It's been a super long time since my last update, and I don't expect to get the next one out any quicker. This year has turned super busy with major exams again coming up, and not even for the last time this year. Hoo boy.
Chapter 8: Welcome aboard!
UNSC Spearhead of Dawn, Hideout asteroid. February 10th, 2553.
The human AI's choices of combat simulation maps were getting weirder and weirder. Today, they were fighting in the corridors of a old human ship from six centuries ago. Apparently called the Titanic, It had been known as one of the most ironic ships humanity ever built. It had been proclaimed unsinkable, only to do so on its maiden voyage.
The ship was sinking in the sim, and the Squad had to fight their way out. It wasn't a race, officially, but between all of them, It was. Three teams, the Spartan and the Sangheili, Liyik and Limid, Zhab and Jimaenius. Of course, they had enemies to fight through. Covenant and human enemies burst through doors only to get shot down. Zhab's mind cast itself back to the crystal they'd recovered about a week ago.
He had not seen it since the Sangheili had taken it away. Not even the Spartan knew anything about it. Sure Zhab would have loved to sell that crystal, but, at the same time, he kind of respected the Sangheili for taking it away, considering that it appeared to be... Powerful... In some way.
Something grabbed his shoulder and pulled hard on it, bringing him back to the present. A trio of plasma rounds whizzed by. Jimaenius pulled Zhab against the wall.
"Watch yourself." He snarled.
Zhab shook his head to pull himself out if his land of thought.
"Very well." He replied.
"Incoming!" Yelled the Spartan, who was a few meters down another hall parallel to them, and a plasma grenade exploded a few meters down the hall.
The sudden sound left ringing in Zhab's unprotected ears. He grunted and raised his hands to cover his protect his ears.
"Shift." Grunted Jimaenius, raising his spiker.
Zhab nodded twice. He stepped forward and let the Brute take his place at the edge of the wall. Jimaenius leaned over and emptied his clip down the hall. There were a series of cries from the enemy down the hall.
Jimaenius peaked over the wall.
"Clear!" He growled.
He advanced down the corridor, crouching slightly to avoid hitting his head on the human height ceiling. One thing that Zhab couldn't get over was how white this human ship was. The walls were white, the doors were white, the lights were white. Zhab raised his beam rifle and followed Jimaenius.
"You seem distracted." The Jiralhanae noted.
"I've been thinking." Zhab replied.
"You are not really one to think." Jimaenius grunted, inspecting the enemies barricades to check for ambushes. "You tend to take orders or act on instinct. I have yet to see you give something a real think before you do it."
"You know me too well, Jim." He replied.
Jimaenius snorted at the nickname Zhab had given him. He then reached down to his armory belt and pulled out a plasma grenade. He placed it at te center of the barricades, setting it to blow in ten seconds. The two backed up and covered their eyes as the grenade blew. The barricades were rent apart.
They both climbed over the blackened wood, only to see the elevator further ahead in the hall rising upwards, taking the Spartan and the Sangheili with it.
"Argh." Jimaenius growled. "They won."
"A pity." Zhab added, even though he knew they could never really beat the two leaders of the Squad. He'd never seen them beaten in the combat sims, excluding last man standing, and when that brute chieftain had ambushed the Sangheili back on the planet.
The elevator returned, empty. Jimaenius pressed the button for it to open, when two human "Innie" soldiers burst out of a door behind them and opened fire. A few bullets pinged off Zhab's chestplate, and he raised and fired a beam rifle shot in retaliation. Jimaenius raised his spiker and allowed the human to have some spikes. Both humans went down.
Zhab gave a brief snap in annoyance at their interruption. He turned back to see Jimaenius climbing into the elevator. Zhab quickly followed and punched the "up" key. The elevator closed its doors and slowly rose. They arrived on the top deck after about a minute. As soon as they reached the top floor, the simulation ended. Apparently Liyik and Limid had gone down a few minutes ago.
"Simulation over." Cortana announced. "One message received 2 minutes ago, from section 4 HQ."
The human and the Sangheili gave each other and moved to leave. Cortana interrupted before they did so.
"The message is addressed for everyone aboard the Spearhead of Dawn." Cortana notified them.
The Sangheili paused. Then he gave her the order to gather the entire crew to the bridge, and then quickly left. Zhab and Jimaenius exchanged glances and headed into the armory to have their armor removed. The small robotic arms worked quickly and precisely, and within a few minutes, their armor had been removed.
Following that, the two headed for the bridge.
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UNSC Spearhead of Dawn, Hideout asteroid. February 10th, 2553.
Thel was not the type who liked waiting, especially for others that he had no idea what they were doing. He grumbled as the bridge doors opened to reveal the Unggoy.
"Who's here?" He grumbled.
The Lekgolo growled from the back. Zhab and Jimaenius both gave affirmatives. Cortana and Vala had already reviewed the file, and both of them were waiting for the crew's response to it. The Unggoy did not answer, and even after a minute, they didn't realise that the crew were glaring at them. Thel grumbled and turned back to the holotable.
"Play the message." He ordered.
"Playing." Cortana announced, and a rectangle expanded from the table. The face of Admiral Walker appeared.
"Hello and greetings, members of The Squad. As you know, you successful planted a tracker on a covenant cruiser. It has been very functional since, but while it has given several serious remnant meet up points, we recently encountered a snag. Recently, one of our informants has notified us that the remnant has stumbled across something big. He vanished a day later, presumed dead. Obviously he asked the wrong question. However, when our tracker is on course for this place or object, or so we think, the tracker is jammed while in slipspace, and doesn't come back until the craft arrives back in known space." He frowned and scratched his beard. "The tracker is unaltered; they haven't discovered it. We need to find out what they've found, if it's dangerous and how to neutralise it if necessary."
The admiral paused and leaned back in his seat. He was silent for several seconds.
"So, we have to board a ship or infiltrate a base and get a hold of the info?" John asked.
Thel agreed and gave him a brief nod.
"However, this needs to be kept quiet. We cannot afford the remnant finding out that we're on the lookout, so we're sending in two informers dedicated to getting this info. That's where you come in. You have an effective warship and an experienced crew. Your mission is escort; you have to protect our informants while they gather this info and then travel to the place and assess the remnant's control of it." Walker finished.
"I feel like we are just mercenaries sometimes." Zhab muttered.
"True." Jimaenius muttered.
"Quiet on my bridge." Thel muttered half-heartedly.
"The two will arrive on the 12th. And for a quick clarification, technically only two of you have greater rank than them, so I'll clarify that. 'Vadam, you occupy the role of captain/shipmaster. That automatically gives you a higher tank than the informants. Master Chief, there technically is no rank of Master Chief in Section 4, but the brass have, after some deliberation, created the rank of Master Chief Command Officer First class. The rank is only existent in Section 4, but holds the same authority as a three-star general. We figured that, seeing as your rank, Master Chief, has become your identity as much as your actual name, and because your public presence is known as the Master Chief, we decided that you will keep your initial first name rank." Walker paused and took a deep breath. "That is all, the informants will have the slipspace coordinates. Good luck."
The admiral's image faded away. Thel walked over to his captain's chair and sat down, heavily engrossed in what had just been said by the admiral. The others began to leave the bridge, except John, who took a seat nearby, laughing softly to himself.
"What is it?" Thel asked, extending a foot to stop his chair from spinning.
"It's just..." John began, "General. How the heck did I get here? Master Chief petty Officer First Class is supposed to be the highest rank that I can reach."
"You're still a Master Chief, though. And besides, I don't like this new 'open' you. It seems weird. And I thought I had humans figured out. Or at least, you." Thel replied.
John turned an raised an eyebrow, followed by a rare joke from him.
"A real downer, aren't you?" He said, with a slight smile.
Thel snorted. He spun his chair back to the front viewscreen. There was nothing ahead of the Spearhead accept the brown wall of the interior of the asteroid.
"It feels quite lonely aboard this ship sometimes." Vala suddenly said.
Thel turned back to John's chair, to find out that the chair was empty.
"Yes... It does." Thel replied. "Do we have a set of coordinates to meet the informants at?"
Just a few Kilometers relative our home asteroid. It would take us about a minute to get there now." Cortana replied, spinning up a hologram at the table, placing a waypoint on the table.
Thel examined the map, before parting his jaws and giving a brief nod.
"So now we need to get this ship into presentable shape." He announced, and reached his finger down and scraped his finger of the floor to check for dust. A fine film of the stuff covered his finger.
"Uh..." He grumbled. "Fun times ahead."
He reached for the button to key the COM, but paused, a different urge overtook him, and he reached for a pouch at the back of his suit, which held the crystal. He felt it before he grabbed it. It radiated energy. He grabbed it and held it out before him. The crystal almost seemed to hum gently. It was magnificent, beautiful... And his. It was his.
"Mine." He whispered faintly. "It's all mind."
Thel turned his thoughts towards the crystal, his mind open... A burst of light filled his vision; five pinpricks of lights flared in the distance; Grey, his crystal... Orange, Green, Purplish Pink and a weakly flaring Red. The sight ended as soon as it came.
Thel staggered backwards, feeling dizzy and nauseated. Most beings would have thrown the crystal away, but Thel couldn't. The crystal was as much a part of him as his hand was; even more than his energy sword. He gave it another fond look, and then carefully placed it back in its pouch.
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UNSC Spearhead of Dawn, Hideout asteroid. February 12th, 2553.
The Squad was decked out in full gear and was waiting in the hangar to receive ONI's informants. John looked out again into the open space. No sign of a slipspace rupture signifying their arrival. The energy shields of the Spearhead were the only thing that could be heard. They had left the hideout and were drifting a few miles off.
Thel was the only one who wasn't present, but he was up in the bridge. John checked the clock. Thirty seconds until the ship was supposed to arrive.
He opened a private COM to the bridge.
"Any sign of them?" He asked.
There was a pause, and then Thel responded.
"No. They'll be late. And if they're hoping to drop out straight into the hangar, they have another thing coming. I'm not dropping these shields unless I'm given warning that they're coming." The shipmaster grunted.
"What if they slam into our shields at slipspace transit speed?" The Master Chief asked.
"Then we better record them and blame the incident on their stupidity." Thel grumbled.
The Spartan chuckled and closed the connection.
The time reached zero. The informants were late now. After five seconds, Thel reopened their COM.
"Inbound Slipspace anomaly. Termination in thirty seconds." He announced. "Could be them."
John turned to the rest of the Squad, who were scattered across the hangar.
"Ship inbound. Form line!" He shouted.
There was a grumbled response, and the Squad moved to form a straight line from the Chief's left.
"Slipspace rupture detected. It's them. They will arrive in the hangar shortly." Cortana announced over the Intraship COM.
There was silence in the Hangar as the space before them remained dark, when suddenly a small ship; barely larger than a pelican, sped down from above the ship and spun around and landed slowly.
John examined the ship that had just docked. He didn't recognise it, but it seemed to be some small crew transporter, around 35meters long and made up of three square ship pieces of hull.
A ramp was lowered from the back of the transporter. A human slowly stepped out, followed by a Kig-yar. A quick inspection revealed that the human was a woman, He could not decide which sex the Jackal was, though from what he knew about kig-yar society and the way that Zhab recoiled slightly at the sight of it, he guessed that it was a she.
"She" wore a mostly black set of what looked like robes.
"Greetings." The woman said. "A pleasure to have arrived."
Her voice was confident and measured, extremely controlled. Instantly, John didn't like her. She seemed to similar to the regular ONI people he worked with that held great secrets and looked down on those they worked with.
The ONI jackal snarled something that the Spartan did not understand, but the human seemd to understand and grumbled something back in the Kig-Yar language. John glanced over at Zhab, who seemed slightly cowed by the conversation.
The transport suddenly roared. It closed its door and slowly lifted off. Everyone in the hangar watched as the ship spun, and then accelerated out of the bay and speed out into space. A minute later, a brief blue flash lit up space, and the small craft jumped into slipspace. As soon as it had gone, the two agents turned towards the elevator.
"Master Chief, Take us to the bridge." The woman snarled.
The Spartan moved, and so did the rest of the Squad, but as soon as they did, the Kig-yar squawked, and Zhab stopped in his tracks, whispering something to the rest of the group. They stopped as well, watching on as the three headed towards the elevator.
"What about m-" The Chief began,
"They are not important. Take us to the bridge." The Woman said.
John reached the elevator, pressing the button and standing aside for the agents as they walked in. He had noticed that the woman walked with an uptight pose, her head held high, like they were all beneath her. John didn't see how they could be good agents, as surely their superiority attitudes would make them difficult to trust and give info to.
The elevator ascended rapidly. The doors swung open to reveal a near empty bridge, with Thel standing some way away, gazing out into space. He heard the elevator and turned. He whispered something to Cortana or Vala, and the ship rumbled. The engines had come to life, and the ship was now underway.
Just seeing the Sangheili reassured the Spartan somewhat. It gave him the sense that he wasn't alonewith these ONI agents, whom he was starting to dislike more and more.
"Ah." The woman said. "A pleasure to see you, captain. Now, where is your AI's interface port?"
Thel seemed slightly put out by their initial greeting, but he gestured to the tower behind him.
"Both of our AI are currently in the system." He told them, as they withdrew a chip.
"This chip isn't an AI, captain. This is a simple memory crystal with system coordinates. This is the location that we need to get to. As soon as possible. So we'd like to leave immediately." She replied, sounding somewhat annoyed with him.
"Very... Well." He replied.
The woman inserted the chip for a second, then withdrew it.
"There is your coordinates." She said distastefully.
Thel turned towards one of the consoles around the bridge, pressing a few of the buttons.
"Coordinates locked in, engines charged, capacitors charged. All clear from engineering." Cortana announced.
"Good." Thel replied, jaws parting. "I advise you to take a seat."
John didn't need to be told twice. He sat immediately in the nearest chair, noticing it creak slightly as he sat. The agents, however did not.
"We are perfectly accustomed to slipspace travel." The woman protested.
Thel didn't reply, simply bracing his legs and pushing a final button on the console. The engines roared. The gee force sent the Kig-yar stumbling backwards slightly.
"Now." Thel said ambitiously, "Let's test our drives theoretical maximums."
He slammed a lever forward. There was a beep from the console, and the white space exploded from in front of the frigate. Slipspace expanded across the viewscreen instantly, leaving a blur of stars outside the ship.
Normally, you couldn't feel the acceleration of a ship while it was in slipspace, but this time was the exception. The deck vibrated, and there could be a fain humming heard. The two agents lost their footing and were thrown across the bridge. Thel was holding on tight to the console. It must have been a trick of the the light, but John sword he saw a faint grey shield of energy around Thel. The Sangheili laughed, and the ship began to increase its vibrations; John wondered if this was an effect of the crystal that Thel had.
Before he could say anything, though, the Sangheili pulled the lever backwards. The ship suddenly gave a hiss; The vibration stopped, and slipspace suddenly exploded in front of them. A planet lunged forward towards them, growing from a speck into a huge sphere in the sky. The deceleration suddenly hit the ship, throwing everything that wasn't bolted down forwards, nearly pulling the Chief from his chair. He heard the two ONI agents cry out as they were thrown across the bridge again. The slipace journey had taken less than five minutes, and yet the stars around them no longer looked similar. A green star blazed in the distance. The planet below was a terran one, with several lights across its dark side. A couple of ships drifted around it.
The engines kicked in, bringing sound back to the ship.
"We have reached our destination." Cortana announced, sounding stunned.
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Well, guys thanks for all the reviews and favs and all that, see you again soon enough hopefully.