Chapter 8: Collision Course

A/N: Apologies for the long wait, but this chapter will be worth it at a whopping 10,000 words! Also, the second chapter of my Halo story, Plains of Ash and Fields of Glass is out, as well as the first chapter of a co-op with Marytana, the Elmyra Incident Files.

Merry Christmas!

Oh yes, a new Fanfic by my good friend the Nortamrican, will be up on my profile hopefully before New Years' Day.

So enjoy!

Chapter 8: Collision Course

Earth 4, E-day+2

Captain Del Rios yawned and sipped his tea as he strode up to the bridge. Even crawling slowly across space in stealth mode, the Infinity and the Justice were bound to be close to the Forerunner Installation.

As he settled back into the high-backed captain's chair, he ordered, "Status report."

The officer on watch reported, "All systems are green, and the MAC guns and backup capacitors are charging as we speak. Pelicans have been prepped for a boarding operation if all else fails, and Gypsy Team and the Chief are about to be alerted."

Del Rios nodded and glanced at the holoscreen. It showed that the Infinity was about half an hour away from the gravity wells, with the Justice one minute behind them.

He barked, "Send a radio first-contact package to the Installation, get a high-intensity sensor scan on the gravity wells, and take us to Battle Stations."

The klaxon blared, and all over the ship, men and women rushed to combat stations, excepting a team of 5 SPARTANS. They calmly walked to a pair of pelicans, one with a NOVA attached to the back. They boarded while checking their weapons.

The communications officer soon said, "We'll be able to tell whether they responded soon, sir." One minute later, and after no reply, Captain Del Rios sighed. "Section 2 it is."

Earlier, Communications Ensign Lukas Greenburg had picked up a strange signal emanating from an empty patch of space. Intrigued, he tuned in, but heard nothing but a multitude of long and short blips.

He shrugged and turned back, preparing for the first transit of the day aboard Lynx Wormhole Defense Force OB-3. Little did he know, but this was binary for translating the English language.

The sensor alarm blared. The sensor officer checked the results of the high-intensity scan and blanched. "Sir! Those aren't gravity walls, they're armed space stations. I'm seeing a multitude of missile tubes and energy projectors, and those gravimetric distortions are some sort of gravity shield.

Anything physical less than a MAC isn't going to make it through, and normal lasers are going to be bended like pretzels, so the chance of a hit decreases dramatically."

Captain Del Rios' forehead wrinkled in thought. "So we'll have to stealth in past the forts, send SPARTANs in with the NOVA, and get the heck out of Dodge before it detonates or the Flood escape containment." The others officers gave various noises of concurrence, and the two ships crept steadily closer.

After another 15 minutes, they had made it past the fortresses to the empty space below, but the installation appeared to be cloaked, and the only way to find it without losing cloak was to delay-launch a dud Archer connected through a fiber-optic cable to the ship.

Just as the launch was about to ordered, the holotank fizzled on into the face of Shipmaster Thar. He said, "We, the Confederacy, demand we also launch a tethered missile. It is a matter of honor in the battle against the Parasite."

Captain Del Rios waved a hand. "Sure, do what you want. It's not like we're going to stop you."

As the missiles neared the approximate position of the installation, both captains and the duty watch officers had forgotten one thing. Their external gravity fields were still on.

When the missiles contacted what was in reality a wormhole terminus, they dragged the two ships in, the Justice's greater mass only serving to pull it in slower. Luckily for both ships, the external gravity fields were close enough to this universe's gravity sails to allow them to pass through without being atomized.

In an instant of time that no one had managed to measure, the ships ceased to exist in one spot and started to exist in another, light-years away.

Captain Del Rios yelled, "What the grapp just happened?" Reports came flooding in. "Stellar Cartography is fried!" "External gravity fields all blew and their relays all tripped!" "Hull integrity on Frame 38 A at 55% and holding, refractive coating at 95% percent there!" "We lost our main comms transmitting antenna, it hit some sort of bouy !" "HOLY maulk we're in for a heap of trouble!"

This last remark was directed at the contents of the sensor screen, showing over 3 dozen of the gravimetric fortresses, as well as about 40 3 km long ships a slightly farther distance away. The system had 3 inhabited planets, and debris from recent battles or accidents still stained the skies of each.

Captain Del Rios roared, "Shields on full, give some room in case the Justice appears!" Altitude thrusters veered the infinity sharply "downwards", and the Justice appeared, flaring brightly. Within seconds, their shields flowered into life, and then faded as power levels stabilized.

For a few brief moments, the fortresses and the two ships hung in silence, neither making a move.

Then abruptly, the forty ships started powering up devices on the outside of their hulls, and the stations' sides bloomed in an explosion as each launched a massive amount of missiles through the yellow-tinted gravimetric shield.

The radiological alarm blared, and the tactical officer breathed a curse. He called to the captain, "We have 8,000, repeat eight-triple-zero missiles inbound, 4,000, repeat four-triple-zero missiles at each of us. And they all read as nukes."

The captain nearly choked, but recovered quickly and ordered the point defense system online. All over the ship, chain guns spun up, and miniature energy projectors glowed softly as power fed into their capacitors. Once they had fully charged, they shot out and picked off one to three missiles in a line, as the ship slowly spun to bring more to bear as others cooled.

With 45 seconds until impact, the chain guns rotated and spat out literal walls lead, and the missiles in the lead of the charge disintegrated as they ran into the massed shells.

The much-reduced missiles, only 200 in number, came screaming through the lead curtain, and then their EW activated. 1 in 7 missiles either exploded in waves of static jamming or multiplied into hundreds of false missile signatures, but Athena was designed for EW even better interconnected, and the last-ditch lasers ignored the false signatures, pierced through the static, and picked off only the true threats. Thirty-one more warheads were destroyed in the short interval, but 140 still bore in on their target.

Captain Del Rios barked, "Brace for impact!" But it never came.

The warheads all detonated 30,000 kilometres off, and hundreds of bomb-pumped laser clawed towards their target. The shields were quickly overwhelmed, but as the surviving laser attempted to rip apart alloys and humans, they were literally reflected into space by the refractive coating on the Infinity. Designed to mitigate the damage from the immense power of Energy Projectors, the reflective coating laughed at the relatively puny energies of the X-ray lasers.

The Justice faredlittle worse. Despite worse point defense systems (She had no chain guns) and a worse reflective coating, the green ship's armor was much thicker, and her only damage was a score of small, blackened pits in her vanadium alloy armor. The two ships stood undamaged and proud as every non-essential ampere of power was diverted to weapons systems' capacitors.

Admiral Hall, head of Manticore Wormhole Security, jerked as alarms blared, warning, "Unauthorized transit! Unauthorized transit!"

She spun to the cameras, and the sight there was unbelievable. A damaged, 5 kilometre long überdreadnought came through the wormhole, Warshawski sails flaring and then disappearing in a flurry of sparks that she recognized as overload. However, the sensors had detected no gravitic signals from either side of the terminus!

She screamed, "How did we not get at least a warning from Lynx?"

The sensors officer explained, "If this ship had gone in ballistic at just the right angle, it's possible that the still under construction defenses could have missed it, and it only turned on its Warshawskis as it went through. But it didn't pay off. They overloaded, and now she's a sitting duck."

Before the order to fire could be given, the intruder's altitude jets kicked in, an odd blue color, and it swung sharply downwards. "Unauthorized transit! Unauthorized transit!" The alarms squawked again.

The command bridges of every fort were stunned, their officers staring with slack jaws, as a ship came through….and through…and through. A 29 kilometre long ship, easily larger than 5 of the forts, loomed imperiously over them.

Admiral Hall heard a small gasp. "Oh Sweet Eridani, we're screwed." She squinted as she saw it's Washawskis also flare and fail. She wrenched her head away from the screen and punched four digits into the pad on her chair. A button rose from the armrest, and she stabbed it, grinning.

"No matter how large the Sollies or the Mesans build their ships, they can't stop 8,000 missiles with no sidewalls. And the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

But her mouth had soon morphed into an O of astonishment. The ships had started picking off missiles from far beyond normal interception range with some sort of intensely focused laser, and then outdated chain guns had spat out so many slugs that there was a literal radar contact from the spy probes around the terminus. But that wasn't even the worst of it. When the EW of the missiles, the best the Manticoran Navy could offer, went on, the ships had ignored all the false signatures and continued to pick off missiles at the same rate!

Then when the missiles, still a good deal in number, had detonated, the lasers had bounced off both ships like they were mirrors, and the only sign of millions of dollars' worth of the best equipment she had was a few blackened pits on the surface of the larger ship.

She screeched, "Reload! Reload now! Get Home Fleet on the grav com, tell them to make best speed, and get the RRF in here ASAP!"

Del Rios had to hold in a laugh at the ineffectiveness of the enemies' vast barrage of missiles. Those missiles were apparently used to get through the grav shields everything in this place seemed to have, and by judging by their performance, they hadn't thought of a refractive coating or hadn't made an effective one.

He looked at the tactical console, and ordered, "Let's see what they make of this! Fire the Big Stick at the closest station."

A ball of Tungsten, iron and depleted uranium, the size of a wet-navy destroyer, was magnetically accelerated to 4% of the speed of light and flashed through the 30 million miles between Infinity and the fort in less than 3 seconds.

Its sidewalls tore at the mass, resisting valiantly, but so great was the kinetic energy that the bubble of focused gravity literally rang like a bell before crumpling. The Super MAC round, much smaller and slower than before, still held enough power to tear through a shielded Covenant cruiser, and its record of obliterating any enemy in one shot held fast.

Against an unshielded station, not designed to resist kinetic force, the station simply flew apart when the MAC round passed straight through its center of mass. Pieces decompressed explosively, and the sidewalls vanished, leaving the MAC round to continue on its path through space.

Admiral Hall blanched. "What in all that was holy was that?!" She screeched hoarsely. The sensors officer gaped at the data on his console. "That—" He swallowed and tried again. "That was a large slug of metal accelerated to 30 million gravities. It tore right through the Defender's sidewalls, and if you look there-" He pointed to the tactical map. "You can see it went right through and is still moving at 10 million gravities, or .13% of the speed of light."

She flared, "Launch all LAC's and start moving the stations back! We can't hold against two ships like that."

Slowly, the 39 remaining fortresses moved out of range, but the Justice wanted its turn first.

The three energy projectors on the supercarrier glowed white and then fired three pencil-thin beams of energy at the next closest fortress.

The energy beams tore through the sidewalls like paper, and the station now sported 3 pencil-sized holes, going through the entire station. The decompression alone would have crippled that station as half the air rushed out, but one of the beams had gone straight through one of its fusion reactors, and it instantaneously lost containment.

A second station died, this time in the flower of an uncontrolled nuclear detonation. Before another could be destroyed by either ship, the 38 remaining stations had moved at incredible speeds out of range.

Athena beeped and said, "Sir, we have another salvo of missiles, about half the size of the previous heading our way, and I also see several hundred ships about ¼ the size of a Frigate heading our way on an intercept vector. Also, the small fleet of ships, designate Bogey Beta, has started accelerating at high velocities, and at current rates, they'll be here within 5 minutes.

"I have also detected a force of several hundred ships, designate Bogey Charlie, several hours away, also accelerating on an intercept course. I recommend avoiding combat with Bogey Charlie, as those numbers would undoubtedly be able to overwhelm our point defense, and our refractive coating will eventually scorch and be rendered useless. Although we would inflict somewhere in the vicinity of 25% casualties, both ships would be lost."

Captain Del Rios ordered, "Launch Shortswords and Cutlasses, and prep Gypsy Team for armed infiltration and capture of enemy flagship. Cutlasses stay close for support, we don't have many of you to spare. Swortswords, you are cleared to engage at your discretion. We will provide support as needed. IFF tags are now active, make sure not to shoot down any friendlies out there.

In the darkness of space, far beyond both forces, the fighters and LAC's met. As the much smaller Swortswords and Seraphs found to their chagrin, the small weapons on both could not penetrate the deep yellow bands on the top and bottom of the enemies, and the only way to get a missile for a kill was to slip one down the front or back while their grav shields there were down, for some inexplicable reason. They were forced to rely on their inferior lasers, but their superior maneuverability, armor on all sides, and energy shields evened the fight.

The ships of the RFF drew to within extreme range, and halted. As their missiles began to fire and were, in turn, blown out of space, the Infinity and the Justice began picking off ships at the fringes of the force with ridiculous ease.

Athena scrunched her virtual brow in concentration. "I'm detecting tight-beam comm lasers and directed gravimetric pulses in some sort of code… Isolating signal directions…. Got it. Found their flagship, it's the one in the middle receiving the most message traffic. Directing Dustin to Pelican Oh-Three-Four, and Gypsy is off."

Del Rios punched a button, and the holographic images of Gypsy Team and the Chief popped up. "Gypsy, Chief, I've directed Dustin to your Pelican, I want him with you for computer support. We want minimal casualties, as there was no reason to attack us, and we don't want another Covenant war. Shipmaster Thar has also sent a few Phantoms with Spec-Ops teams to back you up and secure areas you've cleared. Safe flying, and remember, we want their admiral or captain, alive. Infinity out." Master Chief took a glowing ship out of a nearby interface slot and plugged it in. Beyond the usual rush of cold mercury, there was silence.

As the battle in space raged, a single Pelican and three Phantoms flew unnoticed through the chaos for a moment, but as the enemy fleet neared, several flights of Shortswords and Seraphs escorted them in and blew a hole, sometimes with their own lives, through the AA fire and fighters of the enemy.

The infinity fired a half-power standard MAC round, knocking down the flagship's grav shields while leaving the ship untouched, and the Pelican and the three Seraphs flew right into the central hangar, as the fighters peeled off to return to the battle.

As the Pelican swiftly landed, the pings of multiple projectiles could be heard, as well as a few hisses of plasma weapons hitting the hull. The pilot requested, "Could you get out and stop that real quick? Those plasma weapons aren't exactly conductive to your ride's integrity."

The door opened, and the four remaining members of Gypsy Company and the Master Chief leapt out. Quickly taking cover behind the Pelican, all five swiftly pulled fragmentation grenades and threw them over the Pelican at the enemy guarding the door to the hangar. A chorus of startled screams, human-like in nature, thumps of people diving for cover, and then five dull crumps as the grenades detonated.

In the short interlude while their enemies still cowered under cover, the 5 SPARTANS fanned out, and were startled by the sight of several very human bodies on the floor, along with a pool of equally human blood. Dustin decided to interject for the first time. "By Jove! Scans of the blood indicate that these are indeed humans!" Master Chief, mildly surprised but nonplussed, calmly said, "Please send a burst to Infinity. These humans are still hostile, and I'm inclined to believe these are not humans from the UNSC."

The 5 smoothly drew their guns and spread out in the hanger, searching for additional enemies.

Master Chief turned a corner into a boxed-off area among some large containers. A stream of bullets met him. He quickly spun back around corner, waiting for his shredded shields to recharge. Checking his armor briefly for damage, he found only miniscule scratches and pits, odd for so many bullets. Checking the floor, he briefly saw that the projectiles were not bullets, but darts! He quickly opened up a commlink to the others. "Contacts using projectile weapons are extremely ineffective against MJOLNIR, caution not needed with this weapon, designate Gamma-Alpha."

A voice was heard. "Whoo-ee! Those Gamma-Alphas are in for a heapin' servin' of Falgh-whooping! Here I come!" The voice in question belonged to Jarvis-C-209, an eager man from Texas who was known for his lack of caution but also extreme expertise in avoidance. Dressed in a heavily customized, yellow, MJOLNIR variant, he could be seen leaping over boxes, and then rapid-fire shotgun blasts were heard.

A bleep signified that his shields had recharged, and he leapt back around the corner. Meeting a hail of darts, his shields quickly failed, but he strode ahead, ignoring the scratches in his olive green paint. Seeing a quartet of Gamma-Alphas, he gunned them all down with 4 precise bursts, each crumpling as the trio of bullets from his Battle Rifle went straight through the transparent orange visor of each.

Striding past them, he found himself back in the hangar proper, with dead bodies strewn about. On one side of the hangar, he saw a large number of enemies fleeing in panic from the Spec-Ops Elites, who had mandibles flared in bloodlust and energy swords drawn. There were several bodies strewn about, missing limbs and heads, and others dead from impalement.

On the other side, two SPARTANS, William-C-293 and Keith-C-257, kept slowly advancing, gunning down occasional soldiers exposed by their creeping advance. Jane-C-241 felled all those brave enough to poke even so much as an eye out of cover with precise shots from her DMR. Jarvis was nowhere to be seen, but quick shotgun blasts and shots of panic near the exit to the hangar indicated his position.

Keith came on the comm."Watch out for the ones with backpack-fed plasma weapons. They don't pack as much of a punch as Covvies, but they'll still hurt if you get hit without shields. Designate them Gamma-Bravos, and mark them as medium-danger targets."

Master Chief said, "Acknowledged. Mark kill priority to Gamma-Bravos." He took three giant strides and landed on a cargo container, leaping from container to container to where Jarvis was wreaking devastation. Jarvis was crouching behind a crate, shields flaring, and said, "Nice of you to join the party! Was gettin' mighty borin' all by my lonesome!"

Using another one of his frag grenades, he cleared a large pocket in the middle of the enemy group, he spun, attaching his Battle Rifle to his back and unsheathing his combat knife, he spun and landed in the middle of the cleared circle, boots thumping heavily to the floor. He kicked one man in the neck, and his head cracked to one side and then the man fell over limp, instantly dead. Before the man had even started crumpling, Chief had jumped off him, grabbed two men's heads and smashed them together. Their heads exploded like melons, the gore dripping out the bottom of the helmet.

He threw their dead bodies at two more men, knocking them down before he went for the final group of five. He whirled around, driving the knife into the base of one man's skull. Whipping it out, he bashed another man in the face, shattering his visor and shattering his skull. He dove underneath one of the remaining three, before flipping up and severing his spine.

Now only two remained, but both held plasma carbines. They both started to bring their weapons up, but Chief sprinted towards them and had rammed his knife into his chest cavity before withdrawing it and spinning on the last man, but there was still several feet between them, and his gun was aimed.

His hand tightened on the trigger, but before a single bolt of plasma flew from it, a shotgun blast blew a cantaloupe-sized hole in the man's chest. He fell to his knees, and then on his face, dead. Chief looked at Jarvis. "Good shot."

Jarvis shrugged. "Ain't nothin', sir." He nodded towards the door. "Looks locked. You should get Dustin in there, so he can wreak some good ole-fashioned chaos."

Chief looked around for an interface slot, but the ship's designers had obviously planned for this, as there was no interface port of any size. However, there was a door control, and the designers hadn't even dreamed of planning for an enemy that could rip through steel with ease. Punching a hole in the wall, he quickly extracted two wires and cut the insulation. Sheathing the combat knife, he pulled Dustin and held the chip against the wires. A green light leapt from the chip to the wires, and Dustin's English-accented voice sounded in his head.

"Someone made a poor choice. This door is directly linked to some sort of security console, and while it'll take me a few seconds to crack the firewall, from there I'll be able to open any door I want, even airlocks. Unfortunately, that's all I can do from here, so you'll have to get me to a more central location." A few seconds later, he whistled in a synthetic voice. "Man, these people must have never heard of AIs! Their firewall wasn't even adaptive! Feel free to pull me out anytime. Oh, and get Athena to work on a new hacking dumb AI. Their code isn't even binary or hexadecimal, could have problems without Smart AIs."

A green glow returned to the chip, and Master Chief inserted his chip back into his helmet. While he wasn't a replacement for Cortana—No one could replace Cortana—he would do. He turned to the Pelican and waved a hand. The pilot commed, "Much obliged." He strode over to the Spec-Ops teams, who had rounded up a small group of prisoners, and turned on his external speakers. "Your job is to keep this hanger secure. We can't have them taking it back, or we'll be stuck on this with no ride out, and that never ends well."

The Spec-Ops replied, "Of course. We would rather die and be sent to the seven hells than fail in anything, especially from you, Demon. The dishonor would lead to a life of shame."

He noticed out of the corner of his eye the few prisoners visibly stiffen at the Sangheili's statement. He deadpanned, "What? It's not like you can even understand me." He winced as he remembered a comment of Cortana. 'For a killing machine with no emotions, you can really crack a joke when you want.'

He jerked visibly as one of the prisoners replied, "Of course we can understand you, you Mesan scum."

'Mesan? Maybe they are at war with these 'Mesans.' That would explain the willingness to just fire at any old ship.', Chief thought, suppressing any surprise (and it was considerable). He said, "We are not these 'Mesans' you speak of. I am a member of the UNSC, and the Sangheili here—" motioning to the leader of the Spec-Ops team "Are part of the Separatists, or the Sangheili Empire. We are here because you attacked our ships without warning or reason. Now I would suggest not moving, for the Sangheili would be happy to challenge you to a blood duel—which you would assuredly lose." The Sangheili grinned viciously and ignited his energy sword for a short moment before deactivating it and replacing back on his belt.

Turning his back on the human prisoners, he wondered, 'Did the Forerunners seed humans on more than one planet, one Earth, after they fired the Halos? And if so, what is their reaction going to be to other humans with completely different technologies? And for that matter, how do they speak English?' Dismissing his thoughts and concentrating on the mission at hand, he turned back to the door. "Dustin, open that door. We're going in." The door began to slowly open.

The seriousness of the moment was disrupted as Jarvis hooted, "Hoorah! Time to blow this pop stand!"

Chief simply commed without looking at the others forming up behind him, "Jarvis, lock it down. We're going into a combat situation. Get serious."

Jarvis commed back, "Jeez! Alright then. But it's still time for me to get Dangerous! Enclosed spaces, narrow hallways… Hoorah!"

Chief just said as the door came fully open, "I'm on point. Jarvis, you're in charge of Team Two. Keith, form up on Jarvis. You'll be taking any side passages we some across.

"Jane, William, we're going in."

Toonity, E-Day+2

Noble 6 returned from the habitual half-sleep he was accustomed to, as the built-in clock buzzed, signaling that it was 6:00, time to start his daily workout. He began with 5 minutes of push-ups, moving up and down so fast that it was a blur. He continued with sit-ups, and leg lifts. He stopped after realizing nothing in this civilian home was likely to be tough enough to support the weight of a SPARTAN doing pull-ups or aerial planks.

Then he manually turned down the force-multiplying circuits and nanogel support layer to 50%, grimacing slightly under his helmet as five hundred pounds of weight fell upon his back. He then repeated the workout, this time tripling the length of each workout.

After he had finished this workout, he turned to the wall-mounted clock in the kitchen, and noticed that it read 5:00. Noticing that his suits' clock read 7:00, he silently trod to the entrance of the kitchen, where he could see the clock in the still-lighted living room, and the one in the hallway. They also read 5:00. He glanced at the clock, noticing within the diagnostics files that a minor error had been reported in the date-time-sunlight-strength correlator when he had fallen through that odd hole, and therefore his suits' internal clock must be off.

Correcting this minor error, he started treading back to his seat, when he heard a soft chant from the living room, which was brightly lit. Softly walking in, he noticed that the blue skunk, Brennan, was behind the small couch, curled up in a corner. He was softly muttering, "Get her off, get her off, get her off…" repeating endlessly.

He walked over and crouched next to him and shook him, saying softly, "Kid, kid, snap out of it." No response. He gently shook him. "Kid, get up. We've got work to do, and I need to talk to that thing in your pocket." No response. He shook him slightly harder. "Hello? Are you even listening?" No response.

Standing up, he picked up Brennan and took him to the dining room table, plunking him down in a seat. He was still muttering, and Noble 6 noticed now he was slowly, nearly imperceptibly, rocking from side to side.

Deciding that this could wait until the other members of this strange group were present, he decided to find the others. Slowly opening the door across the hall, he looked in and glimpsed a lump present underneath the bedsheets. Stealthily sneaking across the room, he swept off the covers and grabbed a drowsy Buster, also dropping him at the table in the dining room. Before Buster could even shake the sleep out of his eyes, Noble 6 was off again to find the other 2 members of the party.

After a few seconds of searching, he found the two female members in a bedroom at the end of the hall. Feathers were strewn everywhere, and the ripped remnants of pillows lay in their noble repose on the floor.

While the walls were barely visible, coated in feathers, the few cracks of wallpaper showed an eye-achingly pink wallpaper with equally vivid purple flowers. The ceiling was a very light shade of blue, with small clouds interspersed.

Noble 6 covered his visor with one hand and muttered, "Is she trying to make someone's eyeballs explode? Or is she just mostly blind and colorblind?" Walking gingerly in, noticing with distaste the forest-green, deep, plush carpet. He could feel himself sink an inch with every step he took.

He heard some muttering from the direction of the closet, where a large pile of clothing and pillows were heaped on the ground. The tip of a large, purple tail peeked out of one side, attesting to the identity of the sleeper. Rummaging around within the 6-foot tall heap, he extracted Fifi, who was currently squeezing the stuffing out of a small, fuzzy pillow. Removing the pillow only resulting in her latching on to his hand and exerting enough pressure that he could feel it even through his armor. He could hear some broken muttering in a mixture of English and French, but as it was utterly unintelligible to him, he not speaking French, he ignored it and dropped her on another chair in the dining room. She simply slumped in the chair, still sound asleep. But before she had even stopped sliding down the seat, Noble 6 was gone, returning for the other occupant of the pink room.

Extricating Babs by the ears from the heap of pink pillows and thick, purple blankets, he noticed she was wrapped around a large pillow, almost her size. She murmured, still asleep (it baffled him as to how she could still sleep through being pulled out of a bed, but she was a civilian. They had problems with perception.), "Buster, come here, my little snugglebunny." He rolled his eyes. Affection. All civilians had it, and all too often he had seen it kill them and the soldiers trying to protect them. All that affection amounted to was multiple liabilities.

He then realized with his current grip on Babs, and her current grip on the rather large pillow, that he would no longer fit through the door that was already too small and narrow for him to comfortably fit through. One of the objects needed to go, and it wasn't going to be him or Babs.

Grasping the pillow gently for him, but crushingly by any other standard, he pulled the pillow out of Babs' grasp and tossed it back onto the bed, where it rebounded off the multitude of other pillows and fell to the floor. However, this did not have consequences, as Babs, being a better morning person than Buster, instantly broke into full awareness.

"Hey, what the… Hey, leggo!" she screamed, twisting around to face him. "What's the big idea, huh? Pulling me out of my bed at…" she saw the clock and paled. "5:10 in the MORNING?! On a SATURDAY?!" She started frothing at the mouth. "Are you insane? I need my beauty sleep!" She started twisting and jerking, attempting to avail her ears of Noble 6's grasp. "Leggo!"

Noble 6 responded by hauling her by the ears, still protesting loudly, and dumping her at the second-to-last spot at the table. Buster had his head in the refrigerator, and his head came out, yawning, while his hands held a large jug of milk. He plodded over to the table, where a bowl of cornflakes sat. Pouring the milk into the bowl and picking up his spoon, he blearily looked over to where Babs sat, massaging her ears and muttering unintelligibly softly. He asked, "Babs, is it time for school already?"

Babs sighed. "No Buster, wake up. In case you hadn't noticed over there, Tall, Dark, and Silent just dragged me in here."

Buster blinked a few more times. "Wha? Who?" He suddenly was doused with a large bucket of ice water. He gasped and spluttered, now fully awake. "Babs? Why did you just use Gerards' Douse on me?"

Babs rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Because he—" she said, pointing at Noble 6, "Decided that waking everyone up by yanking them out of their beds and plunking them down at the dining room table at 5:00—" Her glare turned slightly Schadenfreudian. "On a Saturday was a good idea." She looked around the table at the other 3 occupants. "Anyone with me?" She was met with silence. Brennan sat, still rocking slightly side to side, staring at the ceiling, Buster was suddenly fixated on his bowl of corn flakes, and Fifi was still asleep. "Buster?"

Buster said, "Mrmf Magrmf shmall," or at least that's what it sounded like, for, before answering, Buster had crammed several large spoonfuls of corn flakes into his mouth and was chewing rather noisily.

Babs turned to Fifi. "Feef? At least you're with me, right?" Met with soft snoring, she shook Fifi, hard. "Hey Feef, time to wake up!"

Fifi bolted upright. "quoi? Qui est là?"

Babs asked again, "You're with me right?"

Fifi asked in rapid-fire French," qu'est-ce que tu racontes?" She shook her head, and then said slowly,"I am sorry, Babs, but I have no idea why you just asked me that question. I was….how you say, sleeping, no? It is hard to listen when one is sleeping, mon ami."

Babs sighed again. "Seriously? No one at all?" She directed her gaze to Noble 6, who by this time had removed the last chair to the living room and kneeled down, making him only slightly taller than the rest of the group.

He said, "Well, that data pad—The Traveler—said that there was some sort of quest, but I need more information from that thing before I move a single step. So, Brennan, I need you to get out the Traveler from your pocket."

Brennan made no reply, or even an indication he had heard Noble 6. He simply sat, rocking side to side and with his gaze fixated on the ceiling.

Noble 6 rolled his eyes, knowing none of the others could see. "Oh come on! Snap out of it, kid." No response. "Hey, kid, come on! I need that Traveler." He turned to Buster. "What the maulk is wrong with him?"

Buster flattened his ears closer to his head, swallowing and saying, "Hey watch it with the language, OK? But as far as Brennan goes, it seems like some sort of extreme reaction to Fifi's lavish affections. I can't really tell why, though, as we don't really know him very well. He's new here."

Fifi winked at Brennan. "I would like to know him better, though."

Brennan's reaction surprised everything. Instead of cowering as his previous manner would have suggested, he bared his teeth, than unexpectedly executed a nearly perfect backflip over the chair by gripping the top of the chair and vaulting over and behind it. He fell into a stance that Noble 6 recognized as a fighting stance—Suprisingly good, though nowhere near close to his prowess. However, this meant that he would likely be able to hurt the others, unprotected and weak compared to him.

He grabbed Brennan, and as Brennan growled menacingly and attempted to batter him with a flurry of punches, Noble 6 never moved. "Listen kid, calm down. I don't know why you have so many problems, but you need to stay calm."

Brennan yet again made no visible response to this, still struggling frantically. Noble 6 sighed inaudibly, than asked Buster, "Do you have any rope?"

Buster answered, "Yeah. One sec." He took another monstrous bite of cereal, and then walked to a door that Noble 6 could swear hadn't been there 10 seconds ago.

"What the maulk? How do things keep appearing?"

Buster's head reappeared out of the door. "Hey watch it!" His head disappeared back into the room, and various clanking and crashing noises were heard.

Several seconds later, he reappeared with a rather long coil of rope. "Will this do?"

Noble 6 gave a short, curt nod. "Yes. Hand it to me."

Buster handed him the coil of rope, and with methodical precision, showing practice, pushed Brennan down in his chair, uncoiled the rope, and wrapped and tied a knot, leaving Brennan secured to the chair, unable to move.

Noble 6 said, "Well, we're not getting the Traveler from him. Buster, can you see if he hid it in his tail or some pockets hidden behind him or some such?"

Buster laughed. "Sorry, it doesn't work that way. It's in Hammerspace somewhere, and I don't know if anyone could get it out of there if it's in his personal Hammerspace. I'll try however."

Babs interjected, "Wait, Buster, you're a Hammerspace Hacker? I didn't know that!"

Buster smirked. "Yep. And here's why." Looking behind him, he somehow pulled out a bright pink, heavily embellished diary. "Recognize this?"

Babs paled, and then reddened in rage. "You…. you…. you can't go around looking in people's diaries! That's just not right!" Than, ostensibly to herself, but likely heard by everyone by Buster, still standing next to the inexplicable door, "And there's some pretty embarrassing stuff in there about you."

She stood up. "And to show you just how much I appreciate that, I'm going to punt your sorry butt to Mars." She took a flying leap towards Buster, but was intercepted by Noble 6's hand.

"None of that."

But while he was stopping that confrontation, Fifi has snuck closer to Brennan, and he began to rock the chair, nearly falling over in his remonstrations.

Noble 6 turned around to discover this, and in one fluid motion, he set Babs back in her chair, grabbed Fifi, and set her back in a chair, as far away from Brennan as possible.

He said, "No. No more of that. I need information, and I will not have the people I am trying to have a serious meeting with trying to beat the maulk out of each other!"

Buster tsked. "What did I say about the language? You're in my house."

Noble 6 snapped, "I don't give a d-" He sighed and shaded his visor with his hand, a gesture that looked remarkably like a facepalm. "Fine, No more fighting, no more arguing. Just for you—" He said in a tone that no one could tell whether it was serious or sarcastic, "and the ladies, I'll watch my tone. Now—Buster, was it? Get back to work on finding that Traveler."

Buster gave a mock salute. "Yes sir!" He disappeared back into the door, followed by smashing noises for a few seconds, and then a rapid noise of a mouse and keyboard being used quickly and professionally.

While Buster was engrossed in attempting to find the exact Hammerspace frequency of Brennan's personal Hammerspace, Noble 6 turned to Babs and Fifi. "So what exactly is this Hammerspace?"

Babs shrugged. "Well, no one's quite sure, but it's an extradimensional pocket where a variety of objects are stored, including for some reason a disproportionate amount of large, blunt objects, such as anvils, 50 ton weights, hammers, and grand pianos, as well as signs and posters. Everyone also has their own private Hammerspace, but there are group, local, regional, national, and worldwide Hammerspace grids, but the levels higher than local require special forms." She shuddered. "Your politicians in Reality got nothing on ours. I don't even know why half of the paperwork is needed for a Hammerspace requisition. Here, take a look." She pulled out from behind her a large sheaf of papers, about the size of a small book.

Noble 6 took the offered pile and perused the first page. He agreed, "You're right, these questions have nothing to do with requisitioning. Favorite color? Boyfriend? Model of computer owned? It's more like a survey with a few requisition questions slipped in."

Babs nodded. "That's why we tend to stick to local grids for most things. However, the grids get progressively smaller, and while Hammerspace does refill itself—perhaps an explanation for why all those socks disappear—rather quickly, it's possible to empty it if enough people are overusing it."

Noble 6 asked, "So where exactly is this Hammerspace?"

Babs replied, "Well, you can usually feel it behind you, or behind thin objects, like trees or lampposts."

Fifi interjected for the first time, "And do not forget the Hammerspace in mah tail or your hair—in any large, poofy part of hair on your body. Oh and the Hammerspace in the—" She turned to Babs. "What is the things you carry, not clothing?"

Babs said, "Accessories?"

"Oui. All of ze accessories also have some Hammerspace in them."

Noble 6 asked, "Why does nothing in this place make any sense? Extradimensional pockets with access from everywhere? How is that even possible?"

Babs smirked. "Well, around here, there's only two laws, and the first always takes predecence over the second. Conservation of Comedy, and actual physics.

See, the Law of the Conservation of Comedy states that there must be a certain amount of funny and a certain amount of serious in everyone's lives, and indeed, in the universe in general. Take Fifi here." She gestured to Fifi. "Since she always chases the men, they all run away from her, generating humorous situations. But if she were to find a man and settle down, then she would be flooded with a deluge of men chasing her. See! That way, comedy is preserved. It can be rather cruel though.

"And then there's physics. They usually apply, but when something would be funnier without them, they can be delayed or even ignored when Comedy demands."

Noble 6 just shook his head. "A world based on Comedy? A place where physics are optional? I am not going to like this place."

Babs grinned. "And it gets better. If you stay here too long—we discovered this with Brennan—you turn into a toon yourself. Just hope it doesn't happen while you're sleeping, or you'll never get out of that armor you're wearing."

Noble 6 said, "Wait, I'll turn into one of you?" And then several seconds later, "And you discovered this with Brennan? He's not from around here, is he?"

Babs shook her head. "In fact, we just found him two days ago, sprawled out unconsious underneath Buster's basketball hoop. He's not even really a toon. He's from Reality."

Fifi gasped. "From reality?"

Babs hurried, "Sorry, Feef, but we forgot to tell you. Don't be angry!"

Fifi snorted. "Angry? Why, now he ees exotic too, no?"

Babs facepalmed. "Fifi, you really are shameless, aren't you?"

Fifi grinned. "Why, Babs, why would you say that? It's absolutely true!"

Noble 6 looked back and forth. "I'm missing something here, and I don't want to know."

Babs, however, had completely forgotten about Noble 6. "Remember that time when Johnny got a stripe down his back, and you chased him for a week? He didn't even have a tail!"

Fifi laughed. "He was a nice man. Shame that that secrety government program—if eet was secret, or even government—messed with him so much. He used to be quite the hunk.

But then they stuck him in a lab and hit him with some, how you say, radiation, no? It had some bad side effects. A Venus Flytrap was accidentally in the room, and he got horribly mutated, having the plant's head as heez own.

It was quite sad. He lost most of his sight, smell, hearing, and ability to speak in one fell swoop. Then they threw him out on the street.

He stayed here for a while, until that night. Ooh, that was ze saddest night in all of Toonity!"

Babs slowly, sadly, nodded. "The only time a toon has ever died. It had snowed for a week, and the pet store was out of insects. The radiation messed with his DNA, and so he didn't have normal toon resilience. He slowly withered away, until one day, he just fell over dead in the street."

Fifi sniffed. "It was soo sad! I cried for a week!"

Noble 6 held out his hands. "Alright, back to subject at hand, no more tangents." The two female toons ignored him. He grumbled, "Why is it no one here ever listens to me?"

Buster poked his head back out. "You know, Babs, Fifi, you guys are really singlemin—" He was cut off by the attention of the single-minded individuals in question snapping to glare at him, literal embers flaring in both's eyes. "Never mind," he gulped and ducked back into the door.

The two girls resumed talking, and Noble 6 resigned himself to listen. He couldn't order around citizens, let alone citizens from another nation entirely! He simply allowed any important nuggets of imformation seep into his mind while ignoring the rest.

"…And then I spin changed into Marilyn Monroe, and Buster melted like a puddle…"

"….Oui, my home needs some improvements, it's getting too small for all of my clothes…"

"….What's wrong with Brennan? He's acting really weird….."

"Ah, I may have been a little…. Headstrong, no?"

"Fifi, if you're admitting you were a little headstrong, you probably scarred him for life. You know you're too outgoing for most boys!"

"Oui, I am a leetle outgoing, no?"

"A little bit? If that was a little bit, than a skyscraper is just a little bit taller than a house, Feef. Face it, you're way outgoing."

Noble 6 cleared his throat. "That's enough gossip, we have work to do." Both girls eyes snapped to his visor, and Noble 6 actually sat back half an inch in his seat, which would be jumping to the ceiling in a normal person. This was not because they were intimidating, (far from it, really) but that these two small, gossiping girls had glared at him, and their eyes were no longer their customary purple. Instead, they were fires, fires that looked like they came from Hell itself. The fact that these females could apparantly change the way their eyes looked, and that it currently looked like their faces were on fire, discomfited Noble 6. "Um, enough with the creepy eye trick. Back to buisness."

Buster popped out of the door, holding the Traveler. "Got it! Man, there was some serious Hagen encryption on that Hammerspace pocket!"

Noble 6 gestured a hand. "Sit down, and hand it to me."

Buster complied, handing the pad to Noble 6, but it remained dead. He turned the pad around and in all directions, trying to find the on switch. After several seconds, he found a miniscule blue button on the top of the Traveler, and he pressed it. The screen lit up, and the pad once again scanned its surroundings with the bright green laser grid.

It beeped, and then said, "Greetings Successor, Noble 6, Buster, Babs, Fifi. How may I be of assistance?" It noticed the casts on Brennan's arm and leg. "Infraradio healing treatment complete; removing casts."

A red laser shot out from the top of the pad, cutting the casts off. Unfortunately, it also cut about half of the ropes restraining Brennan, and he gradually started working free with his thrashings. The pad beeped again. "I am detecting signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Brennan, with the object of his distress being….. Fifi." A red laser pointed to her. "Kindly, tell exactly what you did to Brennan to damage the mental state of the only Successor among this party."

Fifi gulped and said carefully, "I, ah… expressed mah affection for him, how you say, exuberantly?"

The pad said in a tone that invoked an image of facepalmery to all present (except Noble 6 as he didn't know what a facepalm was, but he still caught the point), "And you thought it was a good idea to damage this parties' Successor….. why, exactly?"

Fifi shrugged. "I am very reflexive, no? I just can't help myself."

Babs interjected, "Hey, that's my line!"

Noble 6 shook his head. "Alright, back to buisness. Traveler, you said something about a quest?"

The pad beeped. "Certainly. While the true cause is complicated, suffice it to say that his," pointing to Brennan, "Theirs," pointing to the toons, "And a yet-to-be-determined universe caused a catastrophic weakening of the Barriers between universes. While this will cause much good in the future, for now all is chaos, as you can see, and there are those that when they discover this, will try to conquer and opress all, as all is now within their reach. To show the true magnitude of the task your team, among several, has been chosen to undertake, allow me to show this imagery."

A holograph popped up, showing several species, including what Noble 6 recognized as a human, some of the Covenant species, and the toons. "This is a sampling of several of the known species in the Multiverse." The hologram zoomed out and rotated, showing several planets of differing sizes orbiting around a star. "This is a sample of many of the worlds inhabited by sentient beings." The hologram zoomed out yet again, showing several galaxies overlaid on one another. "These are the common galaxies, a limit which most civilizations will never breach, as opportunities are plentiful within the galactic barrier.

The hologram zoomed out one last time, showing a vast sphere, hundreds of thousands of galaxies contained therein. "This is the average size of a universe." The universe, reduced to the icon of a circle, moved to the top left, and then a host of other circles appeared, several hundred in number, all connected by lines. "This is the known Multiverse, consisting of 473 known universes, each with several hundred thousand galaxies, which each contain hundreds of thousands of stars. And this number is not static. Each Multiverse is quite possibly infinite, with a minimum, according to Spengler's Hypothesis, of 5,000 universes contained in each."

The Multiverse, rendered into a square, was shown as on part of a very large branching structure. "While this is rare, it may be possible for those especially villainous to break alternate Multiverses, and there are billions of possible alternate Multiverses, each a tiny bit different than the previous.

The pad continued, "And then, of course, you add in the possible applications of the combination of magic and technology for effective time travel, you have all the time before and after of each Multiverse.

The hologram zoomed out, showing each square as a tiny dot, barely visible among millions of other dots representing different times. The pad concluded, "As you can see, the magnitude of the task you have been assigned is truly enormous. However, each of you will discover hidden strengths and new talents, recruiting others along the way to help hold the ground you have already taken. And can we now try to find a solution to Brennan's mental damage?"

Noble 6, reeling from the true scale of events, gruffly shook his head and said, " We don't have time. If what you say is true," ignoring an offended huff from the Traveler, " We hav no time to waste. We should get going to one of these places." Directing his gaze to Buster, he asked, "Do you have any spaceships available?"

The pad chuckled. "There is no need for spaceships, I can create portals now to any universe you desire. And The Great Clo-*ERROR*"

Noble 6 turned to the pad. "What did you say?"

The pad continued as if no comment had been made. "Has informed me that transportation will be available soon in your quest."

Noble 6 turned to the others. "Useless but able to follow orders, useless but able to follow orders, useless but able to follow orders," he said, pointing to the three toons. Ignoring any comments of an offended nature they may have made, he turned to the pad and Brennan and stated, "Useful and not needed to follow orders, and lastly, useless and unable to follow orders." He pointed to the pad. "Create a portal now, over near that…" He looked for the door, but it had disappeared. "What the h—never mind. Create it on that wall."

"Certainly," the Traveler said, "But may I inquire as to your intentions?"

Noble 6 said, "No. Do it now."

"Oh, all right. But I must protest your secrecy!"

The Traveler opened a portal, with a loud noise, much like that of a fast wind, with a large group of people speaking gibberish somewhere behind them. All turned to look behind them, as intermixed with the gibberish were words, disturbing words.

"You. You will all feel pain... and death. Oh yes... you will wish to die before I am done... and I will... gladly grant your... request."

When they turned back to the wall, a large hole stood in the wall, the bottom positioned at floor level.

Noble 6 smiled underneath his helmet, but just at that moment Brennan wiggled free and before he could leap off to who-knows-where, Noble 6 caught him by the scruff of his neck, a frequent occurrence in the past day.

Brennan curled into a ball, and Noble 6 tossed him through the portal.

The pad said, "What? Why did you toss the Successor into the portal? That may lead into a freezing wasteland, a boiling volcano, or even the vacuum of space!"

Noble 6 shrugged slightly. "He's the most useless, and the most expendable, member of the group at this time."

The pad said, "Oh, Noble 6, that was a poor decision. While he may be incapacitated at this time, he may have skills that will be valuable. He never got the opportunity to tell, as well as the others."

Noble 6 ignored him and waved to the other three toons. "Time to go."

They all shook their heads. "No way! That thing said it might go into outer space!"

Noble 6 rested one hand on the butt of his pistol. "Get in before I decide to get creative with my encouragement."

Seeing him ready to pull out one of his variety of weapons, they all gulped. "Geronimoo!" yelled Buster, doing a front flip into the portal.

Babs shrugged. "Once more into the breach!" She jumped headfirst in.

Fifi sighed. "Ah, to jump or not to jump. That eez the question, no?" She walked in calmly. "Ah will not lose mah dignity jumping into a glorified door!"

Noble 6 waited to be sure all had made it through, than grabbed the pad, attached it to the magnetic belt on his waist, and also walked slowly into the portal, leaving the lights still on.

Together, yet apart, they left on a journey that would take them farther than any ship ever could.

Earth Prime, E-Day+2

"Lieutenant, Command wants you and your boys. Call 'em in for a briefing at 0700."

Gary looked up from his daily cleaning of his M16A2, and saluted. "Sir!"

One hour later, Lieutenant Biggs and 1st Platoon were seated in the briefing room.

A captain stood before them. "Ever since your first contact with the insectoid hostiles yesterday, we have held a recon sat in geosynchronous orbit over the general area and a drone on standby waiting for closer pictures, and, if necessary, close air support. Evacuations have started. However, the clouds you encountered have dispersed, revealing this."

A screen hung from the ceiling, and portrayed upon it was a photograph of what were obviously vehicles of some kined, with small specks that could only be the insectoids.

"We tried to get a closer look with a Predator, but we lost contact with the Predator a quarter-mile from the image's location. We believe this to be their base camp. Those vehicles were obviously not here yesterday, or they would have used them in the obviously hostile action of killing civilians within their own homes.

"We need intel on where these vehicles are coming from, and if possible, a way to bottleneck or destroy that means of supply. This is where you come in. You will be part of a strike team, along with 4th platoon, and 3 Abrams we have allocated to your group. You will be in tactical command, so be careful. Until we get more Abrams from the States, we only have about 30 in total, and try not to lose any Abrams. Dismissed."

"Sir yes sir!" saluted the others. As they left to prep their Bradleys, grab their equipment, and inform the other groups in the mission, the captain grammbed Gary's shoulder.

"Lieutenant, be careful. Our Bradleys may be tough, but the insectoids have already shown that they can take them out. Do not attempt peaceful contact. As of now, they are hostiles. They killed nearly 100 civilians, if counts are correct, and we don't have the firepower yet to back up any negotiations or demands. It's en route from the US, but we won't have it all for several weeks.

"Exercise extreme caution, cut don't be a coward. If those bugs get in the way of completing your objective, blow them straight to hell."

Gary saluted. "Yes sir."

The captain clapped him on the back. "Good. You'd better be going, it's 4 hours to your objective."

As Gary left the building, he couldn't help feeling that something, anything, was going to go wrong. And when it did, it would spell trouble for him and his men.