Chapter 9: First Strike
30 Years Later…
Blackness filled Captain Geraldo's view as his ship, the UNSC Keyes, which also doubled for the Keyes' class flagship, floated in orbit around a small planet that was scheduled to begin colonization. He leaned back in his chair and counted the seconds as he waited for the transports to arrive. Trying to find something to keep himself busy, he tapped a few images on a small holographic displayed next to him and brought up a general overview of his ship. Following the typical UNSC design elements for cruisers, the ship's lines harkened back to the pre-Covenant War but were still very modern and sleek. Offering a relatively thing profile, it would be hard for an enemy, whoever it may be, to land a direct broadside shot on them while still offering ample space for the hundreds of missile pods and heavy machine guns on each side. Located in the front was a retractable MAC cannon that had a much increased rate of fire thanks to it's fast loader and dedicated power plant located within the bowels of the ship. The colors on the Keyes contrasted greatly as the outside was a dark grey color to help blend in with the dead of space while the inside was the self-illuminating white metal that had been adopted by the UNSC as it's default building material of choice. Created from years of experimentation and augmented by Covenant technology, the metal, whose name and make-up were still classified, increased their durability a thousand fold over Titanium-A and it's many hybrids. All of the systems on the ship reported in and everything was working in perfect condition. Geraldo closed the diagram and got out of his chair. A row of computer consoles lined the two walls of the bridge and most were manned by the ships command personnel who kept track of all the ship's systems while others controlled the heavier weapons during combat. In front of the Captain were the two pilots of the cruiser who floated above the slanted window at the front of the bridge and main section of the ship itself. Captain Geraldo was about to leave the bridge when a few of the consoles beeped at their operators, including his own station. The dropped down section in the center of the bridge came alive as holotanks started producing images of the ship and its immediate surroundings.
"Slipspace rupture detected…another one!" someone called out.
"I've got a third!" another reported.
"Is it the transports?" Geraldo asked, hoping it was so they could start doing something.
"No UNSC registry, could be civilian, hailing now…" the communications officer reported from his console in the sunken down area. "Nothing."
"Shields up to fifty percent and bring all automated weapons to Alert Level One and warm up all of the others," The Captain said while pointing to those who were responsible for those actions. He went over to his chair and tapped a small button on it causing it to compress together and disappear into a small compartment under the deck. The holotanks around him powered up and showed the same images as the one behind him. "Bring us around to face the Slipspace ruptures." Stars scrolled to the starboard as the nose of the ship positioned itself. A soft hum filled the air as the two main engines came to life and the six small maneuver engines followed suit. His eyes scanned the darkness in front of him for any sign of the ships but didn't see anything. He was about to change the cameras when golden tracers started to fly out in front of the ship. The two 120mm cannons on the nose of the cruiser had opened fire on something. "Show me what they're seeing." A small box popped up on his display. Their thermal sensors had located three incredibly hot sources of heat. "What the hell...?" Before he could finish, dark blue lances of light impacted on the front of their ship causing the golden shields to flare up. "Bring shields to full power! All personnel to their battle stations! Scramble all fighters and power up every weapon we've got!" The tracers suddenly began filling the darkness as the guns that had a clear view of the heat sources unloaded. A few streams of gunfire were blue plasma rounds that were the first step in transitioning their weapons from projectile based to energy based. A relatively small round, 30mm, was encased with a cloud of plasma that was created inside of the round as it raced towards it's target. While nowhere near the same level of sophistication as the Covenant's weapons, these rounds are still the most effective weapon in the UNSC's arsenal, second only to the NOVA II. The volume of incoming fire continued to increase as the Keyes began maneuvering out of the way. More turrets came online and salvos of missiles streaked away from their pods. Shots continued to impact on their shields more frequently causing the Captain to begin to get nervous. "Relay a message to HighComm, just say anything to them but make sure they don't send reinforcements," he said desperately. Alarms began blaring in the bridge as the shields suddenly dropped below twenty-five percent.
"Sir! I'm detecting massive energy spikes!" Geraldo looked out at where the fire was coming from and saw balls of energy glowing on the bows of their enemy.
"The assault was a complete success, none of our ships were damaged and the cruiser was completely annihilated although it was able to send off a message before it's cores detonated." John looked back up at the Forerunner officer who was standing in the entrance to his apartment.
"Alright. I hope they were able get a copy of the message though, I'd like to look over it."
"Of course, I'll bring it to you as soon as I can." He nodded and the officer left him. A sudden burden felt like it had fallen on his shoulders and he braced himself on a nearby table. His hand migrated to the gauntlet on his right arm, the object that had at least kept him and others around him from aging, if not making them younger.
"It's my time now…" he said, trying to reaffirm to him his actions.
"These recent events are most disturbing. It has been over twenty-five years since last encountered a Covenant ship and it was dead in space. We must face the facts that our greatest fear might've just come true…"
"Let's not be to hasty to rush to judgment. Pirates have been known to reverse engineer Covenant tech and use it on their own ships."
"Let's also not downplay these events! If we decide to not to take some kind of a precaution, we will find ourselves in the same situation we found ourselves when Harvest fell." The four highest ranking UNSC officers stood on a small balcony overlooking the shimmering blue Pacific. Short green grass had been planted in two large squares that were surrounded by stone squares. Three of the officers stood in a loose triangle while the fourth, only in his late thirties and with dark skin, leaned over the balcony.
"So you think we should tell the colonies that a new and much more dangerous enemy is prowling space?"
"You think we shouldn't tell them, don't know!" The tow officers arguing with each other moved closer and looked as if they would resort to blows.
"I'm appalled you aren't making the connection here. We have always been living in the shadow of an enemy fore sophisticated, more deadly, and more elusive than the Covenant. The Forerunners are making their first move; we'd better make a counter move." The others looked over at the young officer who had left his position on the balcony.
"You're both crazy," the one officer who still believed it was pirates said, "they're not interested in us or they would've attacked years ago."
"They didn't have a fleet, or their fleet was so small it could be defeated just by sheer numbers alone. How long has it taken to rebuild our fleet since the Covenant attacked? Two decades at least but now we number in five digits. If you blow this off, we will be broadsided by an attack the likes we have never seen. Imagine, an entire hive world dead because they had ten ships trying to defend the entire system. But if we bring at least the Navy up to full alert status we can at least attempt to prevent a massacre if there is one."
"Is that all you are suggesting?" The young officer didn't respond immediately. Instead, he went and leaned back onto the balcony and thought for a few moments.
"Wake up the Spartans."
"Johnson, you'd better be right about this."
Private Harris was making his daily rounds to check on the vitals of the Spartans when he heard a rhythmic beeping on his computer. Finishing up on the tube he was at, he headed into the small office at the front of the room and looked at his computer screen. A small message icon was flashing on the lower left hand corner. He tapped it once and the sender information and subject slid out in a bar to the right. Re-reading the info over and over, he opened up the full message and read through it.
"Holy shit…" The Private had just received orders to wake the Spartans up. Closing the file, he plopped down in his chair and rolled over to the master control panel for the cryo tubes and navigated through the different layers until he was able to run the program to thaw down every tube at once. Tapping "Run", a small progress bar appeared and immediately ticked to 1 but the timer read at least three hours before they could actually be woken up and brought back to consciousness. There was nothing left for Harris to do except sit and wait.
