Mountain Lion Operative: The Beginnings
Prologue
He sat on his chair and watched the holo-screen. He clicked and pulled random buttons and sat back in his neat chair. He brushed the muffin crumbs off his lab coat to make sure he was not fired for eating in a sterile environment.
" How may I help you Sam Cristy?" The computer screen asked.
" I have implants in my head you know what I want."
" Just standard procedure." The computer A.I. laughed in a playful tone.
For such an important station this surely was suicide. A hazardous A.I. jeopardized all they had worked so hard for. And within a wink this "BAD"A.I. could give away all intel. The playful face on the holographic screen soon turned with fear. The A.I. could read his thoughts through the implants in his head.
The lady A.I. just looked at him and muttered, " You can not just destroy me, that violates Cole Protocol."
"Your bluffing Jenny. You are just a computer. No Covenant have been detected on Harvest. They have no reason to come. WE have no large scale military here!"
The A.I. laughed. " I forgot that you where so incompetent that they would withhold information from you. You have always been a failure. Just look at what your boss wrote when you showed him your resume."
A document popped up on the screen.
Sex: Male
Age: 35
History: No spouse, a loner. Fears social activity. Never has played sports, great mind, he will be an excellent puppet.
Sam clenched his fists. He always came early to avoid the crowds. He had to work a solid 12 hours and could serve them at any time in the day. He was there alone again, on a Sunday doing a 7:00 am-700Pm, and the time at the moment was 7:24. He initiated the purge sequence. The A.I. screamed, trying to report his illegal destruction of an A.I. After saving the contents onto a "ONI Disc" he opened the airlock in the space station floating above the cyan colored planet called Harvest. He flung the Disc out into airlock, and watched as the disc vanished into the abyss of space.
He sighed and laughed, "Alone at last."
The computer erupted with messages.
"You are in violation of Cole Protocol. ONI Head Quarters is being contacted. Sealing main doors..."
Same gritted his teeth. "Shit! Not on my watch! I am not going to be shot for this, this disposal of inadequate equipment."
He ran for the doors and escaped down the tight, metallic doorway. He hurriedly dressed in his space suit and headed for his Spaceship in the zero gravity space dock. The doors of the bay shut. He hopped in the top of the thin pointed craft and pulled open the sliding door and fell in the plastic seat of the ship. He pulled back the throttle. He was nervous, he knew the auto-pilot was locked and he was not certified to fly a space vessel. He blasted through the doors into space.
" I am going home!" he yelled aloud. He should have been scared, but he was relieved. No more job, no more rules. As his ship rocketed toward the planet he never noticed the outbound ship powering up to make a jump into slip space. The blast killed him instantly. But in Space, all free-floating matter remains unchanged, and the disc was carried out toward a Covenant patrol of space ships, just waiting for a chance to attack human trade ships. This ship was no exception.
In the wreckage of the human ship, the drones flew around. One discovered a shiny object and brought it up to the covenant scientists. Realizing it was not a forerunner artifact, but a human object, they sent it up to The Captain of the ship to see if it would serve in future battles against the enemy.
The Gold Elite smiled as he shoved the disk into the purple control panel.
" Get High Charity on the Com at once!" the elite barked.
A red elite responded, " Yes your excellency. Signal found, connecting in 6 units."
A prophet appeared on the screen, sitting in his chair.
" What is it now?" The old prophet asked with a hint of irritation.
The gold elite answered with a confident tone, " Noble Prophet of Mercy... I have found a human artifact..."
The prophet waved his hands up in disgust, " Listen ship commander, if this is another noise record device I will have you thrown out of the Covenant."
" No your excellency. This disc has no encryptions yet our scanner reads it's outer information tags as so, 'A.I. of Harvest station. Property of ONI.' With your blessing I would like to follow the directions using a space map that will lead us to where this thing came and forerunners willing, to the human planet."
The prophet sighed, " Very well commander. But if you fail, your defeat is on your own head."
The screen flipped off.
The Golden Elite smiled. " Comrades! We will be the first to set foot on a human planet. We our the start of the great cleansing!"
All elites cheered in the circular room. The commander sat down in his purple chair and watched the clock on the scanner. 3 days until fully scanned and translated. Than the elite muttered,
" For a Prophet Named Mercy he sure does not have any."
Chapter 1: Life on the planet Harvest
The thirty year old man sat down in his chair and reclined backwards. He knew how much his wife hated tv, so instead of watching his tv that was built and concealed in the ceiling, he bought tv goggles that wirelessly got cable from his cable box. He flipped through the channels. Commercial, porn, news. He sighed and sat back as the news was announced.
"Early this morning around 7:00 am, on ONI research base there was an accident, and one scientist was killed when his space ship collided with an out-bound trade ship. ONI says it was a simple accident, yet they are shutting down all space vessel traffic in our solar system."
He shut the goggles off and put them on the coffee table on his left, which was made of wood, could fold under and then blend in with the rug. He heard his wife call from the other room,
" Harry I got your dinner."
" Be right there Sarah."
Harry sat down at the table that popped out of the floor, and watched as his tired wife bent over to scoop the quick-make meals out of the micro-oven.
She sat across from him, her blond hair pulled back in a pony-tail. Her blue eyes glanced down at her food. She was very attractive (For Harry at least) with her thin body and small chest. When ever she asked Harry how she looked he just would say: Your fine the way you are. She started eating and in between bites of the quick-made noodles she spoke.
" So Harry how was your day?"
" Fine I guess."
" What do you mean by that? What is wrong?"
"Ah nothing. We just got shutdown today, and for the next week I stand to make no money. All our trade ships our grounded do to some idiot who got himself hit by a trade ship."
She smiled and got up from her chair, and whispered to him, " Maybe you can take some time off and spend some on me." she laughed and began kissing him.
Harry was aroused but knew his wife was to tired for what she had suggested. He spoke before she could attempt to lure him in.
" I will take care of the baby. Do not worry. How is he doing anyway?"
"Shit!" his wife laughed and sat back down. " Well he is sleeping now. He just can not get enough attention. Put him down for just a second and he cries. But I love him, but not enough to spend another day with him. I need a break."
Harry laughed and got up from the table and cleaned up while his wife fell asleep on the couch. He did not bother to move her, the snoring would wake young Thomas from his rest. The house they lived in was a pleasant white, with ample shelves containing books, and one computer in the corner of the house. He walked upstairs into his baby's room. He lay there with his brown hair growing in. He smiled and kissed the baby goodnight. Harry walked back down the stairs and decided to take a walk and get out for a change.
He left his house and walked out on the sidewalk along the single lane road. It was all forest to the West of his house but to the east, behind the dark green mountain lay the city. Traffic was at a minimum, seeing as this was the farthest they were aloud to settle under the Harvest Code of 2519. His house had a tilted roof, just like the houses on Earth. He liked the old way things where. A house is a house was the way Harry saw it. Every dwelling past the mountain (accept for Harry's) made their living farming. Climate controlled bubbles dotted the distant clearings in the forest, and not to far away from those bubbles where farm houses.
Another thing that kept the planet mostly rural was the threat the Covenant posed. Harvest was the farthest away from UNSC controlled space and people started leaving in droves. Also being farthest out in space made the planet hard to reach, and people do not like the isolation. Harry had never been a big fan of space travel, and all the distance did not matter. Plus he was born on Harvest. His wife was not however, but she only visited her family once a year.
The trees where still, not a breeze. The trees stood high and thick. They must have been at least 50 years old. Weird looking things, green, but no branches, it just had vines hanging off of it that where made out of connected leaves. No climate control on Harvest though, not wide-spread anyway, and thus the air was sticky. Strange bugs made their foreign calls as Harry walked down the path that made a circle around Portsmith Global Park. The word National did not exist here, because the planet was a bunch of colonies from other countries on other planets. The walk itself was 2 hours of tranquility and time for Harry to think.
What would become of him if the Space ban was not lifted? His job as a trade chief at New Wave Computers would be ruined. Harry figured it would pass and decided this would give him more time with his family. He went back into his house through the automated door he had installed to recognize voice. The door slid shut behind him and he went to the control remote that controlled lights, heating, air conditioning, etc. Harry shut everything down and headed up to his room. He knew his wife was downstairs, but for some reason he wanted her with him. No, she would wake the baby. He pushed all his thoughts aside and figured he could handle them tomorrow. His eyes slid shut and all troubles vanished with sleep.