Location Unknown, Time Unknown…
9S found himself walking through a corridor of what appeared to be a sizable spacecraft, so he kept moving forward until he found 2B awkwardly playing a game with several other ragged-looking Androids.
Upon seeing 9S, 2B leapt to her feet, clearly excited. "Nines, you're up!"
After giving a hasty apology to the other Androids, 2B walked over to 9S. "Soo… Nines, are you up for that trip to the new observation deck?"
"Absolutely!" 9S exclaimed, and the two headed off to the ship's new observation deck.
"Wow, this view is amazing," Nines saw the stars throughout the background, as well as a number of ships from their flotilla. "I heard this took quite the resources to renovate. I hope Anemone's right about it raising morale."
"Yeah, so do I," 2B nodded, letting a bit of a grim tone slip into her voice. She pointed up. "It looks like Nuruyev's group finished mining the asteroids."
A group of small mining craft flew past their observation deck en route to the ship's hangar.
"2B, do you ever miss the Bunker? Or Earth? Or A2? The Commander?" 9S muttered, feeling a strange tightness in his chest, as he stared up at the stars. He didn't want to check his astronomical maps, but he knew the Sol System was one of them out there.
"Yeah…" 2B sighed. "The Saratoga is a big ship, but it just doesn't cut it. And there isn't a day that I don't think of everyone we lost… A2… 6O… 21O… the Commander…" Her fists clenched as she thought of A2 before her final stand at the Cango Caves Launch Site..
"I'll be back! Don't worry, I won't go down so easily…" A2 had said, giving a forced smile that betrayed the fact that she was lying through her teeth. That was the last time either 2B or 9S had seen her, before she raced off into battle against enemy mechs and shock troops that were blasting their way into the fortified caves. It… was so many years ago now...
"Yeah...she saved the evacuees on the Kilimanjaro from the damned Turian invaders…" 9S sighed. "She was a hero…" 9S looked up, oddly nostalgic. "Heck, I even miss the Machines a little now. At least they made life interesting, and there were good ones like Pascal…"
Barely any of the Machines had made it offworld during the final evacuation... their alien enemies had been genocidal, relentless, and utterly merciless.
He looked back outside, and focused his gaze on a ship that looked to be in the middle of disassembly, with other capital ships, many small construction craft, and Androids tethered extra-vehicularly to it.
"Isn't that the Antioch? What are they doing to it?"
"Oh, didn't you hear?" 2B looked surprised. "Anemone didn't want to risk another accident, like what happened with the Forrestal and Tianjin. So she's ordering it to be dismantled, and used for spare parts for the Harare and Farragut. Captain Lavinia cried so hard over her little ship, poor thing…"
"Lavinia? Captain?" 9S looked startled. "Since when did she become Captain?"
2B looked away sadly. "Only for a couple days… Captain Chastity took her own life, leaving Lavinia the ranking officer on the Antioch…"
"Oh," 9S looked down. "Damn it all…"
"We can't do this forever, you know… we'll run out of ships eventually," 2B looked despondent. "We just can't build enough to replace the ones we're losing… we're running out of resources and out of Androids."
"Yeah," 9S shook his head in grief. "The… projections are horrible, and morale has hit rock-bottom. Rumor is, even Anemone stopped backing herself up… and she's the only thing holding this motley fleet together…"
In mid-sentence, 9S suddenly saw something very out of the ordinary.
The Terror and the Romney, two of the fleet's main defense battleships abruptly turned and began speeding in the Saratoga's general direction.
Then they began firing, unleashing missiles and energy blasts… that cruised right past the Saratoga… as if they were firing at something behind it.
"What the…"
Alarm klaxons began to blare throughout the ship. "All crew to battlestations! Massive hostile fleet inbound through the mass relay! All fighters launch, repeat, all fighters launch!"
"Damn it, have the aliens caught up to us?!" 9S exclaimed.
"It… was bound to happen-"
"Wait, what is that?!"
Numerous gray, shrimp-like craft, seemingly fighters, darted into the midst of the Android fleet, sowing confusion and havoc. Behind them followed larger, crustacean-like ships, moving slower, firing off heavier weapons. There were also smaller, round fighters barely large enough to be considered fighters, and more akin to a drone, zipped nimbly about, adding to the destruction like evil, mechanical flying eyeballs. None of them looked anything like the alien ships that had invaded Earth- neither the first invasion in the 51st century, nor the second invasion in the 121st century.
The tenacious Androids, though caught completely off-guard, fired every missile, gun, and energy they could man in time. They cut through a number of spherical fighters, downed the shrimp-like fighters, and even inflicted significant damage on the larger enemy warships, but the hostile craft just kept flooding in.
9S watched in abject horror as the frigate Harare, still hastily trying to disengage itself from its decommissioned sister ship Antioch, took several hits, causing explosions to mushroom out of its hull.
Seconds later, the Antioch burst into explosions as well, engulfing along with it, the attendant tender, Vitebsk. The Farragut, Chongqing, and supply ship Mogilev managed to pull away and join the fight, but were harried by huge numbers of enemy fighters.
The barely-armed courier ship Circumference desperately flew across the battlefield, trying to reach the safety of the Saratoga, only to be cut down ruthlessly by a nimble pair of hostile fighters.
The cruiser Belgrano was trying to bring its guns to bear on the attackers, when a sizable enemy craft slammed into its rear, and both careened off, the Belgrano tumbling helplessly through space as disintegrating parts came flying off.
Even the Saratoga, although an enormous armored carrier, shook under the blasts of countless enemies smaller than her.
The frigate Normandy only fired off a few shots before an enormous red blast of energy vaporized the entire rear half of the ship, and went on to slice into the side of the Terror as if the armored battleship was made of mere plastic.
"What… in the name of Humanity is that?!" 9S could barely contain the terror in his voice as an enormous vessel came into view.
"Th- That's impossible… how can anyone build something that big…" 2B gaped.
It was an enormous jet-black ship with purple markings, shaped vaguely like a monstrous, mechanical squid, that had to be about two kilometers long, far exceeding any ship in the Android flotilla.
"It can't be…"
An explosion rocked the Terror, and the ship split in two.
The Lovecraftian monstrosity before them then turned its glowing-red weapon on the Saratoga.
"RUN!" 2B screamed, knocking 9S to the ground.
A split-second later, the red beam of doom sliced into the Saratoga, dangerously close to the observation deck.
Every window on the observation deck shattered, sucking everything out into space.
"Nines!" 2B screamed, but no sound came out, as all the air was sucked out of her system like a whirlwind. She reacted desperately, reaching for him, but she could only watch helplessly as he was blasted away from her.
For his part, 9S struggled desperately to hold on to anything firm as the entire deck collapsed, debris careening out into space.
The last thing he saw was the enemy leviathan powering up… and firing straight at him.
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April 1, 11,958 CE
Vytaka Station, in orbit around Pallantinos Fault, Pallantinos System, Betelgeuse Sector, Betelgeuse Space, Union of Earth and Artemis...
9S gasped and woke up with a start, crying out and thrashing. It took him a few minutes to realize he was completely fine, alive, and in bed.
Lavinia, who had been writing at a desk nearby, rushed over to him. "Nines? Are you alright? What happened?"
"La- Lavinia, w-where are w-we?"
Lavinia looked puzzled. "Nines, we're on Vytaka Station. You said you had a half-day off before you had to go on an escort mission near Shenyang Outpost, so you were going to catch a nap, remember?"
9S panted, trying to catch his breath, as the memories flooded back to him. "Right… right… And the date?"
"April 1, 11,958 CE. Are you sure you're all right, big brother?" Lavinia asked, clearly concerned.
"Y-Yeah… j-just checking if my chronometer is c-correct…" 9S gasped. "It's just that… I had the most horrible dream…"
"Was it about the war?" Lavinia asked, her eyes widening.
"No, no… not that war," 9S bit his lip. "It was about another, different… huh?"
"Oh, then, maybe we can help analyze it!" Lavinia searched on her datapad for a file on dream interpretation. "Was it, perhaps, lost memories seeping through? Maybe being chased? About falling? Or dying?"
"No, no, no…" 9S clutched his head. "It- it's- there was an a-attack, something h-huge, desperation, w-we were losing everything- but I can't- I can't remember what it was about."
"Oh," Lavinia looked a little crestfallen. "Well, is there any way I can help?"
"N-no need…" 9S stumbled clumsily to his feet. "I- I'll just be alone for a bit. Then I'm going to call 2B before I head on my mission."
"Okaayyy…" Lavinia still looked concerned for her brother. "Take care, then."
9S stumbled off into the hallway, and finding an empty alcove, slumped down there, burying his face in his hands. There was something about the dream… a nagging feeling… like it was something that had happened before to him… or maybe would happen to him? But what was it? And what did it mean?
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April Fools- no, I'm just kidding.
Consider this chapter canon to my story. But just what does it mean? Is it just a dream? That's up to you guys to ponder
-Antioch- Frigate in the Android Migrant Fleet (Decommissioned, Destroyed by enemy fire), named after ancient Greek city on Orontes River in what would one day be the Republic of Turkey (close to Antakya, Turkey)
-Belgrano- Cruiser in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed by enemy fire), named after the Argentine Brooklyn-class light cruiser ARA General Belgrano, which was sunk by the British submarine HMS Conqueror during the 1982 Malvinas War
-Chongqing- Destroyer in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after the city of Chongqing in the People's Republic of China
-Circumference- Courier Ship in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed by enemy fire), named after the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence prowler UNSC Circumference in the Halo series (Halo: The Fall of Reach)
-Farragut- Corvette in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after the World War II-era United States Farrugut-class destroyer USS Farragut (DD-348)
-Forrestal- Light Carrier in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed in accident), named after the United States Forrestal-class supercarrier USS Forrestal (CV-59)
-Harare- Frigate in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed by enemy fire), named after Harare, capital of the Republic of Zimbabwe
-Kilimanjaro- Battlecruiser in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after the tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (and also the Kilimanjaro-class dreadnoughts used by the Systems Alliance in Mass Effect)
-Mogilev- Supply Ship in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after the city of Mogilev, in the Republic of Belarus
-Normandy- Frigate in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after Invasion of Normandy in 1944 during World War II, that northwest region of France, and the Alliance frigate SSV Normandy (SR-1)/Cerberus (later Alliance) frigate Normandy (SR-2) in Mass Effect
-Romney- Battleship in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after the British Royal Navy 50-gun fourth rate ship HMS Romney (1762), which fought during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars, until it ran aground while blockading the coast of the Batavian Republic in 1804
-Saratoga- Armored Carrier in the Android Migrant Fleet, named after the World War II-era United States Lexington-class aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3)
-Terror- Battleship in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed by enemy fire), named after the British Royal Navy Vesuvius-class bomb vessel HMS Terror (1813), which fought in the War of 1812, participated in the 1839 Antarctic Expedition, and the 1845 Antarctic Expedition, where it was abandoned and eventually sank
-Tianjin- Destroyer in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed in accident), named after the port city of Tianjin in the People's Republic of China
-Vitebsk- Fleet Tender in the Android Migrant Fleet (Destroyed by enemy fire), named after the city of Vitebsk, in the Republic of Belarus
