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The Halo of the Hero

Chapter 2 The Relics

Location: High orbit over the planet Moln.

Date: 9 March 2531

A small spacecraft, between 100-150 meters slowly drifted trough space. The black-grey hull of the craft made it almost impossible to see in the darkness of space. The only reason it is seen is because of the small dots of lights escaping the ships massive engines. It slowly leaves the shadow of the planet and in the rays of the sun that began to peak out from behind the planet, you can read the words UNSC GETTYSBURG painted with white colour on the bow of the ship.

The camera moves slowly towards the main view window, showing a bridge without any crew. Everything is dark, only the weak rays of the systems sun turning the bridge from pitch black to an eerie twilight. All screens are black, only reflecting the weak light.

Beep

One of the monitors on the bridge came to life and began to show information on the current status.

Leaving Slipspace

Complete

/Reach programmed coordinates1269.9433.0934.6547.X

ScanningCoordinates reached

Complete

Initiate secondary objectives

1. Bring main power back online

Complete

2.Bring lights online

The lights on the bridge began to flicker and then went on.

Complete

3.Bring life support online

A small hiss was heard as air began to fill the room.

Complete

4.Bring main computer online

All displays on the bridge began to flicker and then display various kind of information.

Complete

5.Bring ships main systems online

Complete

6.Initiate self-diagnostics program

All systems showing green and working at 100% efficiency

Awaken crew out of their cryo-sleep.

Starting

Cryo-chamber.

The room wasn't very big maybe 10x10 meters, but still was full of over 30 cryo-tubes. The entire room was filled, and there was only a small space between the three rows of tubes.

Thaw-up initiated

The air began to hiss as the pressure-locks opened and small amounts of condensed water escaped. The floor of the room was soon filled whit a thick fog, giving the entire room, with their coffin like tubes, a sense of a tomb.

One after another the lids of the tubes began to open.

Dr. Catherine Halsey opened her eyes. She fell to the floor and hit it with a loud Thud, she coughed as she tried to regain her breath. She was sitting on the floor, her right hand on the floor supporting her and the left over her throat, trying to swallow the slime in her airways so she would be able to breathe. She tried, and failed miserably, throwing up the green looking slime on the floor.

Please swallow the cryo-fluids, they contain important nutrition's that would be needed after a long cryo-sleep.A cold robotic voice said over the rooms speakers.

"Here, let me help you up" said a deep voice in a slightly Spanish accent.

She locked up and saw a tanned man about 30-35 with his hair cut short in military fashion, holding his hand towards her. She took his hand and without any effort pulled her back on her feet.

"Thanks"cough, cough, she said weakly.

"No problems, I know that people always feel like hell after a cryo-sleep" said the man.

"It's not the sleep that bothers me, it's the goddamned wakeup, with the cryo-fluids in my throat." She said with a slightly annoyed voice, directing a cold glare at the cryo-tube.

"Hehe…I know what you mean, first you can't breathe, and when you try to swallow it you throw up because it tastes like hell" he said with a little laugh.

She locked around and saw that most of the crew had begun to wake up.

"By the way my name is Mendez" said the man with a grin.

"Catherine Halsey" she replied.

All military personnel shall emideitly report in hangar bay 2The robotic vice said.

"Well that's me, see you around" he said and walked away.

Halsey-later, she said and began to walk towards the shower to clean herself from the cryo-fluids.

As she walked in the shower, she stripped herself from the military tank-top and underwear.

"Brrrr, cold". She said to herself.

She then walked to her locker and pulled out a standard black jumpsuit, dressed and then left for the bridge.

Bridge

 "So, can you locate the unknown transmission?" A man in his later fifties said. Locking over the shoulder of a man to see the monitor.

"I can give you an estimated position, within a 60 km radius, sir" the young ensign replied.

"I want it pinpointed to the meter exact, do you get that" the old man replied as he heard what the ensign had said.

"Sir, these scanners are outdated and there are some heavy Ion-storms in the area that interfere with the sensors. I can probably decrease the area to 20 km, but that would take a couple of hours. I need top calibrate the scanners before I can begin thou" the man said as he saw the Captains irritated look.

"Can't we do better than that?" the captain asked.

"Once we have entered the planets atmosphere, and the storm has cleared I can give better coordinates. But I still think we should calibrate the sensors to decrease the area to search"

"How long exact does this take?"

"5-6 hours to calibrate the sensors, and about 48 hours before those storms clear."

"Well then, you should probably begin those calibrations."

"Yes Sir, he replied before the captain walked away."

Dr Catherine Halsey slowly walked through the ship, shortly stopping at her quarters to pick up some real clothes. Jumpsuits where fine, but she still preferred to have real clothes on instead of the skin-tight fabrics of the suits. They weren't, in her opinion, very comfortable, and didn't do much to protect her modesty, they were so goddamned tight that they didn't leave anything to imagination... She walked up to the door to the bridge, and thought about the reason she was on a 70-year old ship in the middle of nowhere.

flashback

Catherine Halsey stood before a desk, a fat, balding man sitting on a chair on the other side of it.

"Good that you are here, Dr Halsey." The fat man said in a friendly voice.

"What do you want, Izack?" she said in a confused voice.

"Well I wanted to see my favourite student again, it has been three years, Catherine." He said with a small smile on his face.

"Well it's good to see you to, Izack. But I hardly believe that you would call my all the way from Earth out here to Reach just so you could say hello."

"Well, your right as always, it's not the only reason I called you here."

"Well what is it then?"

Izack sighed and then walked over to a small cabinet, and pulled out a brown folder with the words CLASSIFIED written over it with red colour. He then sat back in his chair and placed the folder over his desk.

"Would you please take a seat, Catherine."

She walked over to the chair and sat down, but didn't say a word. Izack wasn't serious very often, but when he was you should listen carefully, because it always was important.

"Two months ago, the Hubble sensor array picked a small signal from a planet in the frontier. First we thought that it was a sunburst from the systems sun, but the when a identical signal came about 5min 34sec later we knew that wasn't the case."

"So? It's probably a UNSC-ship."

"No, the UNSC doesn't have any ships even near those coordinates, so it had to come from another source." He sighed and locked directly at Catherine's eyes.

"Pirates? Or a civilian vessel?"

He sighed again, and shocks his head in negative.

"No, because Hubble determined that the signals couldn't possible come from any human made equipment, they were to clear for that."

"What do you mean?"

"At this distance any human signal would have broken up and become mostly static by the time it reached Hubble. These signals where both identical and both clear, no static, no interferences in the signals, not even a slight buzz in the background."

"Are you saying that they have a non-human origin? That they are of… that they come from an alien device." She said shocked, and locking for Izack to say it out loud to confirm it. Izack had been a good friend of her father, and a good friend and mentor for her, so she trusted him.

"Probably, UNSC High Command thinks so at least." He sighed yet again.

"But why are you telling me this?" She asked shocked at his confirmation.

"UNSC wants to send a science team to investigate those signals."

"And?"

"They asked me to put together the science team, and I want you to be the one in charge. He explained and waited for a reaction."

"But… why me?"

"Your one of the smartest, you have a Dr Grade in math, biology, physics, and space travel, that makes you perfect for this mission, and most importantly, I trust you. I know you won't do anything funny, unlike the goons in the Office of Navy Intelligence. I would do it myself if I was 30 years younger, but I am not. So, do you want to accept?"

In charge of an entire science mission AND the chance to study Xeno-tech. There is only one answer to that question.

"Count me in."

Izack just handed her the folder.

End flashback

What they didn't tell me was that the ship they would use was an old rebuilt cargo-ship, it was basically falling apart. And the fact that UNSC would send a ten man team of marines with her. They were 30 on the ship, 10 crew members, the marines and her ten man science team. Well at least not all marines were complete assholes as she thought back to Mendez as he helped her in the cryo-bay.

Well, let's get to work she thought to herself as she entered the bridge.

-------------------------------------

"Well, when can we land on the planet?" she asked the captain.

"In about 48 hours" he replied at the same time locking on a screen displaying the current engine status.

 "Why not earlier?"

"Because we have a bad ion-storm in the area we have traced the signals to."

"Well then, would you please call me if it is anything of importance."

"Don't worry, I will."

------------------------------------

"Sir, I have traced the signals to a mountain chain, the signal is somewhere in the middle of it. Can't get a clear signal before the storm dies down."

"Well, good work ensign. Continue to scan the area for more information."   

------------------------------------------------

"Entering atmosphere in five, four, three, two, one."

Catherine saw the flames in the windows as the ship entered the planets atmosphere. She knew that that always happened with the older crafts as the always entered the atmosphere a little to fast. She also knew that the ships heat-sheilds could handle the extreme temperatures. She really whished they could have gotten a newer ship so they would have a normal landing, instead of this bumpy ride through hell. If she didn't sit in the small seat whit security belts she would have been flying around everywhere because of the turbulence. She felt a little sick, had to hold her hand over her mouth to not throw up. She panted a little, fighting down the nausea that threatened her to throw up. Halsey began to look around the small compartment where all non-crew members sat in their respective seats, trying everything not to throw up. She saw Sergeant Mendez sitting in his chair opposite her. He had his eyes closed.

So I am not the only one that's scared, and a marine to, well that's a relief, she thought to herself.

Then she heard it, a loud brumming noise, and looked closer at Mendez. Then she understood, he wasn't closing his eyes in fear, he was SLEEPING and snoring.

How the hell could he sleep in these conditions was beyond her.

"Blowing braking thrusters in 5…."

Catherine then saw the small flames on the windows turn into a blazing inferno. Then the ship went from shaky to who-the-hell-has-built-a-over-dimensional-mixer. She still was able to fight down the nausea, but she wouldn't be able to do it much longer.

"Altitude 180 00 meters…  flaps at 30%...  deactivating artificial gravity...

Engaging standard atmosphere drives. Engines at 70%"

Catherine didn't know how much more she could take before passing out. Then she felt the ship began to plan out and then the shacking stopped. The flames outside the window had disappeared, and she saw a beautiful yellow sky. 

"Ensign, begin to track down those signals."

"Sir, already begun, tracking should be complete about… now."

Mission: Archaeological excavation.

Location: Mountain range, planet Moln.

Date: 12 March 2531

Catherine Halsey looked out over the valley, the transmissions should be coming from somewhere inside the valley, and she was hell-bent on finding what caused them.

"Dr Halsey!"

"Yes?"

"We were able to pinpoint the signals to a 50x50 small area down the canyon. Sensors pick up high amounts of metal about 25 metres below the earth. Probably what we are looking after."

"Can you tell me more, what kind of metal it is? Size? Shape?"

"The metal is unknown to us, as for the size and form we haven't deployed the earth sonar yet. One thing we can tell you thou is that whatever it is the metal is concentrated to one point, and the sensors haven't found any other metal that match this one on this planet."

"So, it isn't a natural phenomena?"

"No, as I said the concentration of metal is too high to be natural, it is built by someone. Who or why I don't know."

"Well then, let's go find out."

Date: 13 March

"So, could you tell me what you found, Catherine?" He asked curiously.

"Well, it's defiantly not of human origin. Sonar shows that it is one piece of metal, with small parts spread in a straight line from the thing. It's probably a spacecraft that crashed here, the small parts are probably debris from the crash. Well that's my theory at least."

"Aliens? Could mean trouble, ill see to it to put out guards."

"That won't be necessary, it is 25 metres below the surface. And if my calculations are right, then it would have been there for at least a billion years, probably longer. I hardly think there is something down there besides old bones."

"Ok, but I will still put out those guards."

"Why?"

"Simple, I don't want them to get lazy. The corp. still pays us, so we have to do something."

"Well…I think of something they could do."

"Yes, continue."

"We would need men dig out the craft."

Mendez looked at Catherine. And groaned. Loud. Really loud. Really, really loud.

"Aw hell." He said as he walked away to tell the marines the bad news. Muttering darkly to himself.

"Come on sarge, we are UNSC Marines, not moles."

"Quit you're bitching, private. Marines do what they are told, and I tell you to dig."

"Join the marines they say, travel and see the galaxy they say, have an exiting life they say. And here I am, digging a freaking hole in the ground, on a deserted planet on the ass end of the universe. And I have a hole in my shirt."

"Put a sock in it will you, Sanchez."

Sanchez stopped his tirade of the injustice in the universe, and continued to dig, but still muttering quiet curses in Portuguese.

--------------------------------------------

Date: 27 March

"Dr Halsey! Dr Halsey! We found something."

Catherine began to run towards the digging site, stopping at the shaft that went 20 meters below the ground. She looked down a saw a group consisting of 4 marines and 3 of the scientists. They were all standing in a circle around something.

"When we hit 23 meters we found small parts of… well something, and it is 100% alien origin. We thought that it would be best if we called you."

Catherine just nodded, and then began to walk down the stairs that the marines had built along one of the walls. About halfway she began to run down the stairs.

Alien, it really is alien. The firs sign of life from another planet. She would defiantly have a place in the history once the people back home found out.

Once at the bottom, she walked over to the small group, and she recognised Sergeant Mendez among one of them. He stepped aside, so Catherine could see what they were looking at. What she saw would to anyone besides this small group have been totally uninteresting, have had no value whatsoever. They would have just identified it as a small piece of bent and burned scrap-metal, and they would have been right. It was a small piece of bent and burned scrap-metal, but what made it so important was that it was ALIEN.

The question "are we alone in the universe", a question that humanity has pondered for over 700 years, had found an answer on a small backwater planet.

Everybody looked at each other, nodded and then, with small brushes and garden shovels, equipment that after almost 600 years was still used, began to carefully dig out a surrounding area.

 If Catherine wouldn't been so preoccupied with analysing the metal, she would have laughed at the sight before her. All the scientist and marines had begun to dig in the surrounding area, looking like small children in a sandbox trying to find the buried treasure.

Even Sanchez was digging, no complain leaving his lips. This was a holy moment for mankind, it was a start of a new era and they where right in the middle of it. This was something that would forever change the face of history, they knew it and talking would have destroyed that moment.

As the day proceeded, they found more and more of the metal pieces, all burned and bent.

She looked up from her block with her notices and then looked around. As she looked at one of the marines trying to lift a big piece of metal all by himself, she heard a scream behind her. Everybody stopped and turned towards the scream. Where one of the marines had been there was only a hole in the ground. It wasn't big, one meter in diameter, but it was from the hole they heard a cursing Sanchez screaming.

"Why the hell does this shit always happen to me? GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

"How long is the fall, Sanchez?" a tired looking Mendez asked. If Sanchez was cursing that only meant that he was okay.

"Over 5 meters, now get me the hell out of here."

Mendez then began to climb down a ladder that had been lying around the digging site.

"Guys, I think I just found what we are looking for."

"What?" Catherine asked confused

"I am in some kind of a corridor."

That was all Mendez had to say before Catherine began to climb down. After a while everybody was down in the darkness. All marines caring their standard assault-rifle with flashlights on. The scientists didn't have any weapon just their flashlights.

"Spread out, five teams". Mendez barked out.

They began to move slowly inside. Catherine was stunned, the inside of this craft was just amazing. The corridors where oval with a flat floor. She didn't see any kind joint or seam in the structure of the ship, making it look like it was made out of one piece. After about 15 minutes they had searched the entire ships. One of the corridors was totally crushed, and it was impossible to proceed any further. Another was impassable, due to the fact that it was molten together because of some extreme heat along while ago, now it was just slag.

Date 29 March.

They had begun to scan the wreckage, but didn't find anything accept some small rooms and what looked like a cargo bay, but it was empty except a small, grey shrine in the middle of the room. They couldn't move it because it was built into the floor, so they tried to open it. The lid didn't budge a millimetre, so they decided to weld it open. It took longer than they had predicted, the material was extremely heat-resistence. When the where able too probably scan the hull of the ship they found out that that the bow of the ship was totally crushed together, probably because of the impact, and that the stern was just reduced to molten scrap metal(1).

So the bridge and engine room was completely gone and that left about a third of the ship, the middle, intact. The problem was that except the shrine, the middle of the ship was empty.

"The case will be open any second now", the marine operating the heavy laser drill said over the loud noise of the drill.

When they first tried to open the case nothing worked, so they resorted to take on of the Gettysburg laser drills to do the job. Those drills where constructed to cut through even a battleships armour whit ease, so they should cut through the shrines metal in no time. They where wrong, it took over 18 hours to open the chest.

"We are through, turning of the drills power."

When they stepped towards the case, the saw as it went from white, due to the heat, to black in just a few seconds.

"This things heat resistance is unbelievable, it cooled down in just a few seconds."

"Well, let's open it." Catherine said in an exited voice.

Two marines walked up to the shrine and were just barely able to push it open.

The lid of the shrine hit the deck whit a loud Ka-Kling that echoed all over the empty cargo bay. When Catherine slowly walked up to the shrine, she hoped that it would contain something, anything. She wasn't disappointed, in the shrine lay three items. The first was what appeared to be a small chain made of some unknown metal looking like silver, on the chain there was a ring made of gold like metal, the ring had small engravings in some unknown language that appeared to glow with a blue light. Then there was a small cube about 5 centimetres that was filled whit what appeared blue lightning, making the entire shrine glow with a blue light. And the last object was a crystal vial filled with a green liquid. She knew then and there, she hit the jackpot.

Date: 3 April

"Leaving atmosphere. Artificial gravity engaged."

Catherine Halsey sat yet again in the seats, as the Gettysburg left the planet. I wasn't even near as bumpy as the entering, but she still wished they would have gotten a new craft. She looked out the window as the planet became smaller and smaller.

After taking the three relics they found on the ship onboard, they had looked everywhere, taking photos and notes. Searching every inch of the derelict spacecraft, they found nothing new. They would once home, suggest a bigger operation and ship to salvage the entire craft. Who knew what secrets were still buried under the surface of that planet. The mission was a full success, they had found proof an advanced civilisation that clearly outdated their own whit millions of years. And she had become a good friend whit Sergeant Mendez, he was the living evidence that all marines wasn't stupid, brainless, grunts, he had surprised her when she found out he had a dr grade in math. She began to fall to sleep as she wondered what the future would bring.

Authors Notes

(1)The engines overheated and exploded at the impact.

Well, this chapter was a little long. I suspect that the next chapter will only be a little more then half of this.

Ranma will turn up in the fourth chapter. I will probably change his personality somewhat. He will be more mature and calculating. I still think I will keep his foot in the mouth personality, simply because you don't learn manners in boot camp.  

I will try to post more chapters as soon as possible.

The Administration will accept all comments and constructive criticism.

All flames will be given to the Covenant as target practise.