Chapter Three
On board the UNSC Flight of the Bumblebee
"Jack. Wake up Jack, we're here." Jack's eyes slowly opened, he was sitting on the bridge, slumped over himself in his chair. Loki was right there, staring at his face, her holographic glow blinding him. He sat up, and she stood upright, "We're about to arrive in system, I engaged stealth procedures."
He stood, and stretched, "Good. Where's Liz?"
"I'm here," she said, walking through the open doorway from the crew quarters. "Took a quick shower."
Loki turned a display panel on the port side, a picture of a vast asteroid ring appeared, several asteroids were surrounded by ships and space stations, forming a spider web of sorts connecting several asteroids. "I've pinpointed their location, they are in the asteroid belt orbiting star. The sixth planet in the system as a similar orbit, and we can monitor them from there."
"Good. Liz, you have the bridge." He headed back to shower and eat something.
On board the Brilliant Exile
"Emma, I detected an unknown ship entering the system," Anbo said, turning to her. "Unknown vessel."
Em sat up, and looked over at him, "What do you mean?"
He pulled the sensor information over to the main screen, "I was doing a sweep of the edge of the system, like you requested, and I detected a Slipspace rupture." The sensor's bleeped as they detected a small rupture outside the orbit of the eighth planet. "When the ship scanned the area, it detected this vessel, only to have it disappear almost instantly."
An outline of the vessel appeared, generated by the computer. Em stood and walked towards the screen. "Looks UNSC, but if it's not in our database, that means it's new."
"Why here?" Neha asked, spinning around in her chair. "Out of all the Covenant operations to observe, why this one?"
Em shrugged, "Don't know, but it just means we'll have some company when we get in there." She tapped a control near her chair, and Iala appeared on screen, "Iala."
"Emma."
"We've detected a UNSC ship that's not in our database, our scanners can't pick it up anymore, they have cloaking technologies that are new to us. Think there's a chance they can see us?"
She shook her head, "Impossible. The UNSC is years behind me."
Em smiled, "Just wanted to make sure. All set to leave?"
"The drop ship is 90% complete, we will be ready before the end of a cycle," the communication closed as she went back to work.
On board the UNSC Flight of the Bumblebee
An alarm went off, "We've been scanned!" Jack came running onto the bridge, half dressed. Loki turned to him, "Right when we dropped out of Slipspace a Covenant band sensor sweep pinged us."
Jack looked confused, "What?"
"Someone knows we're here!"
Liz was seated at the sensor console, "The computer can't determine the source of the scan. It appears to be coming from the sixth planet, but there's nothing there."
Loki crossed her arms, and the alarm turned off, "Electromagnetic interference from the planet could be blocking our scans, we are running in dark mode."
"Continue course, maybe we'll find something when we get closer," Jack pulled his shirt on, and sat down in his chair, watching the view screen which displayed a picture of the sixth planet.
After several slow hours of moving through empty space, Loki announced that there was nothing in orbit of the sixth planet. "I've scanned it twice, empty. Whatever was there, isn't there anymore."
"Can you intercept radio transmissions from the station?" Jack asked.
"Of course."
He got up, "Any reports of us?"
Loki stood still for a second, then shook her head, "Nothing in the past hour."
"Actively translate everything we pick up, I want to know what's going on." Jack moved to the door to the crew quarters, "Liz, want anything to eat?"
She jumped up to follow him, "Thought you'd never ask!"
On board the Brilliant Exile
"Emma!" Anbo practically jumped out of his chair. "I have them!"
Em, who was talking to Neha, turned to him, "Have who?"
He walked over, excited, "The unknown UNSC ship! I found them!" He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the sensor panel. "See, right here, they just entered orbit of this planet!"
"How did you find them, I thought they disappeared?"
He nodded, "They did, but I was going over the sensor records of their arrival, and I managed to figure out their cloaking frequency. Some sort of new technology, similar to ours. But I found them!"
Em nodded, "Monitor them, if we have to we'll tell them to stay out of this when we make our run."
"Of course," Anbo said, sitting down at his station again.
Just then Lyoy walked in, dressed in her combat gear. "Dawo, come with me," she said.
Em turned to her, "Ready to go?"
"We are. Sorry for taking Dawo, we need him to translate Kig-yar for us."
"I understand," Em said, and hugged her. "Good luck."
She nodded as Dawo walked across the bridge to join her. They left, leaving the bridge in silence. Em turned to her remaining crew, Neha at the front of the bridge, Anbo off to the right, and Hnbi behind her on weapons. "Anbo let me know when the drop ship leaves."
"Right," he replied, pulling up a secondary view. His main focus was still on the stealth UNSC ship. There was only a short pause before he announced they were away.
Four hours later on board the Brilliant Exile
The now empty communications console beeped. Em jumped up and quickly accepted the communication. A burst of static came through the speaks, with Lyoy's voice heard in the background. It was too hard to hear. "Lyoy, this is Em. Say again, we didn't make out that transmission!"
There was a pause, and her voice came back, much clearer. "We've been detected, the Kig-yar have our drop ship, we need assistance!"
Em turned back to the bridge, "Neha, take us in at maximum speed, drop cloak if you need to."
"Right away, accelerating!"
"Charge weapons!"
Hnbi was the only one who sounded calm. "Weapons at 30% and rising."
Dawo turned to her, "We'll be detected by the UNSC ship in 10 seconds."
"I'll handle them," she said, and turned back to the communication console. She selected all the standard UNSC bands and started broadcasting, "Attention UNSC vessel, we are about to engage the Kig-yar fleet, please retreat if you wish to remain safe."
"They've spotted us, two ships moving to intercept us," Dawo reported.
"Neha!"
There was a sudden shift in the artificial gravity, "I'm dodging as best I can!"
"Weapons are at 95%, firing in 4 seconds," Hnbi reported calmly. There was a pause, and suddenly several bursts of plasma launched from the ship. "Direct hit on both target's weapon systems. They are launching boarding crafts."
Em started at the forward screen, "Burn them."
Another slavo of plasma shot forward, burning all the inbound ships. "Boarding craft destroyed." There was silence on the bridge as the Brilliant Exile sailed between the two Kig-yar ships as they could do nothing but watch.
Once the battle was over, Em noticed the communication console was flashing, there was an incoming communication. It was being broadcasted on the a standard UNSC channel. The Humans wanted to talk.
Notes from the author:
Okay everyone, I apologize for yesterday. I had a busy day, and I didn't get any work done on the story, and I felt that posting a chapter would ultimately make me more stressed (I've only just finished the first half of chapter 5, I'm was normally about 5 chapters ahead while writing part 1, so I'm feeling a bit more stressed this time, and posting yesterday would have added to that. But, here you go, and I'll try to work on posting everyday from now on. To be honest, at this point, I have only a vague idea of where the story is going.
Anyway, enjoy.