Vanguard
Chapter 9
"UNSC Vanguard"
[In orbit over Dantooine]
Ahsoka Tano was aboard the Gozanti-class cruiser Master Obi-wan Kenobi had given her back on Toydaria when her scanners picked up the signature of an unaffiliated starfighter making a break for open space. The Togruta herself was nearly falling asleep after staying up for the last several hours when the sensors pinged the signature. She sat up in her chair and wiped away the drool that had seeped from her mouth before tending to the instruments and got a lock on the runaway fighter, knowing the ship was going to make a jump at any second she was quick to start tracking the jump when the fighter when it leaves. The next instant the fighter disappeared from her scopes signifying that the ship had just jumped; it was only moments later when her instruments determined the ship's destination.
"Saleucami?" she mutters wondering what could be all the way out there on a backwater planet.
Nonetheless she managed to reach out with the force and felt that familiar sense of anger and distrust, no doubt it was Longarm, she mutters to herself "That's weird; I thought he didn't know how to activate the hyperdrive . . ."
Despite this she sets in the coordinates and activates the ship's hyperdrive sending the ship into hyperspace on route to Saleucami to find out why the SPARTAN would jump there. A few minutes after the jump Ahsoka began to receive an incoming transmission from the Jedi cruiser Vigilance, Obi-wan's new flagship after the loss of his old cruiser, the Negotiator, she opens the communication channels and shortly afterwards Kenobi himself appeared on hologram maintaining that respectable posture of his, standing tall with his hands folded behind his back and a face full of curiosity and pleasure.
Tano smiled "Greetings Kenobi, I didn't expect a call from you like this."
He returns a grin "Yes well things are looking good for the people of Toydaria, they were lucky to have you and your 'Longarm' fellow. Speaking of which how is he? Or have you part ways?"
She was very well tempted to tell him everything she knew about the SPARTAN and what she was doing as of right now but she felt that the time wasn't quite right just yet, she answers "He's doing well, right now he's getting some needed rest."
"Hmm well then I hope you won't mind to tell him that we might have a job offer for him."
"What kind of job?" Tano asks with sincere curiosity.
The Jedi general explains "The Republic is planning to take a massive ship building complex located in the null sector, no doubt the separatists will have that heavily guarded seeing that it mainly produces their Recusant destroyers. We would like for him to join us in hopes of taking the shipyard with fewer losses."
"You want to bring a mercenary into a military operation?"
"I know it sounds unorthodox but if it helps save lives . . ."
Ahsoka was silent for a moment thinking about this offer and says "I understand, I'll tell him about the offer but when is this taking place?"
"Before the end of this week."
"If he says yes then we'll be there but it's probably best to be prepared in the event he says no."
"Thank you Ahsoka . . . Kenobi out."
The hologram dissipates and silence filled the air once more. She let out a sigh as her mind raced thinking about what she'll find on Saleucami and if Ventress was following them as well, she thought about the event that Longarm may have jumped randomly to evade Ventress but something in her mind didn't set right with that possibility. She shifted her attention from Saleucami and onto the SPARTAN himself, Longarm always seemed focused and determined in what he does so there was no doubt Saleucami held some significant importance but what could it be to a SPARTAN lost in a galaxy he doesn't know, and then it came to her.
"Of course . . ." Ahsoka muttered to herself before speaking out loud "The ship, he's heading back to his ship!"
After that realization she also began to realize that the trip from Dantooine to Saleucami would take a few hours to make so she sets the ship's auto-pilot on and starts making her way back to her quarters in order to finally get some sleep she actually needed. She leaves the cockpit and slowly made her way through the quiet ship and after a moment she began to miss the SPARTAN's company for once despite knowing him for a short time, yes she could of done so without Longarm slamming her against the wall for not telling him about Ventress sooner but she placed the fault on herself. She started to pass the door that led into his room and decided to go inside and simply look around, when she came in the first thing she saw was Longarm's electro-staff she gave him back on Toydaria simply laying on the small desk. The young togruta stepped forward and picked it up seeing the different and new modifications the SPARTAN had made to it making it lighter but still just as durable as before. She sets the staff back down before looking around until her eyes stopped on something laying on the bed, she steps over and sits down on the bed picking up what seemed to be a photograph made out of some sort of laminated paper. The photograph itself had seen better days showing wears, tears, and even small burns but the picture was still very well clear enough for her to see what it was, James standing tall and proud in his armor with a scoped long barreled rifle next to a much taller SPARTAN armed with what looked like a heavy machine gun with an ammunition belt connected to a large box on his back, the man was wearing bulkier armor with a yellow chest plate, olive drab arms and legs, large bulky shoulder pads painted in olive drab and red, and an olive drab helmet with a large exposed orange visor unlike Longarm's narrow black slit visor. From the looks of it it seemed like these two super soldiers were pretty close friends or maybe even brothers but Ahsoka wasn't too sure about that and would have to ask Longarm about it, but as she looked at the picture of the two SPARTANs it occurred to her that this was the first time she seen Longarm truly happy. She tucks the photo away in one of her pouches along her waist and lies down in the SPARTAN's bed where she closed her eyes and fell asleep for the next few hours.
After several hours of peaceful sleep Ahsoka Tano woke up and sat up where she stretches her arms and legs, this was the first time she ever slept in days since first meeting Longarm in her apartment back on Coruscant, and gets up before walking out of the sleeping quarters making her way back to the ship's cockpit. When she finally came through the door she looked out the viewport and found the planet Saleucami down below before taking her seat and getting to work tracing the signature of the fighter that had fled from Dantooine. She figured since the system was partly colonized it wouldn't take long for the ship's scanners to pick up the ship and lock onto it, her assumption was correct as moments later the scanners picked up the familiar unaffiliated signature of the Porax-38 starfighter. It appeared to have landed in one of the more unexplored regions of the planet out in the open plains where the nearest village was roughly eighty two kilometers away but what she found odd was that close by there was a much larger energy signature of unknown origin, no doubt Longarm's ship, and she estimated it had to be a cruiser of some sort judging from the size of it.
She takes the auto-pilot off and manually takes control of the ship setting up a proper flight course to the surface and investigate the signature muttering to herself "Hang on Longarm . . ."
Time passed and Ahsoka's Gozanti cruiser was traveling along the surface currently four kilometers away from the unknown ship, her scanners had already picked up a large mass on scopes which made her become nervous and anxious as she drew closer to the site. A small mountain range was coming up but she simply piloted the ship to head up over it and that's when she saw it.
"Whoa . . ." she quietly said in awe.
Located on the open ground was a massive black angular warship with heavy armor plating ranging at four hundred and eighty five meters from stern to bow lying on the ground after an attempted crash landing, from the air she could make out that the ship was still largely intact and that it was definitely armed with point defense turrets housing two individual guns, numerous pods containing missiles, and two massive protrusions sticking out at front with one stacked up on the other. She also noticed the ship had four 'fins' located at the back of the ship possibly for stability, a structure sticking out of the dorsal section of the ship which she guessed was the bridge, but the most obvious feature was that from the bow to mid-section on both sides was these two utterly massive sloped plates of metal supposedly to act as heavy armor and on each of those plates were letters written out in bold white:
UNSC DDH-151 Vanguard
"The Vanguard . . ." Ahsoka said with astonishment.
It was shortly after that when she found a Porax-38 starfighter parked on the ground close by which prompted her to bring the ship down and land not too far from the Vanguard that dwarfed the Gozanti nearly four times its size. When she landed and walked off the loading ramp she was surprised to see all the details and engineering placed behind this beautiful vessel and started making her way towards the hull to see if she could find an airlock or some other way inside. When she reached the outer hull she was so tempted to touch the metal, she briefly ran her hand across the cold black metal and felt the ruggedness of each bit which depicted an engagement from long ago but there was no clear sign of damage across it. She soon finds a closed airlock ahead of her towards the bow and makes her way to it where she wondered on how to get in, at first she simply thought about knocking but she disregarded it, she could call out to Longarm inside but who would hear that from inside a warship? She started to run out of ideas until the door itself simply opened up, at first she jumped back waiting for someone to come out attacking but nothing came, she was starting to feel uneasy about the fact that the door had simply opened for her as if something inside wanted her to come in.
"I got a bad feeling about this . . ." she mutters to herself before walking through the airlock into the ship's network of hallways and bulkhead doors.
The airlock closed behind her and everything became dark quickly, fortunately she remedied that by activating one of her lightsabers but it was seconds later when the hallway lights came on illuminating the long empty corridors. She was beginning to get the feeling that someone was aware of her presence here and proceeded with caution after deactivating her saber but not holstering it.
She calls out "Hello!? Anybody here!?" but there was no response save for her short lived echo that didn't travel very far.
She continued venturing through the ship finding every corridor to be void of life until she passed a set of doors where the one to her left suddenly lights up and opens with a hiss of air, she looked inside to find nothing and thought it probably would be wise to go through even if this was going to be a setup. When she passed through the doorway the hatch closed behind her and locked itself denying her a chance to turn back and force her to keep on walking towards wherever this mysterious watcher was leading her to. After a while of walking and silence she began to hear a familiar voice mixed in with something burning like a plasma cutter burning into metal, she readies her other lightsaber hilt without activating them as she soon starts to approach an 'T' shaped intersection. The cutting sound grew louder and louder until she finally came to a corner and peeked around it to see Longarm cutting away at a wall panel in order to get inside where all the cables and other system circuitry was located, she didn't want to make any sounds as to alert the SPARTAN to her intrusion in his ship.
Then out of the blue without looking Longarm asks "Hey Tano, mind bringing me that line coupler in the toolbox behind me?"
Ahsoka hesitated to answer but if he knew she was there then what's the point, she holsters her sabers and walks out asking "How did you know I was here? You didn't even look at me."
She started walking towards the toolbox he mentioned when he said "I didn't have to look to know you were there, Percival alerted me the moment you jumped into the system and I told him to hold fire when you were on approach."
Tano was already looking inside the box when she looks up and asks "Percival? Who's that?"
The SPARTAN calls out "Percival! Come on out she won't bite."
A voice with a light British accent then echoes from the ship's intercom systems "UNSC AI serial number (PRC 5281-0) 'Percival' at your service."
The togruta stood up from the toolbox looking up around the ceiling searching for where the voice came from and asks "An AI?"
Longarm answered as he tries to effect repairs "Stands for Artificial Intelligence, sort of like droids but much more faster in thinking."
Percival explains "Yes, I am a sixth generation AI created by the UNSC to operate combat vessels in the war against the Covenant."
"So you're essentially the ship right?" Ahsoka asks with the upmost curiosity.
"In your perspective you are correct, I operate all functions of the ship with human aid, though recent events had deprived me of that aid."
That prompted her to ask the SPARTAN "What happened to the crew? I haven't seen anyone else here."
"Dead . . . most died during our long period of drifting through space, then more followed during the crash and later on. I'm the last one left."
"What happened?"
The SPARTAN sighed thinking about what started all of this, why they were here now, and he answered "Several years ago before the start of your Clone Wars, the Vanguard was stationed over the UEG colony world shortly before a Covenant scouting party arrived in system. We were the only ones close enough to respond and engage but when we made contact everything went to hell quickly, the Vanguard took down a corvette pretty easily but we were taking hits left and right until something happened."
Percival adds "Our sensors detected an energy spike occurring off our port bow at several hundred kilometers and overloaded all slipspace drives within the vicinity. The covenant fleet was destroyed but somehow we survived. We so far only have one theory as to why."
Tano asks "What is it?"
Longarm answered "Well our only guess as to why the Covenant was destroyed was because their FTL drives were much more finely tuned compared to us humans', we suspected their engines couldn't handle whatever hit them and overloaded. Our drive was somewhat more adaptable than theirs seeing that we still had flaws and vague ideas about the principle of slipstream space. Anyways whatever caused that energy spike initiated our drive and jumped us far out of our own galaxy, we've been drifting ever since a few years ago until we came here."
"Ok before we go on, what's this slipstream space?" the former Jedi asks trying to gain an understanding about what they're talking about.
The SPARTAN simply states "Basically where you have hyperspace, we have slipstream space. It's our method of faster than light travel."
She kneels back down by the toolbox and grabbed what she assumed was the line coupler Longarm requested "Alright . . . that explains how you got here and I guess you've been here repairing it ever since the crash right?"
She then hands the tool over to Longarm who answered "That's right, for five years. We're almost finished too."
"Then what were you doing on Coruscant?"
Percival had to ask "You certainly have many questions don't you?"
Longarm states "She has every right to ask those questions Percival, the last few weeks for me were pretty weird" he then answers "Several weeks ago I was up top repairing one of Vanguard's point defense turrets when Percival picked up movement not too far from the ship. I headed out to investigate, turns out they were smugglers making a delivery to their client and that's when they spotted me, shots were fired and they incapacitated me with a blaster set to stun. The next thing I knew I was stuck inside a cell on my way to Coruscant, when they landed I broke out and gave them the slip."
He finally repairs the component and begins wielding the wall panel back into place when Ahsoka asks with a raised eyebrow "And they didn't bother chasing you down? You're not that hard to miss."
The SPARTAN stopped for a brief moment and looked at her before saying "Um I think you misunderstood me on that last part, when I said I gave them the slip, I actually meant I killed them all with my bare hands and left their ship burning."
The AI states "You were never one to be subtle."
"No I am not . . ." Longarm states as he finishes up wielding the wall panel together, once that was finished he asks "Alright how is it now Percival?"
"Turret tracking speed and MAC charge up rate has increased by seventeen percent."
"Good"
The SPARTAN began packing everything back into the toolbox when Ahsoka asks "Alright with introduction and background stories out of the way, when do you expect this ship to launch?"
"Tomorrow" the AI answers quickly with no hesitation.
"Really? Tomorrow?"
"Correct, of course after I have completed simulations and systems check on all aspects of the ship."
Longarm states "So in the meantime we got time to do something, maybe a tour of the ship."
"Actually I had something else in mind" Tano says with a small grin on her face which seemed to have unsettled the SPARTAN.
"What do you mean?" Longarm asks with a worried tone.
"Remember when you said you promised me you'll show how to work one of your rifles and maybe even teach me how to sharpshoot?"
"Yes I remember that, but aren't Jedi meant to get up close and personal with their opponents?"
"Well yes but a Jedi aren't afraid to have a little variety in what they have available to them, and you forget I'm no longer part of the order."
"True, alright come with me while I go put this box away then we'll head over to the ship's armory and get ready."
Percival states "Very well, I will assume my standard operations and wait for your return."
Ahsoka replies with a smile "Thanks Percy, c'mon big guy let's get going."
Please leave your thoughts and comments. Thank you.
