Ok all, final chapter before the real story starts. Enjoy.
Cassidy III was a beautiful world when he looked down at it from orbit. It consisted of a collection of massive islands that spread across the surface, being separated by not a sea but large rivers that flow across the entire planet, there was no green but instead white peaks. It was considered to be an artic world but not but enough to not be liveable, while difficult it was not impossible to grow crops and start a real infrastructure.
'How could it fall so far?' Atlas thought to himself as he looked at everything around him. The city he was in was the second largest on the planet and it was in complete ruin. He looked at the scene in front of him with a passive face, he stood in the centre of the city, all around him buildings just weren't usable anymore, the holes that were blown in them where just too big and some still had smoke billowing from them. Looking up he could see the snow gently falling to the ground though when he looked closer he could see that some ash was falling with it.
Not even the ground was solid as there where huge potholes that were caused by grenades and mortars. He looked down to the ground and let out a sigh, this is not what he wanted, a small part of him thought that Parangosky sent him here to teach him a lesson, that he couldn't succeed in everything, that his actions had consequences.
And that was true wasn't it, it was his actions that caused this. It's been two weeks since he's mission to Eridanus II and word spread quickly. He wasn't surprised that ONI did exactly what Parangosky said they would and pushed the narrative. The footage of Eridanus being reintegrated into the UEG spread across the galaxy and with that also came the footage of him, standing still with bullets bouncing off of him. He was certainly a known entity now. A part of him would have thought that would have made this easier. Needless to say that he passed his evaluation and Project Atlas came to an end, from there the Atlas contingency was put into effect.
It was a contingency that was now in the long list of UNSC protocols that anyone could activate and assuming all the A.I's who over saw the circumstances of the contingency being activated agreed it was necessary, if they proved to be right in activating it then he would be heading their immediately.
But there was something that he did not anticipate, the fear that would go with him. When Serin and he landed on this world's primary UNSC barracks, the reception that he received was different then he expected, it a lot of staring, some in fear, others in awe. But his fame was getting hard to ignore and it was making things both easier and harder.
'Case in point' he thought to himself as he kneeled down, next to the body that lay unmoving on the ground next to him. What was left of it at least. Alt wanted to go about this the same way he did with Watts, so he instructed the head of the UNSC forces to send out a message on all frequencies. Something the leader of the local group of insurrectionists, a woman called Caitlyn Jackson, would hear. The message was a simple 'let's meet and discuss terms'
If only it could be so simple, he didn't know how but she knew he was coming. At the moment his leading idea was that he was spotted by someone when he landed and since he was so recognizable, Jackson must have had a small panic attack. Worrying about what he would do to her, if he could get Watts to change his mind then who knows what type of dark powers he has that ONI made sure the public didn't know about? At least that is what he thought she thought.
When Jackson gave him a location, right in the middle of enemy territory. He didn't bat an eye, he sent word that he would be there. Which is what led him here in the first place, when he first arrived he only waited for a few minutes before someone came to him, it wasn't Jackson. It was an old man who looked pretty beat up, he had a heavy coat but Alt just looked through it and saw the explosives.
He didn't panic at the sight and remained calm, the small drone in the air above the buildings that was recording him made sense now. This was to kill him and show all of humanity that he could be beat. The man started to rant off a speech, it was about freedom and liberty and all that. Alt didn't interrupt him as he spoke but his face turned from one of calmness to sadness with each word. He knew what would happen when the speech ended, he let it happen.
This man was willingly giving up his life in an attempt to stop him and help free his people, it was wrong, and he was wrong in his goals. But in the end he admired and respected that, the least he could do was let him die thinking he did a good thing. It wouldn't make a difference to him.
So, with the speech done, the man ran towards him with a scream. Alt just stood there, he remained still when the bomb around the man went off, he didn't blink when the heat washed over him and he calmly exhaled as the flame engulfed him. As the smoke surrounded him, he didn't need his hearing to know that all watching from that drone would be shouting and laughing at his death.
But when the smoke cleared and he remained standing, his clothes singed and full of holes. His skin covered in black soot, blood and guts. He looked up and drone was looking right at him. He very calmly bent down and picked up a small stone and calmly threw it at the machine, it was perfect shot and drone was destroyed by the impact. It crashed into the ground.
Alt gave the body on the ground one final look before he stood and started to walk deeper into the city "Atlas, you there?" Serins voice came through his com.
A part of him was surprised that his earpiece was still in one piece after an explosion went off in his face but he shouldn't be, this one was designed to be tougher than the others. He reached up and placed his fingers into it "yeah, I'm here" he answered.
"Holy shit" he heard another voice say from the com that was definitely not Serin, it wasn't a surprise that others were listening in on the call.
"Why did you let him do that?" Serin asked "you must have known that there was a bomb around him" she said it like a doting mother talking to a small child.
"I felt bad for him" he said glancing to the side, noting a very small camera attached to a building that when he looked closer he could tell still worked, which in itself was impressive considering that the was hanging from the only remaining wall from a building that has been bombed to shit "he gave his life for a cause he believed in. The least I could do was let him die thinking he just took out a really powerful enemy" he glanced at himself "I am going to need a new set of clothes and a shower" he added, reaching up and rubbing his hand over his face, wiping away some of the blood and guts.
"How nice of you" he could pretty much taste the sarcasm in that statement "Still want to try and reason with them?" she asked.
If Alt didn't know any better, he would have thought that she was trying to make a point. He let out a long sigh at the question "yes" he admitted "have they moved from their base?" he asked glancing upwards at the UNSC frigate hovering in the sky above him.
Of course, the UNSC had the advantage in every way and it would have been easy to knock the city to the ground from high in the sky. Even were that frigate was now, a few hundred kilometres in the sky, it would be easy to bomb this place to the ground but no, that was too much. The governor of the planet said no to that, that would be too much damage. Completely ignoring the fact that in order to rebuild any of this they'll have to tear it all down anyway.
"No, they haven't moved but they're more clustered together, seems they know that you're still alive and are hunkering down" she answered, thankfully ignoring his statement that he wanted to give them another chance.
"Ok, I'm going to head towards the bunker now" he said walking down the street.
"I still don't see how you can still believe that they'll just change their minds and surrender" Serin added.
He gave another glance to the frigate above him, no doubt she was on the bridge of that ship, sitting at a terminal, looking at a screen that had an image of him through a camera, at least he thought so. Now that he was moving down the streets and away from the camera that was just on him, he made the assumption that she was now monitoring radio traffic.
His feet kicked up the dust as he walked, even now some buildings continued to crumble, days after the last recorded missile strikes the air he breathed in was mostly ash and snow. As of the moment he walked down the streets towards the last... somewhat strong bunker that the remainder of the insurrectionists were holed up.
They used to have dozens of different bunkers and bases in the city from which they would use to plan and launch their attacks. They were all gone now, they were systematically wiped out one by one by the standing UNSC forces. That was one of the reasons why he was here now, it wasn't because the UNSC couldn't take them out, it was because Paranoskey wanted him to be the one to do it. She wanted him to show that he had what it took to wipe them out, to completely eliminate a hostile force.
Well too bad, he wasn't going to do that. Not because he couldn't but because he simply didn't want to. He's seen the files and read the reports, some of the people in this bunker where as young as ten, just kids not knowing any better. He couldn't just kill them all like this "thermal images show thirty-nine hostiles in the bunker" Serin told him "You'll have to go down into the sewers to get given access to it"
"Well" he said with a small shrug "I can't complain about being clean already can I" he said stopping in the middle of the road before turning to a very small hatch, that's the thing about colony's this far out. They have their own infrastructure that's outside the norm for the regulations of the UEG. If there's one thing the UEG likes about itself it's the regulations, the order and of course the taxes. After all that was one of the many different reasons why the insurrectionists where doing what they were doing.
It also meant that when you've been in one sewer you've been in all of them, or in this case seen the plans for them, know how they're mapped out. Thankfully Atlas can say he's never been in a sewer before, unfortunately that was about to change. He kneeled down and the hatch was sealed shut, there was no power so he would have to improvise on this one. He brought his hand up and slammed it into the ground. The concreate meant nothing to him, his fist went right through it and from there, his hand went into the opening sewer tunnel under him.
Getting a grip of the ceiling of the tunnel his was above, he pulled upwards. A large chunk of concreate blew upwards creating a large hole in the ground. As it did it was very hard to ignore the smells that immediately hit his nose. By instinct he brought his hand up to his nose to try in a very vain attempt to block it out. He mentally rolled his eyes before he lowered his arm and dropped into the tunnel.
That was bad thing about the senses he had, in truth making a big hole to the sewer tunnels really didn't make a difference, he could always smell what was down there. He just had good practise at ignoring those smells, the problem was that his main method of ignoring those smells was by focusing on the other more pleasant ones.
He stopped thinking and did a mental shrug 'guess it did make a difference' he thought to himself as he landed. Thankfully he didn't land in a river of people's waste, the colony's infrastructure was a lot cleaner than some people would think. Alt landed on a thin walkway that overlooked a manmade stream, the stream itself wasn't something as completely horrible as a river of waste. Yeah, there was human waste in there but in truth it was more of a recycled waste river. The plumbing from the multiple buildings around them had filters in them that over time from the multiple toilets, they got broken down over time until they reached a sewage plant. This was just one step on the journey.
Don't get him wrong, it still smelt really really bad. But it could have been worse. He started to down the path, doing his best to hold his breath. Which being honest made him think for a moment, he's never tried to hold his breath for long periods of times before. But he only took a small breath before, this could be a chance to really experiment with something new. He walked back to the hole his just made, he hopped off his feet and reached up with his hand. Grabbing the edge of the hole he made he pulled himself up with one hand. Not enough to completely leave the tunnel, just enough for his head to peek out.
He took a couple of deep breaths, opening his lungs as much as he was able, at least that's what he saw the Spartans did when they were out of breath and if anyone knew how to get oxygen into his body it would be them. After around ten seconds, he opened his mouth and took a deep breath, he breathed in a great deal of air. It he breathed in for a solid ten seconds which in of itself was odd. When he thought that it was enough, he dropped back into the sewer tunnel and started to move.
He felt a lot better as he walked, not having to worry about the smell. Sure, the smell was still there but when he wasn't actively breathing it in, it was much more manageable.
It would be a pain to walk through this system considering it was pitch black and the signs of navigation that where on the wall where either removed or coloured in. He didn't doubt that this was a deliberate effort on the part of the insurrectionists in order to hide their tracks. Not that it really made a difference, Alt wouldn't be affected by something as simple as the dark. He walked down all the paths, making all the right turns and stepped over the small bridges in order to go in the right direction.
After around ten minutes of walking through the dark tunnels, he found what he was looking for. A steal door that led deeper into the ground, this was how the group was able to move around so much, they would map out the sewer systems and use that to get close to their targets. Quite clever, even if the frigate above them could blow this place up, the number of explosives they would need in order to do it would destabilize the tunnels the city was resting on and bring a lot of buildings down.
Walking to the door, he could see the small camera sticking out of the wall next to it. As he walked closer, he could hear the multitude of voices coming from behind it. Somewhere loud and others where quiet, but they all had one thing in common, the fear. He briefly looked down and sighed, he knew that his Presence would cause some fear but he would never like it, he would never want people to be afraid of him.
He stopped in front of the door and waited a moment before he reached up and banged his fist against it. The sound echoed not only throughout the tunnel he was in but what was behind the door as well. He heard many screams coming from behind that door when he did, there was silence for a moment before the sound of footsteps arrived as well. He looked through the door and he could see Jackson herself on the other side. He reached up and pressed a button next to the door and her echoed throughout the tunnel "if you try and force your way in here, we'll kill you" her voice snarled.
"No" Alt shook his head and placed his hand flat on the door, resting his body weight against it "You'll try and kill me, but you won't be able too" his voice was soft and almost had a hint of sadness in it.
Jackson snarled as she shook her head, her hand clenched into a fist. She knew he was right but her stubbornness wouldn't let her "So... what then?" she asked with an angry and cynical voice "just roll over? Let go everything we've fought for go to waist, let their deaths be for nothing?" she reached up and slammed her fist on the door and it was loud enough for him to think that she just broke a bone "I can't just give up" that last little piece being said was to herself more than anyone else.
"It doesn't matter if their deaths were for nothing" Alt started "to them, they died for a cause, they died in the belief that their death meant something, we should all be so lucky" he placed his hand flat on the door "but I'm here now, you've seen that no amount of bombs or bullets will stop me. You know that if you try and do what your friend did. It won't work and you'll know that you'll die for nothing. Jackson please. No more death"
"What do you know of death?" her response was immediate and filled with hate "we didn't do this because we liked fighting, because we like killing the people who were sworn to protect us? We did this to stop the death, to stop the back breaking labour, the slave wages, the no health care, the corrupt and brutal police force, those dying in the street of starvation because they couldn't afford food despite working all day" she listed even one with a passion that Alt could understand, she spoke like someone who experienced every one of those.
The sad part was that knew, of course he knew about all of them. He read every report on the way here, all of them and he asked the ships A.I to confirm the accuracy but it didn't have access to the files, but the evidence had been building up since he got here, but her voice, the anger, the sadness, this was the final stroke, they were true.
The problem was, where did that leave him now? What could he do? He couldn't just leave them here, but he couldn't kill them either. Well, he could kill them, but he really didn't want to. The only way that this could end without death would be surrender and he didn't want to think of the shit conditions these guys would be put in, he doubted this place would have something as humane as prison "There's always going to be the corrupt, there's always going to be scum and villainy" he started as he looked through the door and over Jacksons shoulder, towards everyone who was gathered behind her "if it's no here then it's going to be somewhere else, even if you got everything you could have wanted, I give it ten years before the corrupt come back. I'm not excusing it" he quickly added as he tapped on the door "but I'm just explaining the situation, humanity isn't perfect and there's not a lot anyone can do about it, not even me"
He started to push his hand forward and the latches on the door started to creak and bend as it succumbed to his strength. The people behind the door started to scream and scramble backwards, trying to vain to find some place to hide from him. The doors last latch broke off and it slowly swung open. While others tried to hide, Jackson simply stood there, her hand holding her up as she leaned against the wall. In front of her a small screen that was showing the spot he just stood, he couldn't help but notice how defeated she looked "but this is over" he said starring down at her.
"Nothing is ever truly over" she snarled back, not caring in the slightest about what he just did or what he could do to her "It won't stop here, sure you can take some of us down. But it won't stop" she turned to face him and banged a hand on his chest, there was no real heat behind it so even if Alt was a regular human "it can't stop. The UNSC can do whatever it wants, create whatever weapons it wants, create whatever freak it wants" she added looking at him up and down "if they keep bringing people down the way they are, we'll keep fighting" she added.
Alt didn't speak for a moment, thinking about her last statement 'she was right' he thought to himself. If things didn't change, people would still lash out at all those around them. Be it the government or their own neighbours but that wasn't his call, he couldn't even do what he did last time. Despite the situation on Eridanus II getting a lot better and news of the turn away from the insurrectionists and towards the UEG was spreading like wildfire. ONI and the UNSC weren't exactly happy with him, they said he gave them too much power, too much leeway and forgiveness for their past crimes.
Parangosky spoke to him and gave him a warning, he couldn't give them that much power over there surrender again. If he told them that the UEG would just give them what they wanted then the fleet or armies that they send just won't do it and they'd make him come out as a Lier "So what now then huh?" he asked her "what would you have me do? I have a duty to ONI, the UNSC and the UEG. You're not going to carry on with this, it stops now" there was a sternness in his voice that she couldn't fight against.
She looked down the ground and sighed "what now?" she asked back with a dry chuckle before looking back up at him and turning away. Heading back deeper in the small bunker "I'm not going to allow him the pleasure of having me in the concentration camp he calls a prison" she turned a corner and left his sight for a moment before he followed her. It seems a second out of his sight was all she needed to grab it. Standing in front of a large pile of explosives, she stood solemnly with a detonator in hand, it was a rudimentary thing, like it was being held together with duct tape and had many loose wires hanging free, the only things that really stood out would be the antenna, a small key dangling from the side and a red button. Behind her was a large gathering of everyone that ran away when he first came in, they all look at him with scared faces but some, maybe a few of the older ones held a look an acceptance "I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of having us all to himself" she added as she twisted the key.
Alt knew what she was planning on doing, it didn't a genius to figure that one out and he knew exactly who she was talking about, it was the planetary governor, Harry Wells. He was the one who was officially in charge of the planet and based on all the reports that he's read, Jackson had a very good reason to hate the man and a part of Alt did as well. In a way he couldn't blame her for wanting to take their lives out of his hands, he stuck Alt as the type to take a great deal of pleasure in having authority over his enemies. What gave him pause where all the people behind her, none of them were fighting her on this. No-one looked like they wanted too, sure they looked scared, they looked downright terrified, but they didn't move to stop her "there are kids here" he said as more of a whisper to himself than anyone else.
"No, they're not" Jackson added with a dry chuckle as some tears rolled down her cheeks. There's no way she didn't know that there were kids at the back of the small gathering behind her, some of them looked as young as thirteen "kids play games, they have fun with friends, they get into trouble with their parents. They don't make bombs, they don't have to watch as their moms and dads get beaten to death, they don't get thrown in a prison made for adults" she listed each one and as she did the anger in her voice got louder and louder "we've lost here, but we can at least get to decide when we check out" she looked right into his eyes.
"Wai..." he tried to say before she pushed the button and Alt vision was engulfed with flame.
Serin let out a sigh as she looked at the monitor in front of her, it's been ten minutes since they've lost contact with Atlas, normally the signal should have been strong enough for him to still be in contact, but the sewer must have lead lined walls or something similar, it was also possible that they had some kind of signal blocker down there and they didn't know about. Though lead walls were much more likely.
She hated not being able to keep an eye on him, the Admiral had made it very clear. Alt couldn't just make deals like before and if he did they would ignore him, a part of her hated the fact he was out of sight and could be doing anything, but the other part did like how she didn't know, that way she couldn't get into trouble for it. Plausible deniability and all that, though there was a small voice in the back of her head telling her that the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence would not give two shits about plausible deniability.
"Atlas, do you read?" she asked again into the radio but received nothing but static.
She closed her eyes and let out a sigh, knowing now there was nothing she could do but wait. At least that's what a normal person would have thought but she was far from normal, the choice was a simple one now. She could either sit here and wait for him to come back up or she could get ready for what Alt would most likely try and do once he gets back up. She wasn't a fool, she knew exactly what he would want to do. He's read the reports about this planet, he knows exactly how bad it was and she knew that he wouldn't be able to leave until something was done about it.
Atlas was an idealist, he was naïve and being perfectly honest he seemed purposefully ignorant of how certain aspects of the government worked. She didn't doubt for a second that he would want Governor Wells out of office but that wasn't going to happen. He didn't have the amount of clout needed in order to get someone removed from their position, at least not yet and especially when their position served a purpose. She didn't know what the purpose was but this planet was no ordinary world.
This planet recently underwent a mining process which meant a large quarry was dug, three weeks into the dig and suddenly Parangosky was in a lot of closed-door meetings and this planet suddenly had to have all insurrectionists dealt with immediately. Serin was made aware of the list of insurrectionist held worlds that Atlas was scheduled to visit and deal with. Cassidy III was far down on the list, which meant that something was found which caused this world to become much more important than others, Serin didn't know what that was, but she had some ideas.
But that was beside the point, Alt would want Wells out of the picture and Serin knew that she wouldn't be able to stop him. She also knew that Alt was a valuable assist and him killing a governor would make his life difficult, he won't be thrown in prison, he was too important for that but he would stop being an ONI agent and would become more of an asset but nothing but an asset. He wouldn't been seen as a person but as someone who owes ONI years of work in exchange for no prison time.
That was something that she just couldn't allow, despite how much he annoyed her. She couldn't allow something like depression to cloud his judgement and if he loses the very little free will he was allowed to have in the first place, there is a very real chance that could happen. Of course, that was if we are judging him by human standards, there was always the chance that he could pull another ability out of his ass that would deaden his emotions or he could just surprise everyone and not be affected by something like depression.
Either way it was not something they could risk at the moment, which is what led him to where she was now. Typing up sets of code that the ships A.I would transfer to a local server that will deal with the problem before it could become one. She knew Atlas would try and deal with the head of the snake, in this case the Colony governor. She'll have Wells dealt with herself so Alt can keep his hands clean, at least clean with a allegedly innocent person.
It was a relatively simply to write the code, she was a Spartan after all, they didn't just teach them about fighting, they taught them everything that a solider could possibly need. Including hacking and coding, it only took a few minutes before she pressed the enter key.
The second she did, there was a small tremor that was felt throughout the ship.
Serin frowned for a moment, no way the code did its job that quickly "Detonation" a male voice said behind her. Quickly turning around to the central holographic table that had a line of the sight to the city bellow them.
"Location?" the captain of the ship asked as he moved to the table and looked down to image of the city.
"The blast originates from the insurrectionists bunker" this time it was a woman who answered the question.
Serin moved closer and got a good view of the blast, it looked like a small-scale explosion but big enough to cave in the ground above it. She was about to ask how powerful the blast was but she did the work in her head and figured it out, based on the smoke coming from the ground, the amount of stone and concreate caving in, from there she quickly glanced at the side of the table and saw how deep the bunker was supposed to be. Whatever the source of the blast was, he would bet it was worth a hundred TNT.
"Any word from Atlas?" she asked to no-one in particular.
"No ma'am. No word from Atlas" a man said from behind her.
Her nostrils flared for a moment before she responded "get the teams down there" she ordered the captain.
The man looked at her sceptically for a moment "ma'am, there's no way..." he started before being interrupted.
"You don't know that" she said quickly "if he's alive he needs medical aid and if he's dead then his body will be recovered. Get the teams down there" her voice was solid, and her eyes gave nothing away.
The captain starred at her, he didn't need to do what she said, Serin had no authority to order the captain of this ship to do anything 'but he was going to, wasn't he?' she thought to herself. Of course he was, she was an ONI agent and yes, normally that wouldn't be enough but Atlas was clearly something special and no-one wanted to think about the amount of red tape that would be around him and her by association "... yes ma'am" he said hesitantly.
"Seismic activity detect" the A.I's voice echoed throughout the room, both Serin and the captain both turned to the table and the tall building that was resting near the crumbling hole in the ground slowly started to fall and soon an extra thousand tons of weight were added onto where Atlas was.
"Make it a dozen teams" Serin added as she moved back to her console, while she waited for Atlas to be dug out. She went back to her own work, wanting to make sure this governor died.
A contemplating face is what rested on Parangosky's as she leaned back on her chair in her office, there was a screen in front of her that showed live footage from a soldier's head camera. The was a dark cave that was situated three thousand klicks north of Atlas's last mission location "freeze it" she said aloud.
The image froze giving the head of ONI a near perfect view of a large silver metal wall that had so many different interacting parts that it could also be called a door. Needless to say that this world and everything connected to it was now full of red tape, this just became the most classified world in the galaxy. A UNSC fleet would be permanently stationed above the world and it would be fitted with the most advanced science equipment they had.
There was also Atlas himself, there was reason Cassidy III was pushed so far up the list from where it was originally. There was no doubt in her mind that Serin already thought something was up but she wouldn't be able to figure it out. Atlas wasn't need on the planet, not really. When word reached about these... ruins? She didn't even know but she knew they were alien.
The interactionists presence was large, true. But they weren't the most well equipped, she could have had the fleet storm that entire city or reduce it to nothing. The governor, Pells or something like that would kick up a fuss but she would shut him up. The real reason Atlas was ordered to go there was because she wanted to see if he some sort of ability to sense alien structures, so far it seems like he didn't. Being perfectly honest that made her feel both better and worse, better that he didn't have any sort of connection that they could find so it made sense that it wouldn't have any hold over him, bad because that means he won't be able to act as a type of sniffer dog that find more.
But that they knew that was the case they can move in. The protocol was clear in this type of situation and it was a rare case where she didn't want to break it, at least not too much. As of the moment, a dozen or so people were writing up reports that would go to the big wigs of the UNSC and they would descend on this like vultures, that is something that cannot be allowed.
Far too many leaks, using the many different A.I in ONI. She made sure that those reports were typed up and sent away, they just wouldn't be received. To the people who wrote them, they would think they did a good job and they just weren't worth being written back too, which was often the case for the lower rank reports.
She however would write up her own report and send it to a small select few, mainly the other Admirals. They knew that when they got a report from her of all people, they knew to keep their mouths shut. Yes, they'll make their opinions known and even send some of their own people, but they would be quite about it. The only thing she had left to decide would be who would be head of the new research station that would be overlooking the structure.
There were a handful of different people that could be used but only two stood out. It couldn't be Halsey, she was needed for the final stages of the Spartan program and based on what she's seen, the Mjölnir armour was almost complete. That remained her, she needed to message Halsey and have her make another set of the armour, though this one would need to be different from the rest.
That only left Ackerson, his work at the moment wasn't the most important and she had no doubt that he would be more than happy to leave it in exchange for looking after and studying alien tech. The only problem with him was that he wasn't the most caring of bosses and when she said while considering Halsey was saying something, that was when another idea came to her. She needed someone smart enough to work with him, skilled enough for this mission and tough enough to stand up to him.
She smiled at the thought that came to her. Williams has known about Aliens since Atlas was discovered and she's been leading the team on his ship for nearly two decades and most importantly she doesn't care about bravado, this could work out very well.
She was about to issue the call and start forming the team together when the Mid-Nights A.I appeared over her desk and the bodiless voice spoke out through the office "Ma'am, the battle group sent to Harvest has gone silent" it told her.
Parangosky's eyes narrowed at the words "do we know the cause?" she asked with a tense voice.
"No ma'am but before contact was lost with the fleet, they made long range radio contact with this object" an image was placed in front of her, it was a spinning shape that constantly flickered in and out of focus as pieces of static disconnected and reconnected with the shape at a fast rate, a clear sign of an attempted block of communication "they were able to send this image back to us veer a Slipspace probe"
The head of ONI spent a solid five minutes staring at the image, contemplating what it meant. She was no fool, she knew exactly what that image looked like, even with how distorted it was "where there any messages that came with it?" she asked as both her arms fell to her chairs arm rests, her eyes narrowed as she thought about what all of this meant.
"Yes ma'am. They activated the Atlas contingency" the A.I said.
She let out a huff and stood up from her chair, turning around she starred out of her offices window. Looking out to all the stars in front of her, she's done this hundreds of times in the past but now was the only she started to think about just how many species could be out there, were Atlas's people looking for him? Or was it something else completely?
But those were questions that could wait for another time. They had planned for this. Turning her head over her shoulder, she looked at the image of the unknown ship again "send word to Serin, priority one. Send the same to Doctor Halsey. She has until the Spartans make it to Green Hills to finish the Mjölnir project. When Atlas rendezvous with the Spartans they go investigate together. Time they show us just what they're capable of" she said as the A.I flickered out of the room, leaving only the image of the ship left.
She didn't turn back to look at it, she didn't need to. There was no doubt that it was already burned into her memory for the rest of her life. She didn't know what was about the happen, but she found herself uncharacteristically hoping that they would be prepared for whatever this was.
Ok guys, we'll call it here. As promised, this was the last chapter before the main plot begins, let there be war. I hope you all enjoyed this somewhat long prologue, also I will be making some sort changes to the main plot of the story, nothing too big but enough to be noticeable.
Anyway, let me know what you think in the reviews.
Next Update: A New Guardian