Chapter 3: Derelict

Deep Space, UNSC Reaper

"Sixteen months ago, an experimental UNSC dreadnaught-capitol ship disappeared from GPS and scanner range while on a mission to a planet in a satellite galaxy designated Sat-2985-5 or Shear. It was to oversee the progress of the colony on the planet, but after it left dry dock, it disappeared. Now that it has resurfaced, I want you to investigate the ship, and find out what happened. Take care of it, Spartan 6501. And use utmost discretion; this is still a classified project." That was Commander Lasky's message.

Now they were on a pelican, waiting for clearance from the Actual

"Reaper Actual, are we go for Pelican launch?" the pilot asked.

"Poltergeist 4, this is Reaper Actual. You are clear for launch. Sending two broadswords to escort. Vortexes 5 and 6, this is Reaper Actual, you are go for escort. Careful out there, Vortex 5. You still owe me a bet."

"Which I now realize was quite the mistake."

"Need I remind you that this is an official channel," the pelican pilot said with annoyance, "And not a place for fraternizing. You can still do that stuff, but on a different line."

"Whatever. You have a glorified shipping container to drive." Vortex 5 countered. She met no further opposition.

Vortex 6 scoffed at the people he had to work with. But he just ignored it and continued on the course to the dreadnaught.

"Hold up! I'm getting a signal broadcasted on all channels!" Reaper Actual declared as he patched it through to the ships in flight.

"zzzzzzzz can hear this, zzzz name is Cabot. By whatever means, do not try to board! Zzzzzzzzz have taken over the ship. I'm not sure how long we've been zzzzzzzzz in this ship. If you do board and encounter one of the zzzzzzzzz run, just run. You can't take on these things. They've zzzzzzzzz the entire crew. It's just the zzzz of us now. If you can, find us, and help us. ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaarrr. Oh, god! Hurry! We need-"

"Reaper Actual to Vortexes and Poltergeist. We've lost the transmission. The communications array on the ship looks to have been disabled. Whoever's in there, they can't talk anymore. If you can, try to find them. They could have valuable information."

"Copy that, Actual. We recognize secondary objective." The pilot for the Pelican responded. "Wait… Reaper Actual, are the ship's weapons operational?"

"It's possible. Why?"

"The AA guns are pointing at us. Evasive maneuvers! They're firing!" A wave of projectiles sought their way toward the three craft on the move. One struck the wing of Vortex 6.

"I'm hit! My wing is gone! Help!" His fighter spun out of control, and into more shots. "I can't take any more! Aaah-" Vortex 6 exploded, sending debris to the two remaining ships. One large piece of 6 struck Vortex 5's fuel storage.

"I'm hit. There's not much I can do leaking fuel like this. I can punch through the hull and make an entrance for the Pelican before I blow. Vortex 5 out." The Vortex slammed through the hull, and he Pelican followed through. It was a tight fit, but they made it. But they didn't stop. They crashed through another wall and into a small fighter bay.

"Reaper Actual to Reaper crew. Derelict ship has engaged and is firing upon our ship! This is NOT a drill. Repeat, NOT a drill. All hands to combat, immediately! But do not destroy the ship. The away team should be alive on that ship."

Meanwhile, in the downed pelican hold, two survivors, two Spartans got up from the wreckage, concussed.

"Well, there goes our ride." The blue one joked. "Cause that won't be fixed in an auto body shop."

"Any life signs on board this ship?" The Black and White one asked. "It's too freaking huge to search everywhere." He had a glowing, floating arm.

"Hold on, lemme check." He tapped the computer on his forearm. "21 humanoid life signatures. Two off in the other side of the ship, 18 on the bridge, and one… in our pelican." He equipped his spiker. The other one converted his arm to a scattershot. They found the sign in a crate on the pelican. "Wait, is it… sleeping?"

"Hello!" It popped up out of the crate, clad in blue. "I was looking for Freckles, have you seen him?"

"Kind of explains why he was sleeping in a crate full of ARs." The blue one reasoned. "But god dammit Caboose! You stowed away on a top secret mission."

He gasped. "Pop secret? Are we going to a movie? Yay!"

"You know the price of stowing away on a mission?" the arm cannoneer asked. "You have to help us now."

"Cool."

The midnight blue one was confused. "What? You're fine with undertaking a trip across hostile territory?"

"Who's Terry Torri? Is she a mean lady?"

"Eh. Fine. You can have Freckles. I was gonna use him for my arm." He tossed an AR at Caboose. It knocked him down.

"Yay! Freckles! Oh my gosh! You stole my precious freckles! Thief! Bad DMN! Bad!"

"Just follow us, Caboose." The midnight blue one said with little patience left.

"Why? Are we going on a treasure hunt?"

He rolled his eyes under his helmet. "Suuuuuuuurre."

"Is it golden?"

"Just shut up and follow us Caboose."

"Are we playing the silence game on the hike? Okay, go!" From there on, the blue Spartan and "DMN" communicated by sending messages with their wrist computers.

"Why is he here again?" the DMN asked.

"Fell asleep in a pile of crappy ARs while looking for Freckles."

"ARs aren't that bad."

"Suuuuurre. At least the Spikers puncture shields. Uhh... Remember the unidentified life forms I found on my scanner, one of them… is literally staring us in the face. Oh deer. With real deer."

"Wait what?" as the black and white Spartan reached for his knives, a massive beast emerged almost out of nowhere. It roared.

"Aw, you broke the quiet game!" Caboose complained.

"Hang On!" the blue one yelled as the DMN jumped onto the beast.

As DMN shouted while riding such a massive creature caboose was trying to ask the creature questions. "Are you Terry Torri? Are you a mean lady?"

"65!" the blue one shouted these numbers and DMN replied with

"Shut up I'm not 65!"

As DMN was being randomly teleported a sinister blue glow came out of a room and it sounded as if nails were being grinded on a chalk board second before DMN severed the dreaded head off. When DMN returned with the head in his hand and said. "One monster burger comin right up!" DMN shouted as he unloaded multiple scattershot rounds into the beast. As the gun ran dry with incineration rounds he reached into his arm to pull out his best creation (Technically his friend's creation)

"Looks like we need some back-up" DMN said.

"Why do we need back-up? Damn thing is dead."

"It kind of looks like it broke something important."

"Let me see… You let it teleport half its body into the slipspace drive!?"

"Maybe…"

"Potato!" chimed Caboose.

As DMN searched for an odd machine called the CTAIT65, he got out a blue 2DS. He found the thing he was looking for, and plugged the DS into it.

"That won't work, man. You see how the lights are dim? This ship's power source is dwindling."

"What if I reroute the power and try to use my arm as a power source?"

"Is it compatible power? You could overload the terminal and blow up the room, including this slipspace drive, which is already screwed up."

"Well Noah I wasn't done, I was going to rip the electronic veins from that Wraith and plug them into my arm creating an odd cyborg like terminal in which Scary and Gold-Heart can come through… or it would explode in our helmets… we wouldn't die from it though…"

"Wraith? There's a tank in here?" Noah asked, confused. "Or is it like the creature from that game with a hate/love relationship with the reviews?"

"Now I'm confused. I found an odd hunting manual with its species designation being Wraith. Also what the hell are you talking about?"

"There was a game back in 2015 that got mixed reviews. You either hated it or loved it. One of the creatures in it was called a wraith."

"Whatever let me do this or else we don't have any back-up. Marines don't do shit."

"Well at least let me check the bridge before you blow up the console. Not that it's an Xbox or anything."

As DMN ripped out a blue and a red vein out of the beast, Noah checked on the bridge to find 2 robots and 18 people on board, geared up and ready to kill something. "Jesus!" he yelled as he got behind cover.

One of the robots cheerfully introduced themselves "Hello! My name is EMET!" Then his face turned red. "I'LL RIP YOUR GUTS OUT AND WEAR THEM LIKE A SCARF!"

"Hey Noah, the test was a success! Scary and Gold-Heart are here to, holy shit!" As Scary and Gold-Heart were being shot at Gold-Heart Froze time as Scary dismantled all of the hunter's weapons except one, which was an organic gun. And the three guns that were attached to some of the other hunters.

Noah was in the corner, rocking up and down. "It's real. We're all screwed."

"By what?"

"I know what happens next."

An alarm started blaring throughout the ship. Then an alarm went off with a voice. "Warning. Slipspace drive Alpha containment failing. Slipspace rupture imminent. Get your butts over there right now if you want to stop it."

"Huh. EMET likes you. But in all the time we were marooned here, I never once heard the ship talk." Crow, one of the hunters said. "Gobi. Here." He called to his pet batray, an alien bird thingy. It landed on his forearm. "Go. Slipspace drive." He tapped a button on Gobi's night vision goggles. A live feed appeared on his HUD. "Go."

"Aw! It's a cute falcon thing!" Caboose squealed. "Oh my gosh, he's so cute!" He stared at Crow as Gobi took off. "I want one."

"We don't have time to go pet shopping!" The blue Spartan yelled. "Look, if that slipspace drive is destabilized, we will all get blown directly to another universe entirely! I have seen enough to know more than I should, so I know if that happens, a lot of people will die, including some of you. We need to get the hell out of here and fix that drive! Capisce?" He activated his jetpack, and pulled DMN and Caboose with him. "Lead the way, Gobi!"

Raaawk!

"God damn, I need a jetpack, I'm tired of being babysat." DMN muttered

30 seconds later, they found the drive, and the blue Spartan started giving orders. "Hunters, get that Wraith out of the drive. DMN, help me with this console. Caboose… Start pushing buttons. It's not like he could do anything worse."

"What the hell do you think you're doing? First off I give orders! Second you don't have to call me DMN, call me by my real name! And thirdly, Caboose don't push any buttons! Play with Freckles!"

"Okay! Freckles, push buttons!"

"Negative." the AR said. "I will shoot buttons." It began firing on the computer stuff.

"Well that was redundant. But seriously, can you help me with this thing?"

"Fine. But don't give me orders again." DMN ordered.

"Agreed. Jack, Crow, Abe, Maggie, Griffin. I need you to use your mobile arenas to force the Wraith out of the drive."

"How in the bloody hell did you know we had those?" Griffin asked.

"I know too much, remember?"

"I have an idea!" The Black Spartan shouted "What if I got Space and Time on board?"

"How? It already knows you can kill the clones easily, so it won't just give you another one."

"But I'm not the one who's going to piss it off… you and Caboose are."

"You serious?" Slim asked. "Thing's been pissed off for sixteen months."

"We just have to get it to follow LUNA, while we trap it in a corridor of the frigate. I saw people do something similar in a movie."

"Ha! That only works in fiction!" Griffin laughed. "Trust me, we tried that with a Behemoth or two back on Shear. Just rolled away. Tried to squish us."

"Well first off that was with a behemoth, second we are dealing with only one! So shut up Grif!"

"Why did you just call him Grif?"

"Because, he's acting like Grif!"

"Who the hell's Grif?" Hyde asked, and pointed his minigun at DMN. "Are you a spy? Cuz if you are I'll melt your ass."

"First off, fat-ass if you want to keep your face, I recommend you give me that gun right now, second Grif is one of my teammates and I miss beating the ever living shit out of him!"

"Why the hell would Hyde give you his gun? He melts faces, for a living. And he likes it! A LOT!"

"He just gives me bad memories to be around" as DMN removed his helmet a scar was revealed in the shape of an odd blade.

"Jesus." Remarked Abe. "And I thought mine was cool. Though I still haven't got Caira with it yet."

"Huh?" asked Caira.

"Nothing!"

"Sorry to interrupt your 'I'm-a-bigger-man-than-you' contest, but people gonna die if this thing goes, remember?"

"Well, only the hunters, we are wearing some of the strongest armor, Scary and Gold-Heart included."

"No, if this goes, we all get sucked into another universe and get caught up in some stuff that we have no business in. And people will die."

"Well I've been in another universe before, and in a black hole for ten years!"

"Only due to relativity. For you it was ten minutes. Besides, black holes are basically portals to other worlds that consume everything in their path, which includes light, in both meanings I'm thinking of."

"Well is now a good time to say I had another stow away on board hidden on the pelican?"

"We already know that you r-tard"

"Oh. I wanted to tell you that and something else. I am Michael J Caboose, and I hate black holes!"

"Shut up Caboose."

"Can we please get back to the actual goddamn issue here!? Will someone help me with this thing! No? Fine" He began shooting the ever-living crap out of the drive. It wasn't like anything worse could happen.

"Wait! Stop!" The hunters yelled. But it was too late. The drive imploded, and a big mass of slipspace energy devoured the ship, and the passengers with it. All that was left in the area was the Reaper, battered by the derelict ship.

*Interruption. Unauthorized Edit Detected*

"Self-promotion? Shame on you, writer. Shame on you."

*Not my fault. My friend had much influence on this chapter.*