Hi and welcome to the second chapter of Reclamation of a Scattered Race. Please enjoy!
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(Arcturus Station - March 23rd 2170 Systems Alliance Standard)
"...While the final death toll is unclear, the human colony of Mindoir has suffered almost complete devastation at the hands of rouge Batarian slavers. The Batarian homogeny has yet to..."
"That's enough. Turn it off." Spoke the gruff voice of one of the highest ranking members of the Alliance military, commander of the third fleet, Admiral Edward Roivas.
As the monitor was deactivated, the lights in the meeting room sparked to life, revealing that the majority of the alliance high command was present for this debriefing.
All those present were aware of the devastation that befell Mindoir but the ramifications of such an attack were the true reason for the meeting.
The Alliance had failed to defend one of its frontier colonies and the public backlash was fierce. Both human and alien alike. The human population was losing faith in the Alliance's ability to defend them from the dangers of the galaxy as well as protecting its assets; while the citadel races viewed the attack as reason enough for humanity to slow down its rapid, or in some people's opinion, aggressive expansion into space.
But the real question everyone was asking was what was the Alliance going to do in response to this attack?
"Is there any word from Ambassador Goyle on what the Council is planning to do to help us?" asked Prime Minister Edwin Lindsey.
"Ambassador Goyle sent word that the council will not be involved militarily with this attack, however they will send medical relief efforts." answered the liaison between the citadel embassy and Arcturus Station, Major Jeremy Mikhailovich, in a tone conveying how he truly felt about the Citadel Council.
"And why will they not give further aid. We are an associate member of the Citadel; it was clearly stated at the treaty signing that they would aid us in times of need! Why do they refuse to send their fleets?" asked the secretary of State, getting frustrated with the lack of help being provided by their so-called allies.
"The reason given when Ambassador Goyle 'asked' the same question, was that if they did send fleets into the Attican Traverse, then the Terminus Systems would more than likely unite together to push back against Citadel forces which would result in galactic war. With the Galaxy currently in a time of relative peace, they are not willing to sacrifice that over one small colony."
"It wasn't just one small colony! The lives of over thirteen hundred alliance citizens were lost. More than double those lost in the First Contact War. We can't possibly get an accurate number due to half of the survivors either being forced into slavery or simply missing. The public is in uproar and unless we do something soon, we will lose the support of those we are trying to protect." Argued Admiral Roberto Bianchi, commander of the Fourth Fleet.
They all knew he was right. Without significant Council support, it would fall to the Alliance to show continued support in Human colonisation efforts and the only way to do that was...
"It's time we expanded our navy to the capacity the Council will allow under the treaty of Farixen. I put forward the recommendation for the creation of the Sixth and Seventh Fleets. Once the number of Everest class of dreadnoughts reaches the limit imposed by the treaty, I recommend the development of a new class of dreadnoughts, with the first deployment within the decade." Spoke Lindsey, knowing that though the impact of such an endeavour would strain the economy somewhat, and that the other races in the galaxy would see it as an aggressive move by the Alliance, they really had no other choice. "Those in favour?"
"Aye!" came the unanimous response of every member in the room.
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Walking out of the meeting regarding the increase of naval forces, Rear Admiral Steven Hackett was returning to his duties, which involved the overseeing of internal security and defence of Arcturus Station itself. While walking along the inner corridors of the five kilometre nerve centre of the Alliance, Hackett stole a glance through an observation window, out towards the combined forces of the First, Third and Fifth fleets. Over three hundred vessels currently stood guard over the station, with the Second Fleet currently deployed throughout the Attican Traverse, and the Fourth Fleet currently defending Earth.
It was rare for more than two complete fleets to be present at any one time at Arcturus but it showed just how lacking the fleets were in his eyes. The Asari fleets were almost three times the size of the Alliance and the Turian's fleets by almost five and half times. It was some relief that neither of those races were at odds with humanity, even if there was some lingering hostility after the First Contact War, but if the Alliance was to defend itself, it would need to expand its forces.
Soon the First fleet along with half of the Third would return to patrol duties within the Traverse, and hopefully the parliament would back the Prime Minister's proposal, which would help secure Alliance space.
However the attack on Mindoir was soon going to be the least of Hackett's worries.
"Admiral Hackett! We have a major situation!"
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Specialist Kyle Marks was worried.
Day in, day out he sat at his terminal, monitoring the extranet feed through the station that connected with the galaxy. His job was to monitor for any unusual activity that may indicate anyone stupid enough to attempt stealing classified information from Alliance networks.
The job was pretty straight forward as the V.I.'s of Arcturus did the actual monitoring; all he had to do was interpret the data the V.I.'s displayed.
At least that is what he was supposed to do.
Six hours ago V.I. #003234, tasked with monitoring incoming connections to the network suffered a memory buffer issue forcing the system to halt all connections for fifteen minutes.
Plenty of time for the masses to complain loudly about terrible service.
After V.I. #003234 was rebooted the system ran normally again until it crashed again an hour ago.
For the exact same problem.
While his colleagues were more than happy to dismiss it as coincidence; Marks was never a believer in coincidence. The chances of the exact same problem hitting the same V.I. within five hours only happened if the repair work was shoddy, which was highly unlikely as he had fixed it himself, or someone had deliberately forced the problem.
And so here Marks found himself scanning the data transmitted by V.I. #003234 around the time of both incidences.
While looking through the logs, it show that within the space of 30 seconds, V.I. #003234 received over 500,000,000 incoming signals, causing the system to lag just before the buffer gave out.
Mark's was becoming increasingly worried. The Alliance network would receive that many signals over the course of three days, not half a minute. The only reason this would happen is if someone wanted to enter the network but after spending over half an hour trying to see where they got in, Marks suddenly shifted focus to what the potential hacker could have accessed.
The V.I.'s in charge of monitoring access to secure information showed no unusual activity, same as the ones in charge of public information but it didn't feel right. Why go to the effort of gaining access to the network without touching any of the information?
Marks decided to manually check the records just to be on the safe side.
At first Marks began to relax, the records from the V.I.'s showed that most of the secure material had not been accessed recently, last login to data by those with proper security clearance, last removal dates varied but none within the last two days, last view times were also varied but none shorter than a minute, last copy made 115 minutes ago...
Mark's froze at that. 115 minutes ago? How was it copied without access? How many files were copied?
Searching through the records for copy time only caused Marks to pale. Every file in the Alliance network had been copied. Every single one. All within the span of twenty minutes. But there was no trace of the copies bar the time stamp, which meant the V.I.'s won't flag the incidents of the data copy. Someone had copied and stolen all the data held by the Alliance.
Leaping from his chair Specialist Marks bolted from the room to the confusion of his co-workers, sprinting through the corridors in search of his superior.
Turning round the corner, Marks saw him making his way towards his office. Shouting as much as he dared, Marks called for the Rear Admiral's attention.
"Admiral Hackett! We have a major situation!"
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(UNSC Shadow's Breath – Terra System, August 23rd 2569 UEG Standard)
Captain Augustine stood on top of the viewing platform within the bridge of the Shadow's Breath, gazing upon a sight he never thought he would see.
Earth.
Untouched by the Covenant.
Africa, the birthplace and cradle of humanity, was unblemished.
This Earth stood completely free of the destruction his Earth experienced seventeen years ago at the hands of a madman seeking the means to become a god. Even after re-terraforming the land, the great scar never truly faded from view.
However as much happiness and jealousy such a sight brought to him, Captain Augustine couldn't help but notice what else this Earth lacked.
Defences.
From his view and from the monitoring done by Alex, the A.I. of the Shadow's Breath, this Earth's defence seemed only to be a fleet of ships numbering around a hundred and fifty.
The ships themselves caused some confusion to Augustine. The majority of the vessels in this defence fleet seemed to be comparable in size to his corvette. Only a third seemed to be of equal size to the UNSC frigate and Destroyer classes, with only one ship exceeding that, in it being under cruiser class in size.
Augustine knew not to judge a book by its cover but from the scans Alex took, these ships seemed somewhat underwhelming. The Material of the hull of the ships was strange. It seemed that they split it into two segments, the outer being made of some form of alloy, though far weaker than Titanium – A, while the inner hull was some form of ceramic.
Whatever the design choices made by the locals, Augustine was glad that the stealth capabilities of the UNSC far outstripped the sensing capabilities of these people.
Turning away from the view, Augustine focused back on his orders regarding this mission.
HighCom had run through dozens of scenarios regarding the people of this second Earth; officially named Terra by the UNSC.
In the End his orders were divided amongst several projections.
The most vital aspect was to exit slipspace outside of the system and proceed inward at half sub-light, with full stealth. Easy and straight forward enough to understand.
The second was to determine if the humanity of this world had reached a comparative space faring age. If they hadn't all he needed to do was determine the level of technological development and report back.
If they were at space faring stage, the next step was to determine if they had discovered Nullium. If the readings they were getting from every single ship, both naval and civilian so far scanned, it was all but confirmed.
The next stage of the operation was when the mission became far more difficult.
The Shadow's Breath was to insert an eighth generation AI designed for two functions only.
Software Infiltration and data gathering.
Pious, as the A.I. was named, had been successfully uploaded into one of the transmitting orbital comm. buoys and had passed through the firewalls within ten seconds.
That, however was over four hours ago.
Augustine was becoming apprehensive. An A.I. of Pious' calibre would be able to absorb and comprehend the entire recorded history of humanity on the databanks of the UNSC within forty seven minutes. He knew this as he observed Pious do just that to show his effectiveness for this mission. But Augustine was continually asking himself the same question for the last 90 minutes.
What could be taking him so long?
Pious had not been discovered as there had been no change in the movement of the defence fleet, and there had been no loss of connection from the comm. Buoy so what was taking him?
As the worrisome thoughts began to grow the A.I. pedestal beside the Captain's chair flashed into life and standing in the centre of the light; appearing in the form of a Roman Centurion stood Pious.
"Captain Augustine, apologies for the wait but I have successfully acquired a complete record of all data recorded by the people native to Terra but I can also confirm that they have encountered an extraterrestrial society." Stated Pious while saluting Captain Augustine.
Even as the crew froze in shock, with Alex having to take over monitoring key functions, Augustine stared Pious, knowing there was no point in asking who the aliens were or how long they have made contact with them. The choice of the word society over life implied that there was more than one race that they have met but the most important question was...
"What kind of interaction do they have with this society, Pious?"
"They have achieved a level of integration with the society that, while not all encompassing, it is of significant amount that tension and hostility will occur if we reveal ourselves now to them."
Well this mission just became more complicated. Augustine was aware of the directives in this scenario if present; attempt to gain as much data on the extraterrestrial life without revealing the existence of the U.N.S.C.
Augustine drew himself up and asked Pious, "How much do you know about this society Pious?"
Pious gave a knowing smirk, "Everything captain. This Extranet used by the people of Terra is connected and shared between all galactic societies that these people have integrated with. I have been within the records of almost all races and have acquired copies of all their records. It was surprisingly easy; it just took time to collect all the data as well as waiting to exit the network. Only two societies were beyond my reach but Director Halsey and HighCom will be most interested in the files I have been able to acquire as they will definitely help with her research."
So much for complications.
With the acquirement of all that data, their mission was complete. Now all they had to do was return to U.N.S.C. controlled space.
"Excellent work Pious. Helm plot a course out of the system at half sub- light. Ensure stealth function remain fully active. Once clear of the Kuiper Belt enter Slipspace."
"Aye Sir."
The Shadow's Breath move unnoticed by the Alliance and before long made the jump into slipspace.
The Alliance would never know about the departure of the Shadow's Breath. But they would notice the activation of something long since believed to be dormant.
The Areatek spire on the Charon Relay began transmitting a signal through the relay network. Researchers from all over Citadel space would converge upon the Charon relay, hoping to discover the function of the only actively transmitting Areatek spire within the galaxy. It would be some time before they understood its function.
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(Location Unknown)
"Rupture event detected. Relay 513. Index 002303302203921. Rupture event detected. Relay 513. Index 002303302203921. Rupture event detected. Relay 513. Index 002303302203921. Rupture event detected."
"They have returned..."
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Chapter End.
Well I hope you enjoyed it. What will happen next? Oh Commander...
And before anyone tells me, yes I know Hackett is a full Admiral...in 2183. Considering that t=my story starts off 13 years before the canon events of the first game, is it truly unreasonable to believe that Hackett has yet to reach the rank of Admiral?
Also no one picked on the references I left to a Zelda game last chapter. Can anyone spot which game I referenced this chapter?
Anyway see you next time!