Cryobay

October 2nd, 0841 Local Time, 2552

Exiting cryosleep was a fairly simple procedure, one that every UNSC serviceperson was trained in, although most didn't enter cryosleep with a full set of Mjolnir. The intense cold would cause what was known as "freezer burn" to any bits of skin that had any sort of clothing. Naturally, Ben's skin was itchy as hell, but it was a minor inconvenience at worst, and it meant that he didn't have to worry about the lengthy process of equipping the armor.

Since he didn't need to get dressed or get any equipment, he neglected to visit the locker room with the rest of the crewmembers who were waking up. Instead, he contacted Curie through the radio in his helmet, hoping to get brought up to speed on what he had missed.

"Curie, do you read?" Ben reported, checking his internal clock and seeing that nearly a month had passed.

"I am aware, it is good to hear from you. How did you sleep?" Curie asked. She sounded happy to hear from him, which put a smile on his face as well.

"Well enough." Ben said, doing his best to ignore the flagrant itching across his chest. "What did I miss?"

"We've made substantial progress on our journey towards the planet we discovered earlier. Further scans reveal it is habitable, and apparently has a diverse ecosystem." Curie reported. "Commander Richard has ordered us to enter into geosynchronous orbit around the planet for further investigation, along with several other smaller matters that are unimportant to your duties."

A habitable world, way out in the middle of nowhere? Talk about a lucky break... Ben thought. "What are my orders?"

"We're sorting out work parties right now. Your unit has been assigned to the starboard armory for small arms repair and maintenance. Apparently, some of the weapons in there haven't been used for some time, so expect the worst. Ensign Gillespie has offered to task some additional marines to assist you should you need the help." Curie said.

"We'll have a look at what we're dealing with first." Ben replied. "Where are the rest of the team right now?"

"Still in the cryobay, completing their wake-up procedures." Curie responded. "I shall send them to meet up with you as soon as they are ready."

"Understood, I'll be there." Ben said.

The ship's hallways were deserted, as most of the crew was still exiting cryo, giving them an unusually quiet nature. Ben made his way to the armory without spotting anything out of the ordinary, although he did overhear a multitude of orders over the intercom from Commander Richard and Lieutenant Bradford, but none of them concerned him or his team.

He found the armory to be unoccupied, and elected to take stock of what they had personally, rather than simply reading a terminal. He used his security credentials to unlock one of the weapons lockers, revealing a series of MA37 Assault Rifles. Ben was relatively surprised, he had assumed that the ship would be outfitted with the more modern marine weapons, not the older army-issue models.

Maybe those are in the other armory. Ben thought as he removed one of the rifles from the locker, removed it's protective and examined it. It seemed that the previous owners of the weapons had been rather rough on them, and they would need a bit of restorative work to bring them up to speed.

No sense wasting time. Ben thought. He retrieved a second rifle from the container and got to work on both of them. Around the time he had finished disassembly of the first weapon, he heard the bulkhead open, and the rest of his fireteam walked in.

"Hey Ben." Nathan said. "Wait, how the hell did get here so fast, doesn't it take forever to put all that armor on?"

"I left it on." He answered without looking up from the weapon he was working on.

"Wait, really? What about the freezer burn?" Nathan asked, his widened eyes told Ben that he was rather taken aback by what Ben had said.

"You get used to it." Ben answered, prompting a faintly empathetic noise from Nathan.

"Yeah uh, no thanks, I don't wanna be a Spartan anymore." Nathan said. "I like having all of my bits not be red and itchy."

Yu gave a faint huff of disapproval at him as she walked by. "They ain't nothing special."

I wonder what I did to irritate her? Ben thought, noting her standoffish nature.

"What have we got here Sergeant?" Fairfire asked, ignoring their comments.

"Army weapons, some of the older models. They're in pretty bad shape." Ben said, gesturing at the beat up rifle he had just cleaned up. "Curie should have a detailed manifest on everything that's in here, or you could just check the terminal."

She gave a rather unprofessional grunt in response, seemingly with a hint of disapproval, probably aimed at the weapons former users. "Nathan, Yu, give the ammo an inspection and make sure it's all still good. Everyone else, grab a rifle and get to work."

"You're having the only person who has experience as a small arms repairman inspect the ammo?" Yu asked, slightly confused.

"Yes, you actually know what you're doing with it, unlike buttkisser and bulletmagnet here." Fairfire said, gesturing at Nathan and Meadows respectively. Yu gave an indignant groan of reluctance as she walked towards the ammo lockers. "And if I wanted your sass, I would have asked for it!"

While Yu and Nathan began to inspect the ammo stores, the rest of the fireteam began the long and tedious process of restoring the weapons in the armory back into working order. The rest of the Helljumpers quickly began to talk among themselves as they worked, but Meadows and Fairfire decided to seat themselves at the same table Ben was working at, giving Ben a good opportunity to ask about his squadmates unusual hostility.

"Staff Sergeant, did I do something to bother Corporal Sato?" Ben asked, momentarily looking up from his weapon.

"It's because you're a Spartan." Fairfire bluntly explained as she removed the barrel of an M90 shotgun.

"I don't understand." Ben admitted.

"She's jealous." Meadows clarified, although his facial expression suggested a sense of curiosity. "Yu's quite proud of being an ODST, so she, and a lot of other Helljumpers, view you guys as rivals."

"She didn't seem bothered when we first met." Ben said, noting that she'd seemed quite friendly when they had met in the cafeteria.

"That's because you had Curie with you, she's well… a bit of a nerd." Meadows explained. "Guess it's all that time in the armory, gets you thinking more about parts than people."

"...So it's a matter of pride?" Ben asked. "She should know we're all on the same side."

"It's more important to her then it should be." Fairfire voiced her agreement, as she finished scrubbing the barrel clean. "Don't worry about her too much, she'll bitch and moan but all good coffin jockeys do that, she'll have your back on the field and that's what matters."

"So it's not a concern to our effectiveness as a unit?" Ben asked. Although Fairfire had been quite clear, Ben figured that maybe double-checking couldn't hurt.

Fairfire gave a brief chuckle. "No Ben, I don't believe that it's an issue."

Ben was quite surprised by her answer. That was a far cry from how they handled things at Camp Currahee. The slightest break in a soldiers discipline was harshly reprimanded, and although Ben was well aware that the ODSTs typically operated in a far more unconventional and brash way than the Spartans, it was still somewhat surprising to see it firsthand. Regardless, he was not Yu's superior officer, and he still had a lot to learn about his squadmates, so he elected to trust Fairfire's judgement.

"If you're going to be worried about something, worry about the fact that we're lost in deep space." Fairfire said, shaking the now removed pistol grip of the shotgun to punctuate her point. "That is what I would consider a "concern to our effectiveness as a unit"."

"Not quite deep space, there's that planet, and apparently it's habitable." Ben pointed out.

"That's true I suppose, but it's not exactly going to help us find our way home now is it?" Fairfire countered.

"No, it won't." Ben said, recognizing the point behind her words. "My biggest concern is that we've ended up somewhere in Covenant space."

"We'd be long dead by now." Meadows pointed out. "Our distress signal would have lured them in like a pack of hungry sharks."

Comforting way of thinking… Ben thought, although Meadows certainly wasn't wrong. The Covenant would have picked up on their radio signal extremely quickly, and no matter what manuevers Richard could think up, the odds of victory were practically nonexistent.

"On that note-" Fairfire began but was interrupted by Yu calling to her from across the armory.

"Sarge, we found something, come check this out!" she yelled.

Fairfire placed the magnum she was working on back onto the table and went to see what Yu had found. Moments later, she returned, with a notable increase in the urgency of her movements.

"Not to alarm you Ben, but does that suit have a Geiger counter?" Fairfire asked, although her body language made it very clear that she was concerned.

"Yes, what's the problem?" Ben asked, quickly placing the parts he was cleaning back on the table and standing up.

"Good, come with me, I need you to put it to use." Fairfire instructed.

Mildly irritated by her vague wording, Ben followed Fairfire back to the ammo racks. She was standing with Nathan next to a panel in the wall that they had removed for one reason or another, and she looked absolutely ecstatic. Nathan however, mirrored Fairfire's nervous expression.

"Ben's got a Geiger counter, he'll see if it's safe." Fairfire said.

"Oh come on, I could have told you that!" Yu protested.

He peeked inside of the hole created by the removed panel, which revealed a sizable hidden compartment, it was extremely dark inside due to a lack of lighting, so Ben turned on his helmet light and was quite surprised by what he saw.

Inside of the small room was a litany of Covenant weaponry of all types. As he swept the room with his light it only revealed the presence of more and more weapons. Everything from bulky fuel rod guns to the significantly smaller and less impressive plasma pistols. Beam rifles, particle carbines, focus rifles, and plasma rifles occupied a myriad of storage containers, it looked like a collection. Ben noted that the area was mildly radioactive, but it was well outside of any dangerous levels, in fact, it barely even registered.

"Holy shit..." Nathan muttered as Yu let out a whistle of admiration behind him.

"Is it safe?" Fairfire asked.

"Radiation's minimal, the panelling must be thick enough that it didn't even set off the alarms." Ben noted, rapping his knuckles on the titanium plate to illustrate his point. "Short answer, yes, it's safe."

"Nathan, go get a lamp." Fairfire ordered.

"Aye, ma'am." Nathan said, going to do as she ordered.

"Ben, lead the way. Let's see what we've got." Fairfire said. "Eyes peeled, I heard some of these things have fail-safes."

"They do." Ben confirmed as he climbed in the gap.

As he entered the room, and realizing it was slightly smaller than he realized, it's walls were full of indents and bulges. Large cubic spaces were filled by titanium plating, stretching from the ceiling and walls. As Fairfire climbed into the room, she quickly deduced why.

"This place was built into some of the ship's empty space..." Fairfire concluded.

"I'm surprised a UNSC vessel has so much wasted space." Ben said.

"You call this a waste?" Yu indignantly asked. "I call this a win! Look at all this stuff!"

"No, Ben's got a point, the ship's structure isn't supposed to be like this." Fairfire said, her eyes passing over a brute spiker with faint interest. "I imagine this was put in during the construction of the ship."

"I can't imagine why." Yu said, seemingly unconcerned as she cradled a plasma rifle as if it was a child. "Also, dibs."

"They were smuggling Covenant weapons." Ben guessed, ignoring Yu's lack of professionalism with potentially dangerous contraband. It was Fairfire's job to reprimand her, not his.

Still, she could probably be doing a better job… Ben thought.

"That's what I would have guessed, either way, they're ours now, I guess." Fairfire said.

"We should report this to Commander Richard." Ben suggested.

"We certainly will, but let's make sure this place is safe first." Fairfire said. "Start counting up weapons as well, I want an inventory."

"Aye Sir." Ben and Yu both said.

After only about a minute of searching through boxes of plasma grenades and racks of plasma rifles, Ben found a paper note half concealed underneath one of the storage crates with something written on it.

"Found something." Ben said as he collected the note before handing it over to Fairfire.

While Yu continued working, Ben and Fairfire read the note with the assistance of his helmet light, which appeared to be some sort of manifest for the Covenant weaponry. There was no indication as to why the alien equipment was stowed away, but it wasn't hard to guess. Covenant possessions were considered top-tier contraband, and the hidden trackers they sometimes carried had led to more than one planet falling.

Because that's what happens when you aren't careful. Ben thought, as he held his light steady so that Fairfire could read the paper.

"There's more on the back." Ben pointed out when Fairfire was done with the front half.

The back half was much shorter and only contained the rest of the manifest. It also had an update log, which had the last entry dated at 2545, around seven years ago.

"Well, that's certainly interesting. Let's see if this is still accurate." Fairfire said.

A quick examination revealed the note's contents were up to date. It was a truly extensive cache of weapons, although some were quite a bit more common than others. It seemed that there was an unusually large number of Elite weapons, with only the odd Brute weapon. The crown jewels of the collection were without a shadow of a doubt the pair of wrist-mounted energy gauntlets kept in a hardcase, and the trio of energy swords that accompanied them.

These things are functional. Ben noted, picking up one of the weapons, but electing not to activate it. He returned it to its container, faintly impressed with whoever had managed to steal such a large amount of Covenant weaponry.

"Seems like whoever kept these here abandoned them some time ago." Ben commented as he rubbed a layer of dust off of one of the plasma rifles.

"Yeah, seems like it." Fairfire said, idly picking up one of the particle carbines and examining it. "We shouldn't get distracted. Ben, come with me, we're going to go report this to the Commander."

"Yes Sir." Ben confirmed.

Almost as soon as they had left, Curie opened a priority channel directly to him. Ben noted the usage of the specific protocol, it indicated that she had something urgent to say. "Go ahead Curie."

"Ben, you and Madame Fairfire have both been requested on the bridge. Your current duties can wait, the Commander wants to speak with you both immediately." Curie instructed.

"We're already on our way, we've made a discovery in the armory that needs his attention." Ben replied. "What does he need us for?"

"There is too much to explain, but I believe that you are needed for a mission, I will see you on the bridge." Curie answered.

With the connection severed Fairfire looked to him with a raised eyebrow. Ben quickly brought her up to speed, and they made their way to the bridge. It seemed like the whole ship was buzzing about with more urgency now, although Ben couldn't guess why.

I wonder what happened? Ben thought, noticing a few wide grins amongst the crew.

Before he could even ask for permission to come aboard, Richard waved them over to the Navigation console, without stopping what he was saying. Through the front window, Ben could now see the planet below them. Just like Curie had said, the green and blue that decorated it's surface indicated it was just as habitable as Onyx was. It was a familiarity that Ben hadn't realized he had missed.

"-Increase power to the primary communications dish and forward antennas." Ben heard Richard finish speaking to Lieutenant Chen. The intense focus on both of their faces only fueled Ben's speculation.

"I just have, there's still nothing sir." Lieutenant Chen said, a hint of dissatisfaction in her voice. "I'll try searching through all the auxiliary bands, maybe we missed something."

"Triple check everything, I want to make sure that we're not missing something critical." Richard instructed.

"Aye." She said, returning to her work as Richard walked over to the holotable in the middle of the Bridge, and waved for Ben and Fairfire to join him.

"What's the news Commander?" Fairfire asked.

"We've made a few more discoveries regarding this planet, now that we've closed the distance." Richard answered. "Curie should've already told you both that the planet is capable of sustaining life."

"She did, even if it's a bit… unbelievable." Ben said. While he didn't doubt Curie's discovery, the odds of a planet being naturally habitable for humans were astronomically rare.

"Well, it only gets more unbelievable from here." Richard said. "Curie, display the image that the forward cameras took."

The table shimmered like light reflecting off of water before displaying a single still image. It was a high-resolution image taken off the surface of the planet. It showed a snowy environment, trees covered with the powdery substance littered the area, but most startling, was the small town that was the primary focus of the image.

"Not only is the planet habitable, but it's home to a human population." Richard revealed.

At once, Ben understood the look of relief that most of the crew shared. Still, he couldn't help but feel a sense of curiosity that overpowered any relief, and more worryingly, a sinking feeling in his gut.

Kurt had made it a point in the training of him and his company that any Spartan should trust their instincts, and that his own "gut feelings" had saved his life on numerous occasions. Ben had taken that lesson to heart, and always took his instincts into account when judging a situation. When looking at the image of the quaint little human village, Ben didn't feel any relief, he only felt a sense that something was wrong.

Well, maybe Richard has more to say. Ben thought. "I'm not sure I understand, Sir. If it's a Colony, they should have responded to our SOS."

Fairfire's body language shifted suddenly and dramatically as she took in Ben's words. "That's… a good point. Why the hell haven't we heard from them, and where are their ships?"

That's another good question… Ben thought, taking a quick glance over at Lieutenant Gage's station. The Radar display on his screen showed only one contact, and it was the planet.

"That's where we start running into problems." Richard said. "The planet has none of the human radio signatures given off by any kind of wireless equipment, including communications. As far as radio signals are concerned, this planet is dead."

"That's impossible." Ben simply stated. Radio signatures were effectively the easiest way to detect civilization, to the point that ONI had been blasting false signals in the far reaches of space for years in an attempt to lure the Covenant away from the remaining colonies.

Maybe it's a rogue colony? No, that's impossible, not this far out. Ben thought, quickly dismissing the idea.

"Our current running theory is that these are the descendents of some poor marooned souls from the age of exploration." Richard explained.

Ben felt a faint hint of sympathy for the people on the planet, if that theory was true, then it suddenly made a lot more sense as to why they didn't have any sort of communications technology. Castaways were known to return to a sense of primitivism in the absence of any way to keep their equipment maintained, and it was widely considered one of the worst things that one human could do to another.

"But that theory is far from airtight. For starters, we've identified hundreds of settlements, spanning across every continent." Richard continued, immediately throwing Ben's thoughts into doubt. "If these people were marooned, there sure were a lot of them…"

Immediately, Ben's suspicions were restored. "Wait a moment, if they have a large population, they should have the capability to at least produce some kind of radio communications."

"Actually Sir, I believe that I may have a theory as to what's going on." Lieutenant Chen interjected from her navigation station.

"Go ahead Lieutenant." Richard said, Ben and Fairfire shifted their attention as well.

"When I said that we didn't detect any unnatural radio transmissions, I meant that we didn't detect any... normal, radio transmissions." she said, looking for the right to explain what she was saying.

"Elaborate." Richard instructed.

"All UNSC and Covenant equipment that uses any kind of radiowaves gives off a signal that can be detected by anyone with a means of detecting them, which we obviously do." she explained. "However, these signals have specific patterns to them, any artificially generated signal has several unique characteristics that gives away that they are made by a piece of technology and not a cosmic anomaly, like a star."

"Lieutenant, I don't mean to be rude. But we have a very busy day ahead of us." Richard said., much to Ben's relief.

She nodded. "The people on that planet must have their own communications network that also uses radio waves, but however it works, it's not compatible with ours. From what I can tell, it's also exceptionally primitive."

"How primitive?" Richard asked, looking towards the planet with a newfound curiosity.

"I can't say, but the readings our antennas are getting are wildly inconsistent, indicating that the radio equipment is powered by inefficient energy sources and lackluster antennas." She explained. "They also seem to have a lot of trouble escaping the planet's magnetosphere, which suggests a low signal strength."

He thought it over, before quickly realizing the specifics probably didn't matter too much. "Can we get a signal down there, find some way to communicate with them?"

"Probably, but I'd need more time, and I'd need the assistance of Ensign Gillespie and Curie." Lieutenant Chen said.

"I would be more than happy to assist you, I am extremely familiar with the behavior of radio waves." Curie said, her hologram glowing slightly brighter with excitement.

"Excellent, Gillespie, assist her however you can." Richard said, looking at the man in question, who was still manning his communications and operations station. "And instruct the rest of Fireteam Onyx to head for the Ready Room."

"Aye sir." Ensign Gillespie said before looking at what Lieutenant Chen was sending to his monitor.

"Are we going to be making some new friends Commander?" Fairfire asked, guessing her objective.

"Hopefully." He replied. "This will effectively be a first contact situation, so I'll need a moment to prepare. Head down to the ready room, I'll be down to brief you momentarily."

"Aye Sir." Fairfire said. "Come on Ben."

As two of them left the Bridge, Ben took one last glance back at Richard. Although it wasn't clear, he could have sworn he saw a hint of doubt in the man's eyes.