Chapter 13: The Map Room
Cris skimmed the Saurora over Abian IV's barren landscape. He pushed the thrusters on full and felt the resulting speed increase force him back in his chair. He stared out of the view screen at the wasteland below them. Lord Trepid was right, he realized this world is dead.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" Helen said impatiently in the co-pilot seat.
"I'm going as fast as I can. Can you tell me again why we're even doing this?"
Jason stood behind Helen's seat, gazing out at what was left of a once beautiful world. He ruffled his hair, bringing himself out of his thoughts. "I'm not sure exactly. All my master said is that if we don't stop the Covenant from finding whatever they came here to find, then the entire human race could be wiped out."
Cris breathed deeply, "stang, that's some heavy stuff. Lord Trepid how far are we?"
The Sith closed his eyes and relaxed himself in his seat, "I don't know. I can't find the Covenant squad anymore. There is a battle occurring near where I last sensed them, so the presence of so many beings could be masking them from me."
Silence filled the cockpit as everyone took this in. Helen squinted her eyes, realizing she could already see the battle off in the distance. Lights danced across the horizon, which continued to get brighter and brighter as they drew closer.
They were now flying over a small restoration settlement, which seemed to be the target of the Covenant. A lone Phantom drop ship flew from the nearby battle, but they paid it little attention as they took in the carnage that spread out before them. Several Kilometres away, the majority of the battle was taking place. Three large Republic weapons platforms shot high concentrated lasers at two massive Scarabs, their shots taking huge divots out of the Scarabs' purple metal armour.
No Covenant troops were left standing, allowing hundreds of Republic soldiers to fire everything they had at the giant machines. They watched as the Scarabs powered up their own weapons and shots and streams of plasma at the Republic army.
Unfortunately for the Covenant, one of the weapons platforms had done some serious damage to the head of second Scarab, causing it and the entire machine to explode in a flash of light from a power overload. With only one Scarab standing it made things much easier for the Republic.
The lead platform adjusted its main laser and fired. The energy bolt gutted the Scarab from head to tail. The machine shuddered from the impact, its head leaking superheated plasma. Then, just like the other, it exploded. Bits of metal and plasma flew high into the air, forcing Cris to swerve the Saurora out of the way.
The Saurora flew down and landed beside the lead platform. The four of them exited the ship and marched across the grey soil toward floating fortress. Around them stood hundreds of republic soldiers, many cheering that the battle was won, some silent and reflecting on the horrors they had experienced over the past two hours.
As the four of them made their way through the crowd toward the command center, Jason was filled with sorrow. The last time he had visited this world it had been full of life, even in the midst of a war. But now, ten years later, it was a husk of what it once was.
Jason was snapped out of his imagination as a hissing sound cut through the cheers of the soldiers. He looked up and saw a hatch on the side of the command center opening wipe, a small ladder descending to the ground from the center's interior.
A man in his late sixties popped his head out of the hatch to examine his surroundings, a satisfied yet tired look on his face. Jason found the man oddly familiar, but didn't know where he knew him from.
"Commander Petria!" Helen said with surprise. She and her brother quickly saluted while the commander gaped at them with surprise. Jason raised his eyebrows. Commander Tarth Petria was renowned as a strategic genius back in the Sith Guerrilla war. Jason had expected the man to have retired afterward, but it seemed he was wrong.
"Helen? Cris? What are you two doing here?"
"We're on a mission" Cris explained, "and come to think of we could use your help."
The commander nodded with understanding, "come in then, we'll see what we can do"
Cris led the way, gripping the ladder's rungs and pulling himself upward and into the command center. Jason then turned to Helen, but she already knew what he was wondering.
"Commander Petria was one of our teachers back in the military. He taught us everything from historic battles to space combat strategy."
The four of them eventually made their way inside the command center, brushing the planet's dust of their clothes. Jason looked around, intrigued by the command center's interior, which looked almost as damaged as its exterior. The weapons platform was obviously at the center of some heavy fighting.
The commander led them into a large empty conference room, with a table showing the entire battle field on its sleek surface. Jason was last inside and closed the door behind him.
"Pleas take a seat" Commander Petria offered as he deactivated the battle field layout in the table. All but Trepid obeyed and made themselves comfortable.
"So, what can I do for you?" Petria asked as he shuffled in his chair.
"We're looking for a squad of Covenant, they were sent here to find something on the planet surface" Helen explained, "We don't have many leads to go on. The last we knew the Covenant we're looking for were in this general area."
Petria scratched at the stubble on his chin, "Well as you saw we took care of all the Covenant in this area. Not to mention what's left of their fleet is currently retreating. So I'm not sure what to think other than mission accomplished."
Jason was already having doubts, "But didn't allot of the Covenant you were fighting send down drop ships for reinforcements?"
The commander nodded, "Yes, there was a couple dozen drop ships that came onto the battle field. They didn't drop off many troops, just several of their tanks and light attack vehicles."
Jason frowned, fearing the worst, "So there's a chance that they could have gotten off world before we could stop them."
"Hard to say" said Petria with a shrug, "but you said that the Covenant were looking for something, what makes you think they ever found it?"
Jason rubbed his eyes, thinking about his wounded master, hoping that the rescue crew Cris called for would get to her in time. "My master had a vision of the future" he explained, "She said if we don't stop them, then the Covenant could wipe the galaxy clean of the human race."
"But maybe..."
Jason was getting annoyed, "these are allot of maybes, and I feel there's only one way to find out if one of them are true. We find whatever it was that they were looking for, and see if it can give us any clues as to what their agenda is."
"But they could have taken whatever it is and left in the retreat" stated Trepid blandly.
"We have to try something" Jason roared with frustration, "we can't just sit around debating about this, we need to take action."
Helen reached out and gripped his hand firmly, "Jason I know you're upset over Keelu, but you need to calm down. Your right though, we need intel and we won't get that by arguing over possibilities."
Jason relaxed and his shoulders slumped. In this short time of knowing her, Helen already knew what to say to calm him. Jason opened his mouth to respond when the door slid open, revealing a tall Republic trooper in singed white armour.
"Permission to enter sir?" the trooper asked.
"Granted" said Petria, "what's the problem corporal?"
"Sir we believe we found something in the nearby crater and thought you might want to take a look."
Petria thought this over before getting to his feet. "Very well. The rest of you should come with me; this might be of interest to you."
Silently they followed the trooper out of the conference room and into the main control room. The trooper pointed a white finger out of the wide viewport where the crater spread out below them. They all followed the soldier's finger to a shining object on the far side of the crater.
"What is it?" asked Helen, squinting to see past the glare.
"From what our long range instruments can tell, it's some sort of buried structure." The soldier explained "we believe it is metallic in composition, but at this distance it is difficult to tell."
Petria turned away to face the soldier, "alright, I'm going to be taking a team across to examine the structure. Corporal I want you to call for evac and get the wounded off world as soon as you can."
"Of course sir" the corporal saluted and turned on his heel, heading off to follow out his orders.
"We're coming with you" Cris blurted.
The commander chuckled, "I never implied you weren't."
Five minutes later, the five of them were seated aboard a crowded drop ship cruising over the crater. Jason leaned out of the open side hatch to watch the structure draw closer. Is this what Covenant were looking for? He wondered to himself. Jason looked down and saw a small group of Covenant corpses lying at the bottom of the crater, wondering if they were the ones sent to find this thing.
At last they got close enough to see the structure in detail. The structure was actually a large elegant archway, leading deep into the planet surface. The drop ship slowed down and turned ninety degrees, allowing the occupants to disembark into the buried archway.
Jason and Helen were the first to step out of the drop ship and onto the metallic floor of the structure. Jason looked at the walls and ceiling and noticed something. He stepped closer to examine the wall on his left and found hundreds of geometric shapes etched into the metal. He had seen similar etchings ten years ago in the monastery on Vespae.
He backed away from the wall and found the rest of the team had assembled inside the structure, the drop ship fading into the distance. The team included him, Helen, Cris, Trepid, Commander Petria and seven of the best Republic commandoes Petria had at his disposal.
"Where to sir?" one of the commandoes asked Petria.
The commander shrugged, "forward I guess. But be on the lookout, we have no idea if this thing is actually empty."
Cautiously the team moved deeper into the structure, unsure as to what ended at the end of the winding hallway. As they rounded the second corner Jason moved up beside Helen. She turned and smiled at him, but he only frowned.
"What's wrong?" she whispered.
"This all seems too familiar" he replied softly, "there was a monastery back on Vespae which was really similar to this, only difference being this structure is made of metal, not stone like the other."
Helen was thinking this over, "there have been hundreds of stories that highly advanced alien civilizations existed before the Republic, this could be a remnant from one of them."
Jason nodded; he stretched out with the force and sensed that the metal was very old, just like the stones at the monastery. "You might be right."
Helen reached out and gripped his hand, weaving her fingers through his. Jason felt a warmth fill his body and he knew he was in love, he wasn't going to deny it. Helen had entered his life unexpectedly, and he was glad she had. She had helped change him in only a matter of days from a depressed, scared man into a Jedi once more. She was his inspiration, his drive, and he would do anything to protect her.
This structure was enormous, but Jason didn't mind much, he was busy savouring every moment with the woman he loved. As they ventured deeper into the structure the stale air started to get colder. Helen pulled Jason closer, keeping each other warm in their embrace.
As they rounded another corner, Jason was beginning to think they were traveling in circles until he spotted a small door at the far end of the hall. One of the commandoes held up his fist, signalling for them to stop.
He made several hand gestures and his fellow commandoes moved up to follow their silent orders. They took up positions on either side of the door, their weapons ready. Jason and Helen shifted away from one another, also readying themselves for whatever could be on the other side of the door.
When everyone was prepared, the commando opened the door. In a flash the commandoes were inside, their weapons scanning the room. Slowly they lowered their weapons; the room was empty. The lead commando back out of the room and turned to Petria.
"Sir there isn't much room in there. The rest of us will wait out here, besides there's something in there you might want to look at."
"Very well" said Petria, watching as the rest of the soldier exited the room.
Jason and the other followed the commander into the room, each having different ideas as to what they were about to find. When Jason entered the room he was fascinated by what he saw.
"It's a star map" said a fascinated Cris.
Jason couldn't tear his eyes away. Even though it was only a hologram, it was much more realistic than any he had ever seen before. He even wondered if it might be in real time. He stepped close and saw that the second planet in the hologram was surrounded by a flashing red circle.
"Didn't the Rakata spread star maps across the galaxy to find the location of the Star Forge?" Trepid asked, walking closer to the hologram.
Jason recalled his history lessons on the Jedi civil war. Almost two thousand years ago two former Jedi knights, Revan and Malak, searched for several star maps hidden on remote worlds. These maps brought them to the Star Forge, a massive machine created by the ancient Rakata. At this time the two Jedi knights had fallen to the dark side, and used the Star Forge to build a new Sith army to try and take over the galaxy. In the end, Revan redeemed himself by defeating his former apprentice, destroying the Star Forge and most of the Sith armada.
"Yes" answered Petria, "but I've studied the Rakatan system and it has many more planets than the ones this map is showing."
"Does anyone recognize this system?" Helen asked them.
Silence.
"I could be wrong, but I think I might have been there before."
Four heads turned to look at Cris, waiting for him to go on.
"I think that's the world of Taxyra in the Theelin system. A year after I graduated from the academy I went on a recon mission there. I was sent to watch for any pirate activity since senator Sa-Vin had been kidnapped a couple days previous. I found nothing but I was picking up some weird life sign readings from one of the planets. The same planet I think this map is pointing to."
"So whatever the Covenant are looking for is on this world?" Trepid wondered, slightly annoyed.
"Possibly" Helen said, walking over to what she thought might be a consol. When she stepped up in front of it, she felt as though the controls were oddly familiar. With nothing to loose she placed her hand on one of the controls. The Star map suddenly changed to show the entire galaxy with a smaller red circle pointing to system in the Expansion region.
"Yup, that's Theelin" Cris confirmed, "Hey how did you know what to do?"
Helen shrugged, "I don't know, I just guessed."
"We should assume the Covenant have this data" said Petria, "which means it's a race to find whatever is on that planet."
As they exited the map room with their new found knowledge, Jason started thinking about the structure they were in. There was some connection between the monastery, this structure and the planet pointed out on the star map, and he needed to find out what.
Kalleem stalked passed the Sangheilios guards, the two Huragok trailing behind with noisy puffs of gas. The Sanctum of the Hierarchs was just as magnificent as before, with the dying red star filling the large viewport. The only difference compared to last time being there was only one of the three hierarchs. The Prophet of Truth beamed as he approached. He came within several feet of the Prophet before sinking to his knees in a low bow.
"Welcome back Ship master, I assume your mission was successful?" he asked.
"Yes hierarch, I regretfully inform that the rest of my troops perished on the planet surface during the heavy fighting."
The prophet narrowed his eyes, "and yet you lived, why is that?"
Kalleem's lie could only go so far, and knew that he would have to tell the truth, or at least half of it. "Forgive me Hierarch, but there were too many humans to win against. They swarmed over my troops and before I knew it I was the last. I was forced to flee, or else risk the location of the Destroyer being lost."
Truth leaned back in his hover chair, his beady black eyes examining Kalleem like a Duma bird watching its prey. The seconds ticked by as Kalleem waited for the Prophet to speak. Finally the San'Shyuum ended the silence.
"I know well how important honour is to you Sangheili, but nonetheless you did the right thing leaving while you could. Your honour remains intact as long as no one knows of this, correct?"
Kalleem nodded.
"Then do not fret Ship master, your secret is safe with me" He said with a small wink, "we will tell your story of heroism as you fought and defeated the humans while your comrades died around you. There is no need to cover up the truth when we can just exaggerate it."
"Yes Hierarch" Kalleem agreed, "but we did loose the battle along with many lives."
The Prophet frowned, "a minor set back. We underestimated these humans, and we will not make the same mistake twice."
"What are you planning hierarch?"
The Prophet smiled darkly, "We have found several more of their systems and during your mission. We will send some of our forces to them to spread their forces and give us a better chance at finding the Destroyer" Truth leaned back in his chair and gazed out of the observation window, "And I believe it is finally time to present the humans with something they will never expect."