Chapter 8 – Friend or Foe?

Deployment +170 Hours:29 Minutes:05 Seconds (First Lieutenant Banga Mission Clock)/

CMA Argo, Harvest Colony, nearby asteroid field

A tight vibration complimented by a dense echo signaled Pryor that hard dock was achieved. Now the tricky part.

Almost every CMA vessel had common docking surfaces, but Pryor couldn't be sure about these old Chiroptera-class stealth vessels. He never worked with one before. His knowledge on this vintage breed of fighter craft was limited to his literature on it.

With the assistance of the dorsal cameras, he was able to get in close enough to determine that hard dock was true. He'd have to rely strictly on pressure tests to verify the integrity of soft seal. That meant there was no guarantee that surfaces wouldn't shift or fall out of tolerance during the merger. Just to be safe he was in a vacuum-environment suit and he sealed the room's bulkhead to spare the rest of the Argo from possible explosive decompression.

He tensed a little as he read the overhead countdown to soft seal. :03

:02

:01

:00 SEAL INTACT///RELEASE WHEN READY

He took in a deep breath and cracked the seal of the Argo's dorsal hatch. One foot in front was the Prometheus. He banged on the hatch with a tack hammer. It opened and a Human face appeared.

"Are you okay?" Pryor said through his suit's voice emitter.

"I'm fine, thanks," the man returned. "You sure are a welcomed voice."

"Don't mention it. Is there anything you'd like to take aboard?"

The civilian looked back for a moment through the open hatch. Pryor tried to take a peek at what the man was staring at, but he sensed the shifting bulkiness of Pryor's vac-suit and blocked the view.

"Well c'mon, son. We don't have all day."

The man turned back to Pryor and took a reluctant step into the Argo. Once the rescued man was in, Pryor closed the hatch and disrobed from his suit. "C'mon. I'll take you to the bridge. You can meet the man that saved you."

After a short walk, Pryor brought the man to the command deck where everyone else was gathered. Banga's spun around in the command chair. "Welcome aboard the Argo, sir. How long were you cooped up in that ship?"

"Too long," he replied with an awkward smile. "You have no idea how much I appreciate this. Are we leaving now? I don't think there are anymore survivors."

"Yes. We are leaving. Soon. We have to wait for our friends out there to disappear from view, then yes, we are out of here."

The man let loose and looked around. "So they got the message then?"

Banga looked around at everyone. "What message?"

"The message I sent to Reach."

"You already sent a warning communiqué?"

"Yeah, I sent it as soon as I got here…as soon as they got here. The Covenant showed up. They immediately went to work on Harvest."

"Slow down, man. Who is the Covenant?"

"Them!" he said pointing somewhere to the outer hull.

Brahm raised his brow ill-manneredly in the background.

"They call themselves the Covenant?" Brad asked.

"Yes. They said that, right when they arrived."

"What else did they say?"

"A bunch of shit like 'You are an affront to the Gods'."

The men of the Argo all glanced at one another.

"They said the same stuff to us," said Brad. "But we weren't as lucky as you to get an introduction out of them. Do you know how it is they speak our language?"

"It would seem they've been studying us for some time," the civilian inferred.

"So you warned Reach then?"

"Yeah."

"Well then why the hell did they send us," Banga whispered next to Selonke.

"Probably because it takes a while for the message to get there," Selonke retorted in an even lower whisper. "It took us a week to get here, so the message should be getting there by now, if not already."

"I don't mean to be a stickler, but we really need to get back to Reach." The man pulled something from his pocket. He stepped forward and offered Selonke a slip of paper. "I've got three pseudo-random jumps ready to go. We should proceed to these coordin—"

"We already have a course mapped out," said Banga.

"Yes, sir. But you realize if they see us jump, they'll follow us to Reach and obliterate it, just like here."

"Relax," said Brahm. "We know the position of the…Covenant ship out there. As soon as it disappears from view, we're gone."

"Hmm," the man grunted in internal agreement. "Fine. Sounds good. Got anything to eat?"

"Sure. Brahm, why don't you show this man to the galley."

"Sure thing."

"Sir, if you'll give us one moment. Please wait beyond that hatch over there." The man complied and Banga reeled Brahm in with a gesture. "Find out what you can about him. Don't piss him off, but ask questions. A lone civilian in a stealth-fighter doesn't make sense to me."

"Me neither, boss. Do you also notice some weird things about him? How he knew that Jeff was the navigator? And how he avoided telling us exactly how long he was stranded out here?"

"Yeah, I picked up on that. One other thing that gets me too: Sherr or anyone else never mentioned anything about a warning, only that the Harvest orbital platform found something. Then, we lost contact with this place. Be careful. I think there's more to this mystery man than meets the eye."