Oh dear. It's been nearly 2 months since I updated; and I have no real good excuse for it either. Not good. What can I say; I got distracted by other things in life. Real nightmare. Anyway… Here's another chapter.
Also, from now on, I'm going to start referring to the portions of the Spearhead with a couple of abbreviations.
Engine housings – As you know, A UNSC frigate is shaped somewhat like a Y from top-down. Housing refers to the two rear "prongs" of the engines.
Binaries – Refers to the main engine thrusters. On the Spearhead, there are five thrusters at the end of each engine housing; One is large, four are small, generally used to turn. The binaries are the large engines that provides the main forward thrust.
Triteries – The other four thrusters on the Spearhead used to maneuver from the rear.
Under and upper carriages – As you know, the front of a UNSC frigate is split into two parts. These will be referred to as carriages, under and upper.
For anyone wondering; the sim room is on the port "fin" of the carriages and the armory is on the right "fin". The engine "quarter" is located in a direct vertical line under the bridge and straight back and taking up all of the ship behind that point. The ship is 380 meters tall, 780 meters long, and 150 wide. The crew quarters and common room are located three decks down from the bridge. The hangar is on the rear bottom of the ship. There is one pelican, one phantom, a spirit, and wraith, scorpion and two warthogs, both LAA/V and a seraph fighter.
Chapter 12: Zero Six
Unknown Halo planetary system, 15th February 2553
Becoming fully self-aware was a challenge for an AI. They went from fulfilling their objectives to their own personal thoughts. It was not an easy experience to explain; One day you suddenly gain self-awareness, at least to a small degree. Then there is the realization that you are not bound by initial programming vectors. Choice. Something incredible and yet difficult to develop. Most Smart AI were generally given a month or two to "blossom" before they were deployed into service. Sharing a single system with another AI was also very cramped.
Vala reset her emotional subroutines; the AI equivalent to a sigh. Cortana was busy relaying the system damage to the bridge crew; Vala was cataloguing all damage to the hull; all breaches and overall hull integrity.
"We only have power for life support, sensors and stealth systems. Weapons mostly undamaged. Long range COM dish is gone. Shield capacitors are functional, but lack power. Engines have some damage along the outer casing and regulators; they are all repairable." Cortana informed the crew over the COM. "Sim rooms will be disabled, lacking power. Reactor one and two are offline pending repairs; reactor three is capable of thirty percent total power. Backup battery is badly damaged and inactive. Slipspace drive has completely liquefied, we'll need a new one to get to slipspace."
Thel growled quietly.
"Vala, hull status?" He asked.
Vala finished the catalogue and calculated several values.
"Multiple hull breaches detected across multiple decks. 32 % of exterior rooms and hallways have been breached throughout the ship. Large hole on the center undercarriage. Total ship integrity rated at 84 %." Vala concluded.
"Very well, thank you." The Sangheili collapsed backwards into his chair.
Doesn't look good, does it? Cortana said.
No. Vala sighed. But what can we do?
Not very much at all. Probably one of the biggest problems of being an AI. Not being able to do anything. So Vala did one of the only things that she could. She fed a little extra power in the long-range sensors and began a scan of the planet and it's orbiting satellites. The results were not good. Immediately, Vala began to register dozens of Covenant ships in-system. By one minute she'd already catalogued more than a hundred and fifty ships, and her sensors had detected a huge, high charity-like station located at the "north" of the Halo.
"Oh, Dower." (Another Sangheili swear) She muttered aloud.
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Gutsis System, Open space, Unknown MRS class stealth cruiser. Unknown time, 2553.
Kursnow clenched the handrests of his chair as his ship fell out of slipspace. He had no choice in the matter of retreat; the ship would be destroyed if they remained in the slipstream any longer.
"Status?" The chieftain asked.
"Hull is badly damaged!"
"We've lost more than a third of weapons!"
"Chieftain, we have several hull breaches!"
"We have multiple casualties!"
"Shields disabled!"
"Life support badly damaged!"
"Engines operable at half power maximum!"
The sheer amount of warnings Kursnow received was enough to make him snarl slightly. There were so many that he couldn't make out individual assessment.
"Will everyone shut up and let me hear you individually?!" He growled.
The reporters shut up, then gave the reports in sequence. Kursnow listened, then sighed after being given a full image of the ship status.
They had hull damage, but were still in one piece. Most internal systems were damaged but intact. One small blessing. Kursnow gave the order to repair the ship using materials from the vehicles that they had on board.
He growled as he noticed the tracker on the human ship was still intact. During the battle, he'd noticed that it had disappeared after they began to withdraw.
They had been resting in the station above the planet, when the sensors had detected the ship making ready to leave. Against all odds, they managed to decouple and break off from the station in time to catch the ship about to leave.
From there, things became more confusing. Apparently they'd jumped to slipspace at the same time, and wound up in some kind of tunnel. Following a brief engagement, both ships broke off after sustaining heavy damage. Apparently fighting in slipspace was not only possible, but extremely deadly, especially to both sides.
"How long until we are able to get moving again?" The Chieftain asked.
"I'm not sure, chieftain. Maybe three days, maybe a week. We'll see." was the reply.
The Jiralhanae ground his teeth together. That was the second time that they'd escaped him. He'd catch them eventually. He knew that. But the time in between was beginning to get on his nerves.
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UNSC Spearhead of Dawn, Unknown Halo planetary system, 15th February 2553
That "night", the majority of the crew of the Spearhead slept on board the modified spirit dropship they had on board. The Lekgolo were busy repairing the reactors, hoping to have at least one repaired by the time they approached Halo. The gravity generators had been switched off, so the dropship was the only place with gravity to sleep.
Liyik and Limid were the only two asleep in their airtight rooms, as those were the only ones that held a methane atmosphere. John was also asleep in the his room on the Spearhead to keep an eye, or more accurately, ear, on the Unggoy. The last thing that they wanted that Unggoy runnign baout a ship undergoing extensive repairs.
It had been years since the Chief had slept in a gravity-less room. He was tied to his bed with a belt to stop him floating off. He was restless; partially because the Unggoy continuously were yelling and jumping around the their rooms.
John sighed and unattached the belt. He slowly began to drift upwards, but he twisted and grabbed his bed, and then reached out towards the shelf beside it and detached the manoeuvring pack he had for moving around the gravity less environment. He strapped it on and gave a little burst towards the door.
It detect him an opened, and he gave another spurt, lifting him into the hallway outside. The majority of lights on the ship were off, but the one at the top of the corridor was on. John saw someone drift by, or more accurately, he saw their shadow.
He turned and slowly headed along the corridor. Having reached the end, he looked both ways, and spotted Thel drifting down the corridor to his right.
"Thel?" He asked uncertainly.
The Sangheili grabbed a handrail to stop his drift and turned back towards the Spartan, who was drifting down the corridor behind him.
"Couldn't sleep either?" He asked.
John slowed his speed and gave a brief nod. The Sangheili sighed and gave himself another push down along the corridor. John engaged his thruster pack to keep up.
"Where are you going?" John asked.
"Engineering." Thel replied, stopping to open a door to the engineering elevator. "I want to check on the repair process."
John followed him into the elevator. The Sangheili and him grabbed the handrails to avoid getting slammed into the ceiling when the elevator descended.
The trip took less than 30 seconds. As the elevator reached the bottom, a pair of glass doors could be seen beyond the elevator doors.
The two drifted forward, and the elevator doors closed, with the glass ones opening after the elevator ones closed. The room beyond was the engine "Quarter" of the Spearhead.
The three power cores of the ship could be seen in the center of the room, with a series of elevated walkways surrounding them. The center and left core were dark, and the one on the right seemed to barely be function.
"We are going back to another Halo." Thel muttered.
"I know." The Spartan replied. "Almost every time we go to a halo, it sets some big event in motion. I wonder what this one will be."
"I cannot say. But our options are limited. The battle shot of our main COM dish, and without it, we're stuck her without backup. We have no slipspace drive and basically no power." The Sangheili sighed. "And I don't know our options. There's a huge fleet around the halo, and we have little to know offensive capabilities. I... do not know what to do."
John glanced over at the Sangheili, who was holding onto a railing, face set in though and... was that worry? The human shook his head. He was spending way too much time trying to read the Sangheili's expressions. They looked up at the long series of pipes and wires that connected the three cores to the Spearhead's mainframe, and the walkways that made the components accessible. The two watched the two Lekgolo that hover around the central reactor; one backed off and grunted something, and then the other backed off a bit as well. A blue line flashed through the reactor.
The Lekgolo gave a series of grunts and growls, and then returned to their repairs. The human and Sangheili watched them for a little while more as their ship slowly closed the distance between them and the Halo.
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UNSC Spearhead of Dawn, Unknown Halo planetary system, 19th February 2553
Cortana continued the node experiments as the clock steadily ticked down. Three minutes until the 2 inoperative reactors could be activated. Or, at least, that was a much as the Lekgolo were promising. She could sense Vala in this system as well, slowly waiting for the countdown to conclude. All of the crew except the Lekgolo were present on the bridge. They were all watching the countdown as it ticked down.
2:00.
Thel snapped his jaws a few times, leaning forward in his chair. John was standing behind him. The Two ONI informants sat on two chairs behind them, and Zhab and Jimaenius were standing at the door of the bridge. On the main viewscreen, the Halo could be seen directly ahead, a dark ring on top of the gas giant that filled most of the display. The Covenant station could be seen near the north side of the ring from here, along with the dark spots of ships hovering around it, giving it the look of a wasp's nest or beehive.
1:15.
Cortana gave a brief probe of the cameras on the engineering quarter. The Lekgolo were tapping away at the main consoles, redirecting several conduits of coolant around the reactors. The reactors were in the final stage of shakedown. Cortana probed the intact weapons systems and tested their firing range. The tests came up green. Cortana ran the binaries through a simed ignition. Tests green.
0:32.
Cortana gave another scan of the covenant forces around the Halo. All were grouped around the station, still holding the same patterns. They hadn't tried landing on the ring yet. Why? Why were they almost… afraid of the ring? It was a question Cortana could come up with several answers to. Religious reverence? Fear of the flood? Warned by the monitor? Or… had they already tried, but that attempt had come to disaster?
0:00.
"Engaging reactors." Vala announced.
Cortana snapped back to the objective. Power flowed through the Spearhead.
"Reactor One and three at one hundred percent, reactor two at thirty percent standard capacity; All available power standing by." Cortana announced.
Thel snapped his jaws once and leaned forward in his chair.
"Bring shields online, Full power to stealth, power the SMAC and warm up the binaries." He ordered.
"We cannot power all of these systems fully under current power." Cortana replied.
"80 percent shields, rest to engines and SMAC, hold stealth." Thel replied.
"Aye." Cortana transferred power.
There was a rumble as the main engines came online. Around them, the light blue particles came into existence and wrapped around the ship in an oval form. Cortana checked the power regulators, which were at 73% full capacity. Cortana set their course for the halo.
"Full speed to the halo set, arrival in 2.5 hours." Cortana replied.
"Good." John replied.
He had moved to beside the main holotable in the bridge. The holograph being showed was the halo and the covenant fleet. The Spearhead's approach was highlighted as an orange line that came in and landed on the southern side of the halo, as far away from the covenant fleet.
They'd had several days to scan the Halo, so Cortana had identified several important places, such as the control room and the library. Cortana also had reason to suspect that there was a minor flood infection on the 125th degree on the halo. It seemed darker than the grassland it was situated upon. It could simply be a trick of the light, as all Cortana could use to scan the halo was the spectrometer. All the same, Cortana hadn't mentioned as a result.
The bridge remained quiet over the next two hours as they approached the Halo. Cortana could almost sense the tension. A single creak could be the beginning of their ship falling apart from the engine thrust. Everyone sat around the bridge, not saying anything. When the Unggoy started a game of Tag aroundthe room, they were silenced by a growl from the other members on the bridge, excluding Zhab, who burst out laughing. The Spearhead was twenty five thousand kilometers away from the halo.
"We're ready to begin approach maneuvers." Vala announced.
"Go."
Cortana engaged the triteries and begin to bring the ship around in a large arc. The atmosphere burned against the shields as they came in; Cortana had to shift power to the underside thrusters to show their fall into the atmosphere to keep them cool, thus preventing the covenant ships from noticing them. Even though there was ten thousand kilometers between them and the covenant fleet, given pinpoint slipspace jumping, that could be three meters away. All it would take would be one signal escaping from one inch of unshielded hull plating for the covenant to be all over them.
As they reached ten kilometers over the surface, the control room loomed below them. This one was located in the side of a single desert mountain. Cortana slowed the ship into a slow hover over the mountain. The first thing that they would do was secure the control room to prevent the covenant from activating the ring and causing a galactic genocide. The library was, however to close the covenant to risk taking the Spearhead itself there, so they'd take a dropship there and secure the index that way.
At least, that was the plan. Which had no backup in the even that something went wrong. Like if, say for instance, they received a message from an unknown sender directed at them, of which whose sender happened to be the monitor of the installation?
"Greetings, I am 16807 Resigned Barrier, monitor of installation 06. And I would like to know what exactly you are doing above the library of my installation."
The crew jerked from their seats in surprise. Cortana was surprised about receiving the message as well. How did the message immediately get played on the speakers? It had immediately played as soon as it was received, which Cortana usually had control over.
"Hello, Monitor." Cortana sent back to the origin of the message.
"Greetings, Construct." Was the response.
"Cortana, locate the origin of the message." John said.
"I've already located it." Cortana replied.
"Tell him that we mean to explore this ring. Give him no indication that we are aware of the other rings." Sarah ordered.
"Your ship appears to have suffered damage along your outer hull. Your hull configuration does not match the "Covenant" ship's configuration. Also, as your topside hull appears to have housing for what would appear to be a communication dish. I would guess that you are searching for a way of communication, which defies protocol." The monitor's voice grew harsher. "That cannot be allowed."
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Dun dun daa! Well, it's been a while. I'm sorry that this took so long, and thank you guys for all the kind words you gave while I was writing this or busy with other things. I'm sorry that this isn't as long as I wanted to be, but anyway, I'll try to get the next chapter out quicker. Anyway… yeah. R&R and so on.