Chapter 2 - Chance Discovery
"War changes us, for better or worse."
Milfeulle sat by a tree, hands tied to a rope which in turn was tied to the master assassin's gauntlet. Ray was running some water collected from the river through a filter and was boiling the filtered water over a fire, the moon shone bright over the small clearing they were at.
After several hours of going through the forest with no words said, the Assassin was getting annoyed at the silence, they had a long journey ahead of them and the heat of the jungle in the day wasn't helping the situation when they travelled. As Ray finished filtering and heating the water he poured it into a flask and closed the cap on it and proceeded to sit exactly 3 feet from Milfeulle.
Milfeulle spoke first, saying "If you're going to ask questions, I won't answer them." Ray sighed and said "What about simple questions, like where were you born?"
The girl replied "Imperial City, on our homeworld, Transbaal. Any other simple questions?" Ray shrugged and said "Know a place called Panama City?"
Milfeulle stared in silence for a moment before saying "If you're taking me to some kind of underground cell there, please just kill me here." Ray sighed and said "I told you my group doesn't use harsh methods. Don't worry about some kind of unspeakable torture." Milfeulle then replied "Does your group identify themselves with a red cross pattern?" Ray was no longer trying to start an idle conversation and immediately began to be interrogative in his tone and body language as he said "Red Cross pattern? What do you know about them? What is the name of their organization?" Milfeulle shrugged and said "They're called the Templar Order, I assume they're not the same group you're with." Ray clenched his right fist so tightly his hidden blade made itself known, nearly cutting his now slightly exposed wrist artery in the process. Milfeulle for a moment thought he was angry enough to actually grant her request, and as much as she feared the rumors of Templar interrogation methods, she was reminded that she feared dying more. To Milfeulle's mind there was no afterlife, death was the end, to her knowledge the Transvaal Empire, whilst not oppressive of religion, had been exposed to so much war that their homeworld was mostly secular.
Ray had other ideas about the afterlife, most Assassin's either didn't believe to begin with or lost their beliefs upon learning about the artifacts or after constant death and killing, where no higher power stopped their blades or the blades of their enemies. Ray, unlike most Assassins, was religious, catholic as well. (And with a history of being almost absolutely controlled by the Templars in the early 1400s made their presence in the Assassins extremely rare, a fact that haunted Ray personally for some time because of his memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze.)
These beliefs however calmed Ray down as he relaxed his fist, the blade going back to concealment and he himself was calming down, the Templars, as horrible as their history was, are not all evil. The memories of Arno Dorian proved this to Ray who involuntarily grinned as he recalled several bar fights with drunk Assassin Historians whenever they continued to push their beliefs that Bellec was correct. Ray never drank himself into a stupor, memories of Edward Kenway made him respect his limit even if he wasn't on top of his game, after feeling both the drunken stupor of the Pirate Assassin and his hangover thereafter regarding the sage pirate Bart Roberts. (Not to mention all the times he drunk himself to unconsciousness in his private cove more times than Ray would care to remember. In fact Ray had become so repunged at the thought that he would prefer to recall Edward's death over most of his drunken stupors.)
Shaking the thoughts away mentally he noticed Milfeulle had taken notice of his state of deep thought and was both confused and afraid. Ray then said "Sorry, remembering some things. Milfeulle, if those rumors you've heard were about the Templar Order then I'm afraid you're correct to fear them."
Milfeulle, though her hands were tied they were tied in front of her, grasped her uniform tightly at the thought of what she heard happening to her. Ray noticed this and said "I know of a brotherhood cell in the area of where I'm supposed to take you. I'll take you there instead of the original place, if the higher ups question my actions I'll remind them of the first and third tenants." Milfeulle replied "First and Third Tenants?"
Ray replied "There are three core tenants we abide by which support the two mainstays of the brotherhood's creed. Nothing is true, Everything is permitted. Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent, Do not pronounce your actions to the world and Do not compromise the brotherhood. If we handed you over to the Templars, they would use methods in contradiction of our tenants and that in turn would violate the third tenant. Though I do not believe you are innocent because of your past I do believe you can redeem yourself." Milfeulle then said "My past? What do you mean, how would you know anything of my history?"
Ray with anger and hate flashing in his eyes, said "New York City, information said your specific aircraft is the one that deployed a nuclear weapon there, sending millions to their death, civilians, children, non-combatants." Milfeulle shook her head rapidly and said "I never participated in any nuclear strike on civilian targets. If you mean the city on the east coast of the northwestern continent it was vacant of civilians, evacuated because of our constant victories." Ray shouted back "Vacant? There were nearly two or more million people there at the time of the attack, sure we had a military presence there but compared to the civilians there it was not worth a nuclear attack, with your nation's technology you don't need to use nuclear weapons!"
As Ray seethed with anger he managed to calm down, his shouting did two things, it frightened Milfeulle as well as confusing her with information that was likely withheld from her and possibly gave away their position if there were patrols or ferocious predators nearby. The Amazon was a haven for animals like pumas, jaguars and other dangerous animals.
Ray sighed and quickly tugged the rope which gave Milfeulle the idea immediately as she got up until suddenly an arrow cut the rope between them. Ray immediately tapped into Eagle Vision and noticed natives, technologically backward and also noticed in the distance a temple never before charted on any map, even Assassin maps until he recognized it. The same temple that used to be part of a massive city, a first civilization launch site for space exploration and the very same site that Project Angel was being researched at the time.
Immediately Milfeulle dashed towards the direction of the temple and Ray immediately fired another tranquilizer phantom blade at her only for him to miss because at the same time, an arrow found itself lodged in his gut, it would have been a big deal if he had not, before the bombing, had that adrenal gland removed due to a-should-have-been Terminal Illness.
Ray charged after her, snapping the arrow in his gut in half and pulling out the other end as he ran, avoiding other arrows by using his eagle vision to track their aim and angle, the very same advantage Arno Dorian benefited from (How else can a man dodge a bullet). Ray came into contact with two tribal warriors in front of him, armed with daggers. Ray quickly dispatched the first with a running assassination and turned at the other, kicking him in the leg then performing a leg sweep and finally sending his hidden blades into the man as he lay on his back, one in his heart, the other in his lung. Ray quickly retracted the blades from the corpse and rolled to his side to avoid an arrow and used a cycle on his gauntlet to change what phantom blade he was firing and fired a simple metal blade through the head of the bowman in front of him, his eagle vision making him aware of a fact that the Transvaal had found this temple and convinced the natives to ally with them, telling them to protect the temple from any outsiders and also to assist anyone in Transvaal uniform, which would explain their immediate hostility, and Milfeulle's lack of fear in running towards the arrow fire.
Ray continued to dart in Milfeulle's direction, drawing his pistol and dispatching 7 more natives as he got closer to Milfeulle.
Getting close enough he lunged forward with his full strength, tackling her and quickly cycling his blade wheel and drove a more thin and separate blade into her shoulder, his poison blade, laced with the same Tranquilizer he used to capture her in the first place.
Suddenly a headache hit him as more natives approached, instead of reaching for his gun he extended his blades and held them in the same manner Connor Kenway used to. Unleashing attacks at the natives, seeing them visually instead as British Regulars. Milfeulle watched as Ray attacked them like a wolf, quickly finding the ones vulnerable and striking fast and true, sometimes speaking a language she didn't know, the same language spoken by the Frontier Wolf who helped bring about the American Revolution.
After only two minutes, 33 natives had been killed with only a pair of dual-action hidden blades and no more remained near them, just as that fact became clear, Ray's bleeding effect ceased and he looked around, confused just as Milfeulle began to feel the sedative in full, sending her to sleep. Ray sighed and went up to his captive and sat her straight near a tree and tied another rope around her, Ray also noted the reason his specific rope was broken so easily was because the arrowheads of the natives' weapons were crafted from first civilization materials, materials even more durable and more lightweight than the Transvaal materials his blades and bullets were composed of.
Hidden Temple, Four hours later.
Milfeulle was asleep longer due to a higher amount of sedative being placed into her this time, the previous dose was minute intentionally so Ray wouldn't need to carry her for four hours. Ray had set her near a wall inside the temple and noticed a sight both Edward Kenway and Shay Cormac were aware of. Thermal Arcs.
The First Civilization had a habbit of lacing some of their more important temples with lethal automated defenses which could release a fatal burst of thermal energy after being hit hard by a global cataclysm and after 75,000 years of age. They built things to last.
After a few Minutes of carrying Milfeulle across the lethal obstacle course without being incinerated in the process Ray set her down near a control panel and noticed a lack of buttons or keys. Acting on sheer memory, Ray placed his palm flat on the terminal and was shocked to see it responded to him not only functionally, but as if he had authorization. As Ray thought about it more he realized that of course he would be able to work it, he was directly descended to the man in charge of the project.
A device began to protrude from the console, an Apple of Eden attached to a rod, rather than removing the Apple Ray simply held onto it, coming into full control and awareness of the system and had now learned what he was seeking in the animus for so long.
Project Angel was a perfect success, EDEN had developed FTL devices known as Chrono-Space Drives, the exact same name of the FTL used by the Transvaal. Milfeulle woke to the sight of the Temple, and the sight of her once more bound hands, and noticed immediately the temple was Lost Technology, and noticed that Ray was holding a Control Sphere (What both EDEN and the Transvaal called Apples of Eden).
Ray spoke aloud, saying "You're awake, good. The information this artifact contains is the information we've been seeking from you. About your faster than light technologies, and how to inhibit them."
Milfeulle spoke loudly, saying "Then you would know how dangerous Chrono-Quake weapons are, and that they're indiscriminate, you would silence FTL travel for thousands of years just to stop a minor conflict, stranding anyone in transit and bringing about another dark age?" Ray shook his head slightly without turning to face Milfeulle, still operating the sphere as he said "No, a small scale quake could seal of the Sol System without sealing off the galaxy for 10 years instead of 10,000. Detonating one that would silence the Galaxy would destroy the entire Sol System, and Earth in the process. But what interests me more is that one of the ships here did not depart and it was designed for Military Purposes and that I may be able to single-handedly control it."
Milfeulle was shocked at this revelation, the Imperial Navy had been stripping the temple clear of any lost technology they found and still more remains, specifically a fully functional military vessel that can be controlled by only one person? Perhaps it was like her Emblem Frame, designed for single pilot use but that was a strike craft. Milfeulle then spoke, saying "How big is this ship?" Ray replied "I don't know a proper conversion of EDEN's distance measurement but based on security feeds that I'm now accessing it would be about 1073 meters in length, 102 in width and 508 in height, the design is simple and efficient, armed with a large amount of anti-strike craft weapons, it's main guns generate enough force which I believe could tear through your orbital garrison with ease, both the materials it has and the experimental large scale energy shield it has could possibly take a persistent onslaught of thermonuclear missiles. This thing could have survived the crisis that wiped out the precursor civilization on Earth if it wasn't in this temple and with it's shields active, a pity the heliofissure reactor they developed here wasn't developed in time to shield part of a city prior to the cataclysm. I believe, I can covertly contact the brotherhood using this sphere..."
As Ray continued to operate the sphere, Milfeulle then tried to get up, only to notice her legs were completely unresponsive, likely she hasn't fully recovered from the sedative, and also her recovery time was much slower, he must have given her a larger dose.
Ray meanwhile, accessed a communication network across the apples, a secure transmission was possible. Whoever was on the receiving end was not in doubt.
William Miles' office, several miles away, a precursor temple
Staring at the apple on his makeshift desk William was deep in thought, suddenly the apple came to life and a visual image of Ray Zenji appeared, saying "Let's see, frequency is stable, and secure. William, this is a two-way communication, Even if you can't operate the apple on your own I can see and hear you by connecting to it. I've come across a precursor temple in the area, I've captured the target but I need to confirm something first. Did you arrange for us to transfer her into Templar hands?" Will sighed and replied "The sudden contact aside, yes we were going to transfer her to a non-abstergo affiliated Templar cell, their interrogation methods work." Ray shouted back, saying "And in direct contradiction with the creed, by allowing them to use these methods and we know they will even if we tell them not to, we condemn ourselves to the same level as our enemies. Their methods will be unspeakably immoral, more so because the prisoner is a woman."
Will shouted in reply "I am the one who is making the decisions here, if you become Grand Mentor then you can have a say in this but you are not part of the council and you need to remember your place. Finish learning what you can from the temple and then return to your mission." Ray replied "We have no need for her now, the information we were looking for was in this temple, and the information on Project Angel. I have the knowledge on both how to develop an FTL device and a bomb that inhibits their FTL, called a Chrono-Quake Bomb. it must be specifically built to certain parameters though or we could end up blowing up the entire solar system." Will was both calming down now and felt a sigh of relief as he heard the news, he then said "Good, return here after you dispose of the prisoner, we can't have her making your face known to their wanted list." Ray shook his head in the hologram and said "I refuse to kill her, she still has value to us and I also believe she can be redeemed, furthermore I believe she was fed false information when she bombed New York, I confronted her on the issue and she told me that to her knowledge New York was vacant of non-combatants, it does makes sense as no moral person would carry out an order of genocide knowing it's not the only way."
Will listened to him, waiting for him to finish talking, when he finished his statement Will said "Although I would enjoy seeing revenge Ray I'm not telling you to kill her out of personal reasons. She is now a liability and knows your face, dispose of her and return at once."
Ray shook his head once more and said "I will not break the first tenant, in this facility there is a ship the precursors built solely for combat, I believe it can end our enemy's orbital supremacy. I am capable of controlling it alone to an extent due to my genetics. I am going to say this only once. Rescind your order to kill Milfeulle or I will leave the brotherhood of my own accord."
Will slammed his desk hard enough for Rebecca in the other part of the temple to hear it, he then said "So you too will defect? After Abstergo uploaded Shay Cormac's memories we lost a lot of brothers and sisters to defections and even now some question our cause. I will not rescind the order."
Ray replied "I see. Know this William Miles, there are others who believe you have gone too far, you are making a mockery of our creed. For years it was always if they're a Templar they're a target, now the enemy has changed but not the method. This long war has hardened the Assassins and made their leaders no different than the one's we've fought." William interrupted Ray and said "Don't you ever compare me with those murdering bastards! I never took children as hostages, I never killed thousands of civilians, put entire cities to the sword and recently, I have never used a nuclear bomb on civilian targets!"
Ray replied "We're done here, if it were only you in that temple I would consider it a target once I get this ship running, but Rebecca isn't like you, no doubt she is highly unlikely to go against you but she isn't someone who thinks she can interpret the creed in any fashion to suit her purposes."
With that the communication ceased before William could reply.
Project Angel Site
Ray took the apple from the rod after his conversation with William was over, his part was done through the apple, his words not audible to those around him, only heard from the receiving end of the apple, which meant Milfeulle was unaware of his decisions and words.
Ray walked over to Milfeulle who was struggling to move but couldn't whilst Ray extended his hidden blade, she feared he was going to kill her now that she was no longer of use, instead he cut her bonds, freeing her.
Milfeulle then said "I still can't move. What is going to happen now?" Ray replied "I'm done with the people in charge. I'm going to activate that ship and fight in my own way. As for you, I was told to kill you, instead I'm going to let you go free. By now most likely your strike craft was recovered by your nation."
Milfeulle replied "I won't make it to the nearest outpost on my own. You're just condemning me to a slow death." Ray sighed and said "Then I'll take you with me on the precursor ship and drop you off at Rome where the Transvaal are known to have set up a Command Post for their European operations."
Milfeulle nodded slightly and after waiting a few minutes, movement came to her legs. Ray made sure he disabled a specific path of the thermal arcs though not all of them and also made sure Milfeulle was ahead of him so she couldn't steal his sidearm.
An hour passed as the sun outside was slowly starting to rise, made apparent by some open windows in the sides of the temple as Ray and Milfeulle stopped to notice the large ship before proceeding through a flight of stairs into the ship.
Precursor Dreadnaught
Ray checked the registry of the ship, it's construction was finished but it was never given a name because the Project launched early, also why it was left behind when the project manager decided to keep it docked after the solar flare destroyed the Asteroid defense systems which could have been used to shoot down the project's works.
Ray placed the apple on another rod which then activated several terminals, fitted with buttons and the like, the ship was seemingly designed to be captained by Precursors and crewed standardly by ordinary humans. Ray also noticed a holo-system which could act as an external name for the vessel.
After some thought Ray decided on a name, he christened his ship the Liberty and realized he could indeed control engines, shields, weapons and internal actions. A full crew would enable the use of more than just the main guns and secondary defenses such as railguns for attacking strike craft.
Ray noticed Milfeulle was so interested in the ship that she wasn't focused on trying to get his pistol or knocking him out, in fact she might have dismissed that because there's no allies nearby to help her get to civilization, the entire native population that guarded the temple was single-handedly killed by Ray.
Ray accessed the systems status and noticed that after 75,000 years everything was in perfect functionality, with the exception of a serious need to polish the ship and the necessity of a crew of at least 100 others for optimal conditions with a full staffing capacity of 1000. The ship was not just designed for war but also was given a very large crew capacity and storage capacity to act as an Ark-ship as well, though the other ark ships both through the terminal and his memories at most could carry 5000 and at least could carry 1500 total, including Staff and security, not just passengers.
Four Bow Mounted Triple Barrel Batteries similar in design to an Iowa Class Battleship's 16 Inch Guns, the weapons here were both capable of carrying kinetic slugs and discharging either thermal energy or pulsed plasma bolts. The Kinetic shells were already loaded in the feeding mechanism, some working automated systems were active and controllable by Ray though only for Weapon Control and Life Support maintenance. Two of the main guns were on the topside and the other two were on the belowside of the ship, being a space design meant it's weapons were designed to fight in a Three-Dimensional environment, rather than half-sphere tactics used for Surface Naval Warfare. Bow mounted missile tubes also existed though there were none loaded or in storage, likely they either didn't build the missiles or the shipment wasn't loaded or even could have been intercepted beforehand.
The aft side also had four Tri-Barrel Batteries of the same design and formation, two topside and two belowside, on the sides was an array of dual-barrel turrets of smaller caliber and shorter barrel length, a total of 32, a number comprised of 16 Port and 16 Starboard. These were the weapons Ray could control, however there were also hundreds of single-barrel railguns operated by gunnery stations in other parts of the ship and some in the bridge which was located in a reinforced section on the top, the ship slightly resembled a WW2 naval vessel in it's design, specifically a battleship (Though lacking smokestacks). The bow was curved and edged like a sword whilst the aft had a circular shape at the end. The rest of the ship however was perfectly rectangular and instead of a conventional naval curve for floating on the water it was flat and contained weapon systems as well, the bow and starboard designs were partial, the belowside was basically a replica of the topside but lacked a reinforced bridge section. More important however was a smoothebore barrel in the bow of the ship, not protruding out like a cannon but rather sugjesting the entire ship itself was a cannon and Ray immediately browsed the information stock and found out something. It was a Chrono Quake weapon, with a direct blast radius of 500 square miles and an FTL inhibiting radius of 50 Astronomical Units, one of two distance measurements that were the same with the first civilization, the distance from Earth to the Sun, the second that remained the same was a lightyear, being the distance light travels over the course of a year. 75,000 years ago the distance to the sun and the absolute time that passed was the same as it is today.
As Ray finishes his perusal of the ship systems he activates a hangar system remotely, opening a large blast door on the top of the temple as a launch rail begins moving the ship slowly, Ray turns his head to Milfeulle and says "Take a seat, we're going to be launched at a vertical angle via an Electromagnetic Rail."
With those words said, Milfeulle quickly found a seat at what seems to be the sensor section for detecting other objects and for intensive scans, things like RADAR (RAdio Detection And Ranging), LADAR (LAser Detection And Ranging) and even SONAR. Strapping herself in with a seatbelt system, more experienced with this kind of thing as Ray straps himself in as well. Ray accesses the Inertial Dampeners and activates them, noticing however that the best he can do is get them up to 50% functionality, he'll have to find out the problem later.
After 10 minutes the Rail aligns and a launch confirmation is sent to Ray's terminal who notices that via the Apple being in his presence and constantly scanning himself, he has access to a holographic interface which responds to him alone.
Confirming the launch, the rail discharges the ship almost instantly, 20 miles into orbit and facing a fleet of some 50 ships. Ray immediately sees them on the sensor data fed to his interface and lets a word escape his mouth.
"Merde."
To be continued...