Chapter 5
Hackett's office was a sparse affair, a single desk, two chairs before it and one chair behind. Anderson stepped into the room saluting, standing at attention.
Hackett was reading a report on his datapad it looked like, sitting at the desk, holding it before him. Anderson waited a minute before pressing his arrival somewhat. "Admiral." He stated formally, a greeting, and a message of his presence.
Hackett looked up from the datapad immediately. "Captain, good." He gestured to one of the chairs, continuing as Anderson took a seat. "The Normandy is fit for launch, and your shakedown run has been planned. You'll take the ship to Eden Prime, in the Utopia system. There, planetary scanners will test the stealth systems. You are to move at all possible speed while en route to test the Tantalus drive core, and to run the stealth system as long as possible while in-system to learn its capabilities."
David nodded, fairly standard shakedown for a prototype ship. Test whatever new features that are present, move from system to system through the relay network. But not quite. "Shakedown flights usually move between several systems, and there have to be better test facilities than an archeological boom-town turned agri-colony like Eden Prime. Colonies with more sophisticated sensor systems, Like Elysium or Horizon. What am I going to be doing at Eden Prime sir?"
Hackett smiled, "I see command hasn't changed you. Ten years ago, they dug up a Prothean information storage device of some sort on Eden Prime, hailed as the greatest scientific discovery our time until they found out it was pretty much empty. The only notable information they got out of it, beyond things we already knew, was some new form of heat storage that made Thermal clip technology more viable in weapon manufacturing, and the schematics for the Thanix cannon, which we needed the Quarians and their AIs to decipher for us, so they then sold it to every other major government in the galaxy. Along with the Thermal clip data they'd stolen from our systems."
Anderson paused. Hackett wasn't telling him anything he didn't know. "Yes, the dig site on Eden Prime was shut down eight years ago, they decided that there was nothing left to unearth."
Hackett nodded curtly, "Officially, yes. But there are always archeologists with spare time and colleges with grant money. There was an excavation project that began eighteen months ago, they unearthed something on the ground, but Eden Prime doesn't have the kind of facilities we want analyzing Prothean artifacts. I'm sending the Normandy under cover of a shakedown run to retrieve this artifact, and the science team with it."
"When do we leave admiral?"
[Begin writer's notes because I don't know how to write them outside of the document]
Sorry this one took awhile, I was off the grip, no writing and no internet for four days. On the bright side, I came up with a character arc for Alenko while I was gone, and I decided on something fun I'll do once I finish the story.
For the record, Without the Foe takes place during the same time period as Mass Effect 1, not later. I'm going to start on chapter 6 as soon as I post this one, I want to make up lost time, even though I should be reading Catcher in the Rye before the 20th. I hate you Honors English. You and your summer assignments.
Speaking of which, I probably shouldn't be feeling guilty about rate of publishing because It'll get way worse than this during the school year. Just a warning. I want to write this story, I really do.