keep your eye on this rock here!" Samantha said, pointing to an asteroid shaped somewhat like a cashew.
The Starskimmer took another hit as a rock flew into her wing. Debris rocketed outwards. After repeated hits from the asteroids, a kilometer-wide metalloid smashed into the cruiser and the camera shut down. The entire ordeal took around ten minutes.
"Notice anything weird about what you just saw?" Roan said.
"No." Vennettilli and Hera said.
"I'm going to rewind…" Roan said. He moved the video back to just before the big rock hit. When the camera cut out, he asked, "Did you see it?"
"See what?"
"One more time…Watch that big crater…"
Roan slowed the video down so that the cosmic stone inched forward.
"Look at that crater lip, near the shadow side!"
They saw it. It was a blue jet, visible for nearly half a second, then it disappeared.
"Is that…a thruster?"
"A Boeing Nero 813 Ion Thrust Vectoring Device to be precise."
Hera said it before Chris did. "So the asteroids were directed into the Starskimmer."
"Exactly. Just so happens I have a second Flight Data Recorder in my backpack." Jackson said reaching into her duffel. Another slightly damaged box was in her hand.
While she was scanning for a signal, she explained, "This camera's a 360 degree dome that was on the dorsal hull of the President's ship. It caught the entire barrage. Now, I know you aren't a fan of seeing people die, so I'm going to cut the film just before the rock hits."
She started the recording. The diplomatic craft was in slipspace. The pilots were talking, but she muted the noise. No distractions. A bright flash nearly blinded them as they transitioned into the normal universe deep within an asteroid field. The sound wave indicator on the bottom of the screen indicated that the pilots were surprised.
The message didn't quite sink in until they saw the kilometer-long cashew-shaped rock floating in the distance. Instantly, they started to accelerate towards the craft. There were dozens, no, hundreds of rocks ranging from the size of baseballs to the size of houses. All of them had the ghostly lines of ion thrusters on them. True to her word, Jackson killed the feed before anything larger than a pebble hit.
Chris felt terrible. It wasn't a quick way to die and was probably very painful. He swallowed the lump that was in his throat and spoke up. "So this wasn't an accident. It was an assassination."
"Correct." Roan confirmed. "Whoever did it had the time, patience, and money to preform it. These thrusters aren't cheap, easily costing more than a luxury car each. Don't even ask how much a decommissioned passenger liner was."
"We can't just point fingers at every multi-millionaire in the galaxy though. That'll take too long." Hera stated.
"Right." Roan agreed, "Not even counting the underworld though. Cleary had some pockets of strong opposition to his policies and even the signing of Mobians into the United Nations Allied Coalition."
"Pardon?" Chris said raising a finger.
The group looked to him. "Yeah?" Samantha asked.
"Not that talk about a presidential assassination conspiracy isn't mentally exercising or intriguing, but how does this lead to people chasing after me?"
The Mobian fox jumped to. "Hang on, Captain. I may have an explanation."
"You do?" Chris asked.
"You do?" Allan asked,
"Yeah. When I was a kid they told us stories about Chaos Emeralds. Some of the older people in my town said that when a person came in close contact with the Chaos Emeralds, they were given secrets to hold. The Emeralds trust them and thus, give up their deepest, darkest information."
"Wait, these rocks 'trust' me?"
Samantha nodded. "Yes! The Chaos Emeralds are extraterrestrial in origin. Some people believe that there are life-forms within the Emeralds, especially the Master Emerald."
"…Well, I've heard weirder." The Captain said. "What's this creature?"
"We called him Chaos, God of Destruction."
"That name seems odd with that epithet." Hera said.
"Shut up, we didn't pick it." Jackson growled.
Chris' eyes darted back and forth. "So…I actually do have something in my head."
"Correct, but you can't access it."
"I'm being hunted for a legitimate reason now?"
"Aside from being a murderer, yes."
"Fuck you; I didn't kill those people!"
Samantha got close to Chris and looked deep into his eyes. "Listen to me carefully. You already made headlines back on Mobius as an escapee, government criminal and destroying a whole spaceship! It doesn't matter that Major Hera is involved, you've already been named."
"You know a lot about us." NICOLE said. "Were you the ones that activated the jamming signal?"
Allen looked confused. "The hell you talking about?"
"When we were escaping from Mobius, I detected a military strength jamming signal coming from somewhere I couldn't place. I've since turned off the Captain's transponders but…?"
"No. We weren't even near Mobius. We boarded your ship while you were docked with the Harken Station."
NICOLE crossed her arms. "Hmm…that's one mystery that's still unsolved."
Roan and Jackson were told to make themselves comfortable. While they were setting up beds, Abigail called Chris into the cockpit. NICOLE locked the hatchway so that they could speak in private.
"Captain, do you think this is odd at all?"
"What do you mean?"
Hera shrugged. "I'm not sure I can trust them. We know nothing about them and they expect us to give them full run of the ship? They could be feeding information to ONI right now."
"I don't think so." The Human said. "If they did, ONI would be here in minutes."
"This is just a hunch though."
Chris shrugged. "Maybe, but I have a good feeling."
"Captain…"
"Major, this is not about rank. This is about trust, and right about now, I trust these two. They basically revealed that Cleary's death was an assassination."
"By the way, they still didn't explain how his death has any connection to you. They seemed awfully intent on switching subjects."
"Maybe they just didn't know."
"Whatever." She said looking out the window.
She sat there looking into the black night. She occasionally looked at a computer but didn't stop. Chris didn't try to figure out what was up. He checked the ship's email and found a recent one. A lump formed in his throat as he realized that it was from Rouge. He knew that she would contact him later, but now he was having second thoughts about opening it. He went with his gut though and decided that the message was harmless. He had no idea how Rouge found the shuttle's account, but that wasn't his top priority now. He scanned the message with curious eyes.
Human,
I know that this message will make you nervous as soon as you see it, but rest assured that you're alright. I am giving you a status update on the current state of affairs.
All goes well, and attention has shifted off you for the moment. I know though that they'll be sending agents after you disguised as civilians. No more ships. I think they're afraid you'll destroy him.
I also have this picture. You don't know this man, but if my suspicions are correct, you aren't alone in this. This is the picture of H. Welker, former Marine Corps master sergeant.
A man's face appeared. H. Welker had a strong face, chiselled chin, close-cropped hair; everything that a Marine was supposed to be. Welker's face was bruised and cut though. One eye was nearly closed. Obviously Welker had an interaction with an interrogator.
Welker, like you, came in contact with the Chaos Emeralds. Unfortunately he doesn't have the early warning systems that you had, so he was taken in. He was interrogated, tortured, and when he couldn't give the information they wanted, he was killed. I don't know how many other people out there are like this, but the way that they dealt with this man isn't reassuring. I still have no idea what this info is; codes, schematics, battle plans? What do they want?
I can't think about it right now. I can't be seen writing this to you. I've had a 'friend' encode it so that it will slip past the ONI hotword scanner. He wishes you luck.
I don't know where you're headed, and I know you have every right to run, but I hope that you find what you're looking for.
I'll send you a message again if I have the time.
-Rouge
A day later, NICOLE announced that they were at the end of their journey. Chris went into the bunk-room and knocked on the door-frame. "Hey, we're done the trip."
"Where are we?" Roan asked.
"Talahan."
"Talahan V, Talahan?"
"Yeah."
Sam huffed. "Huh, great hiding spot."
"One place they'd never look." The Captain admitted.
He told them to brace for the rapid deceleration and went back to the cockpit.
He buckled in and clipped his oxygen mask on. Hera turned to him and asked, "So what do you think we'll find?"
Chris thought about it hard. It would have been seven years since he had set foot on this god-forsaken planet. He didn't know what to expect except for an overgrown jungle world that stank of death and bad memories. He thought about this but simple said, "I don't know."
Hera wasn't convinced. "I know we'll find something. Maybe some clues to shed some light on Cleary's death."
"We're not here to search for clues." Chris said with the air of a parent scolding a child. "We are here to hide from anyone who wants to dice my brain for some alien secrets.
Hera sighed sadly. "Sue me, it was just a suggestion."
"Reverting to realspace in four, three, two…"
The night sky popped out of nowhere. What was once a void of nothing was replaced by an alien starfield.
"NICOLE, what's our current position?" Chris asked.
"Captain, we are approximately seventy one AUs from the star Eta Cassiopeia."
Hera tapped the navigation console. "Hmm, we're off course. Grossly. I programmed the ship to take us fifty thousand kilometers from the planet."
"No matter, we punch the engines, coast for a while, and we'll establish orbit by lunch." Chris reasoned. His tone was even, but he was scanning the night again."
"What's wrong?" The Major asked, sensing his discomfort.
"It should be around here."
"What…?"
"Incoming debris!" NICOLE shouted.
Hera tapped the foot pedals. The Emerald Fox sidestepped hard to starboard just before being smashed with a hundred foot piece of superstructure.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Hera asked livid.
"We have entered a debris field around the star. Quick scanning shows that these vessels date back to the Second Rainforest War on Talahan V. I believe that these are UNSC ships."
"Oh wow." Hera said looking at the floating pieces of flotsam and jetsam. She accidently caused the ship to spin 80 degrees. NICOLE popped up.
"Hmm, better let me drive." She said with an air of concern. The yoke slid out of Hera's fingers.
"So this is where he fought?"
"Not here, really." NICOLE said. "These are remnants of the Sixty-Seventh Patrol Flotilla. He arrived with the Three-Twenty-Two."
"Can you imagine what this must mean to him? Coming back to all this death?"
"…No. I cannot."
"I always hate these places." Jackson said cracking open a bottle of beer. "They give me the creeps."
"Me too." Roan agreed.
Sam looked out the window in their bunk room. "So, how many people you think died out here?"
"The way I heard it, forty thousand in Naval personnel alone. Rebels lost around fifty thousand."
"So it was a close victory?"
"Close is the understatement of the decade. Of the handful of remaining ships, the Indomitable was matched against three Talahan cruisers. She had a damaged hull, buckling superstructure, her reactors were nearly redlined, and she was low on ammo. She fired her MAC at the first cruiser who was also going to take a shot. The slug slams into the bow and causes the ship to turn and shoot its wingmate."
"You're kidding."
"No! It gets better! While the first ship is still recovering, the Indomitable flips and smashes it with her stern! The Talahan ship shatters in a thousand pieces! The third ship is so scared that it turns around and leaves. The Indomitable's crew them realize they are in the path of an anti-matter missile! The missile gets shot and the most amazing explosion is seen! It ripples the atmosphere and burns any ship that stands in its way!"
"Wow! I can't believe it! It must have been a heavy battle!"
"Yeah, I'll say. That AM missile was the last one they were reported to have up until a few years ago. When that went down, they had no other way to attack. If they had destroyed the Indomitable, the UNSC would have been heavy crippled."
"War is so unpredictable."
"Indeed, you are correct." Allan said.
Jackson tapped her bottle on the table.
"Be level with me, Allan. What are we supposed to find here?"
"I don't know. He picked the destination, so this has some significance to him."
"But Talahan is a backwater, an irradiated place with little sentiment towards the UNSC."
"But it's safe."
"Allan, the only thing worse than the radiated areas on Talahan are the cheap citizens. They'll stab you in the back the first chance they get. "
Allan had to agree. He then changed the topic. "So, were you bullshitting about the Locked information shtick? "
"No I wasn't. That's a deeply held belief on Mobius that the Chaos Emeralds can teach us things that we cannot learn with simple books and studies."
"So why would it choose a Human?"
"Why would it choose anybody, Allan?"
"Because it trusts him?"
"I would assume so. The Overlanders had Chaos Emeralds in their hands and became quite powerful until they were brought down in the Extermination."
"Call that an error in judgement."
Samantha smiled slightly. "Call it a bad decision."
Chris' eyes jumped from one wreck to another. He tried to pick out ships he knew, any sort of identification on their hulls that could reveal what they once were. Finally, he saw one, a broken vessel named the Romano Vargas. He remembered the name by seeing the Hull Classification Number printed on her intact prow, DD-712. He didn't dare look for bodies.
Hera said, "How many ships were lost out here?"
"One hundred and seventeen." He answered, as if he was sensing her question.
NICOLE announced that Talahan was close enough to be clearly distinguished.
Chris looked and saw the world he had tried to forget. Talahan was a green floating ball that was covered in jungle, heated by Eta Cassiopeia. Millions of years ago, a greenhouse effect took over the planet, causing the ambient temperature to jump up to thirty five degrees Celsius. Ice caps melted, jungles grew, and soon it became one of the most tropical places in Human space. This did not mean that it was a vacation spot, oh no. Talahan was a mean planet. There were predators larger than bears, Vultures with four wings, and even the fish were carnivorous.
Aside from these, Talahan V originally started as a mining planet owned by Talahan Extracts Corporation. It was the fifth planet that they owned, hence 'Talahan V'. The capital at the time was Derrick's Gulch, which made the majority of the planet's revenue in minerals such as Sodium and Carbon extract. Other cities on the planet focused on other things such as gold, silver, and a unique element called Vatanium which was useful in building supports and superstructure.
Things didn't start getting nasty until 2916 when the company was forcibly kicked off their own planet by unhappy miners. The company decided to cut their losses after gaining trillions in profits. After that, the miners started making demands; one thing led to another…
Chris just couldn't believe how a docile planet ended up as a rebellious hell-hole. He still couldn't believe it as they were rapidly approaching the surface. Talahan today was very different than the one he saw five years ago. It was still green, but large parts of it had become heavily irradiated from nuclear missiles; fires had started and had burned down millions of acres of forests, and to cap it all off, society here had downgraded into a scrounger society. He had no doubt that the people here wouldn't become mindless brutes…not just yet, but because the UNSC and the greater galactic community had abandoned them to whatever fate had in store, they would start to devolve back into farmers, increasingly unaware of their roots.
"Look at this place." Hera said, "It's amazing."
"You should have seen it before." Chris added.
"Was there a lot of jungle?"
"Plenty. Some say there was enough wood here to build a tower from Earth to the moon."
NICOLE announced, "I'm bringing us in. Where would you like me to put us down, Chris?"
"Locate the largest settlement on the planet."
"Scanning…tapping into what's left of the satellite grid…found it! The largest settlement on the planet is the…Kingdom of Blaine…?"
"What?" Chris said surprised. "Talahan never had a kingdom! It was a corporate mining outpost!"
NICOLE shrugged. "Well, according to this information, the Kingdom of Blaine was established two years ago and has a population of five thousand and seventy people."
"Of course, they probably followed a person who could get them what they need. I guess the power went to this Blaine guy's head and he started calling himself a king."
"NICOLE, traffic?" Chris asked.
"Non-existent. We are the only space-capable craft in the region."
That made Vennettilli think. If they were to set down, they would risk getting the Emerald Fox stolen. Then they would never get off. "OK, locate the closest UNSC base."
"UNSC Fort Pearson, one hundred and seventy miles from the Kingdom of Blaine. Looks deserted."
"Put us down there."
"Yes, sir."
Abigail was interested. "Chris, why put down there?"
"If we were to go to any populated center, we risk getting this ship taken from us. This 100mm gun in the trunk is a prime example of giving a blowtorch to cavemen. Who are they going to shoot if they take it?"
"Right, every populated place on the planet..."
"…which is why we are going to a vacated UNSC base."
The Emerald Fox made a rapid approach to Talahan. They skimmed past her two moons so close they could make out the smallest craters on the surface. The Emerald Fox hammered the atmosphere, becoming a fireball as it passed through layers of air.
"Hull temperature rising to fifteen hundred degrees!" NICOLE said.
From down the hall, Roan asked, "Hey, is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?"
"It's just you, Roan!" Hera called back.
Chris was sweating bullets. He tried to concentrate but the jostling just wouldn't let him focus.
"NICOLE, close the blast screens."
Thick metal sheets slipped over the windows. This made him less dizzy. "Good call." Hera said. "We took a few chips in the window during our escape from Earth. I don't think they would have survived all that heat.
"We are at 90,000 feet, lifting blast screen."
Blue-white clouds littered the area, giving them the impression that the ship was in a winter wonderland. It was beautiful because they could comprehend what they were seeing without the hindrance of lunatic government officials chasing them.
Hera transferred flight controls to Atmospheric Mode. She tested the rudders and elevators and soon she was flying the ship like a plane. Hera consulted the GPS and discovered that their target was only fifty miles from their position. She activated the airbrakes so rapidly that Chris' head hit the control panel.
"JESUS! Are you alright?" She asked frantically."
"Ow…I'm alright. I just hit my head…I feel a little hungry though."
She decided he was joking.
Twenty minutes later, she slowed the Emerald Fox to a halt and then slowly descended through the use of VTOL engines. Slowly the freighter dipped below the highest trees. A few more minutes of careful piloting and they were safe on the ground.
"Looks like a clean landing; cutting power, and we are now safe on terra firma!" She announced happily.
"Good work, Major." Vennettilli said. He unclipped himself and took off his helmet. A little awkwardly, he walked to the bunk room where Jackson and Roan were. He was pleased to see that they were getting ready for a jungle excursion.
"Anything we should pack?" the fox asked.
"Just some weapons. Get a knife, preferably a big one, and some radiation treatment shots."
"It's not really as bad as they say, right?" the human mercenary asked, "I mean the radiation?"
Chris shrugged. "I wouldn't know. Personally I pushed this place out of my mind as soon as I left. I didn't care about it then. However, I would be cautious where you walk. If you start feeling dizzy, step backwards as far as you can."
"Good advice." Roan said with a hint of sarcasm.
Vennettilli walked to the airlock and opened it up. Familiar wet air flew into his nose, jungle birds called from all directions, and the most sunlight brought him back. He was back on Talahan.
He was back in Hell.
