Chapter 3: Second contact
I woke up in the hospital bed (again) and looked at the clock. 1600 military time. Ok, I should be able to get out of the med bay now. I asked one of the nurses and she said that I was cleared for leaving two hours ago so I walked to my office. Afterwards, I checked my mail.
In my electronic mailbox, I had 3292 emails. 3292! In three weeks! That was a record! I checked them out and happily found out that 120 was from my friends and family (yes, my parents have more than a 19 children). But even after, I still had 3172 left.
I classed them into folders (orders, congrats, civilian, notice) and read the important ones first. It seems like I have one new order, three new medals, four new decorations and a raise in my pay. Yay. I already have all I wanted in money. Don't you think 200 billion dollars is enough? All I need now is a girlfriend and all would be good. Not like no one likes me.
I sighed and restarted doing all the paperwork that was waiting on my desk, in a too neat pile that seemed to be mocking me. Now, I was more experienced with coffee and had bought a coffee machine. The only thing I needed to do now was to walk a few meters, fill the cup and come back. Good old coffee.
After I finished all of the paperwork, I read what high command wanted me to do. Yay, guard duty. Not the sit around and guard the jail duty, but the keep assigned planet (Earth) safe and sound one. Well, still as bad. Oh, and the worst part is that we are leaving at 0100. Which mean I should get to sleep now.
I walked over to the mess hall and got myself an early supper and sat beside my friends. Meet John Farentine, otherwise known as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, Fleet Admiral Hood, Jeanie Dalgy, Olivia Rakenfower and Georgia Miles.
"So how is it going, Admiral? You gave us quiet a scare with the suicidal manoeuvre."
"I did not call for it, Hood. My men did it."
"And women."
"Yeah, and women." I added sheepishly.
"Well, it was still a great speech you gave them. Actually, I got to ask you, how did you survive getting blown apart?"
"I don't know…"
"He wasn't blown apart. Or he would have been pieces now."
"No shit, Sherlock." The girls giggled.
"Sherlock is a man. It's 'no shit, fem Sherlock'." Everyone laughed a bit at my joke. Well, everyone except John who just smiled, trying to hide his smirk. After that, we just kept talking. There or here, John would make a comment.
After my dinner/supper, I directly went to bed. Hello, I was needed at 0100! That is 1 in the morning!
My alarm clock suddenly started blazing and woke me from my deep sleep. I jolted up and put my uniform on, as swift as ever. Then, I took my stuff (I packed them up yesterday) and walked over to hanger D-219. A pelican was already waiting for me. Someone cried out 'Officer on deck!' and all of the people in the hangar saluted. I told them 'At ease.' and they all went back to work.
My gaze fell on the pelican I was supposed to board and got into it with all my stuff.
"Good morning, sir. I will your pilot for today, sir." I simply nodded at the pilot. "By the way, name's Reilly Enderdar." Where did that come from? I just sat back against my seat and strapped myself to it. Then, I took out my personal S-14 type shotgun that Spartan 117.5 had given me. It still had its chamber full because I had reloaded it ten seconds ago ( ). I heard my pelican get cleared for departure and we lifted out of the frigate I was in.
Three other officers were in the pelican with me. Lieutenant Gary Anderson, Private Emma Doncons, Corporal Alina Masca and Sergeant Vanissa Gafore. As we had a ten hour flight ahead of us, so some of us tried to start a conversation.
"So… you are all people that were drafted to UNSC Last Hope?"
"Yeah…" a few of us murmured.
"Well, no duh. You guys think that they are going to have a fleet without commander?"
"There is already one, isn't there?" asked Gary with a troubled gaze.
"Have you noticed there are ten admirals?" they all nodded."
"They are going to elect one of them to become the leader?" Suddenly, they seem to have understood.
"Wait. You are a fleet admiral?" Emma asked me.
"No duh, Sherlock. Noticed the type of armour I have?"
"Fail. It's 'No duh, fem Sherlock.'."
"Holly shit!" One them suddenly realised who I was.
"What?"
"It's THE admiral Rake Donsom!" Everyone looked at me and saw my friend-or-foe tag.
"OMG!" One of them screamed out.
"What?" I asked them. "I am Fleet Admiral Rake Donsom, so what?"
"You are the one who destroyed a whole precursor fleet! The one who destroyed a fleet that had 100% percent winning chance!" Another of the exclamed.
"I didn't. My fleets did."
"Yeah, but you were the commander! And wow, that speech at the end!"
"Wait, I was monitored?" I asked them confusedly.
"No. But they did a movie from the eyewitnesses!" I gapped at them. How did I not know THAT! (well, they are probably trying to raise moral)
"How was I not told about that?"
"Well, first, I don't think Fleet Admirals have enough spare time to check out the base's movie section, secondly, I don't know." Replied Vanissa. A few of the others chuckled at the last part.
"We are here!" the pilot's cried out and I felt the pelican land. The back door opened and we stepped out, with our luggage (and my shotgun). Then, that was when the alarm started blaring. I scrambled to the bridge at 30km/h (surprising) with my stuff and threw my stuff to the side.
"What's happening, admiral?" I asked the one in Admiral armour. He turned to me from looking outside.
"It's sir to y…" he seem to have noticed my armour. "Sorry, Fleet Admiral Sir!" everyone stood to attention."
"At ease. Now, please tell me what is happening. I had just arrived." They put their arms down and returned to their screens except for the admiral who explained that a hundred slip space ruptures have been detected and Precursor ships started coming out.
"Why do the Precursors want to kill us?" One of the marine cried out to god behind us.
"Um… this is weird. They are attacking Earth right now. How did they get the location? Didn't we have the Cole protocol? "
"Hello, they could have hacked into our systems from the other side of the galaxy, what do you think?" I told the admiral and he just glared at me. "Now, we must get ready! What ships do we have?"
"Sir, we have about ten Frigates, forty-five Capital ship sized battle cruisers, five dreadnoughts, six orbital MACs, 20000 Longswords and 10000 other ships." He replied to me. I looked outside and checked out the enemy force. Seems like there were only battleships. Hell, they always send battleships! Then, I saw one that looked like a frigate come out. It suddenly started sending out boxes-um I meant boarding ships, at least I think it is.
"Send out 10000 of the Longswords to intercept them! Peoples, get the MACs online and working! All shoot at my signal! After that, send three dreadnoughts to their flank!" everyone started working and doing their respectable job. Some of them were still shocked at the sudden appearance of the Precursors but I got them back to the present by screaming at them.
"Sir! All MACs at 100%!"
"Ready, set, fire!" I commanded and a barrage of MAC shots flew at the enemy. Only one of the 100 ships was down. Then, they returned fire. A few of ours got hit and blew into smithereens. Ok, not a few but like 5% of ours were all destroyed.
Then, the three MACs on each of the dreadnought started firing and hit the enemy ships on the back. As you can see, they thought that the dreadnoughts were trying to run away as they opened slip space portals but they didn't go through them.
It seems like the ship's back was very light shields and armour so each of the MAC shots destroyed the ships one by one. As the enemy turned around to hit the dreadnought, I ordered my ships to shoot again, hitting a few of them in the back. That whole movement destroyed about 30 of the enemy. Oh, yeah, and that is when the boarders crashed into our ships.
"Everyone! Destroy them at all cost! It's the center of our society that you're protecting right now! If Earth falls, we fall!" but I could only watch helplessly as one by one, the boarded ships exploded like fireworks.