Launch of the MkII
The repairs to the Serenity took little under four Earth days. The crew kept themselves entertained in various ways during the wait, though this proved to be difficult as they were not allowed to explore much further beyond the hangar. The Sangheili technicians worked almost non-stop; they did not seem to fatigue as easily as humans did from a hard day's work. Rachel, of course, persisted in overseeing the repairs, and was rather dismayed at some of the modifications that had to be made in order to incorporate the new slip-space technology.
"She doesn't like this makeover!" she complained loudly. "You're really going to lose her spirit by doing this!"
"Oh yes," Alistair said, smarmily. "Let's just forget any need for getting to places well within our natural lifespans, as long as we conserve the ship's antique charm. That'll go down well, won't it?"
"It's just such a shame!" Rachel retorted. "This is a genuine Firefly! She's probably the last of a dying breed! We can't just let her fade away so easily!"
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Alistair said, "I really am. We do have a job to do though, and we need the upgrades. I'm sure she'll still be the Serenity at her heart."
"You don't get it, do you, puto?" José spat, in an unexpectedly fierce tone. "We've got traditions to keep! You really want to give that up to the split-heads? We might as well sign up with the Covenant right now!"
"Watch your tongue, José," Alistair said fiercely. José had been spending a lot of time trying to pick a fight with any Sangheili who came into the hangar, and Alistair was afraid that he was going to cause an incident at any moment. "Don't make me cut it out of your head."
"Pfeh," José snorted. "The split-heads can speak just fine without 'em. I'd just love to see you try, big-beak."
"That's the best you can come up with?" Alistair asked. "I guess Malcho doesn't value wit very highly."
José just snarled, apparently unable to come up with a suitable retort. The Sangheili spoke to each other in their alien tongue, commenting on the rash behaviour of their guests, to put it in the most polite terms. Rachel just rolled her eyes at the boys' behaviour and moved to speak to the repaired Bishop.
"How are you doing, Bish?" she asked sweetly.
"I seem to be somewhat hard of hearing," Bishop replied calmly, fingering the bandage on his head. "I think there might be a fault with my audio receptors, on account of the attack."
"Don't you worry, Bishop," Rachel said kindly. "Give me a day or two and I'll have that proverbial earwax out of there."
"I don't get any build-up of earwax, ma'am," Bishop replied. "I know what you mean, however, and I appreciate your efforts."
"Well, aren't you just the sweetest artificial person in the Milky Way," Rachel said, in a vaguely flirtatious tone, teasing Bishop a little. Her amusement turned to annoyance as quickly as a changing traffic light, however, when she turned to see how the Sangheili were proceeding. She ran towards them, gesticulating angrily.
"Careful where those cables go!" she shouted. "They're just going to be more vulnerable on her hull, not to mention that looks horrible!"
Alan did not get to see much of the progress on the repairs, nor was he available to keep his crew in line most of the time. This was because Otto frequently requested his presence. The Arbiter had grown more curious about Alan's story, and often told Alan to re-tell his experiences. Alan did so, though reluctantly, as the memories of the people he had lost on his journey to this point were still painful. He reasoned, however, that if he shared these stories, then the Arbiter was more likely to offer some sort of clue as to Kiryuu's whereabouts. When Alan spoke of his encounters with the Destroyer creatures and the Invae, Otto seemed more concerned.
"So the Parasite has appeared in other forms throughout history..." he mused.
"Parasite?" Alan asked. "I remember Cujo mentioning that, and something called 'The Flood'. No-one would tell me anything else, though; apparently, you needed clearance to even speak about them."
"It would have been kinder to spare you from the knowledge," Otto said, gravely. "Suffice it to say that it sounds like you have encountered similar horrors before. If the gods favour us, then we will never see another horror such as the Flood in our lifetimes."
"I see," Alan said. "Moving on, surely you must have some idea of where Kiryuu is, Shipmaster? You said yourself you were one of the last people to see him alive."
"That is true," Otto said. "However, the region of space where we parted ways is also the former site of the Ark. It is not known on any Sangheili or human star-chart. I am not even convinced that it exists within our own galaxy. I now see your necessity for the slip-space drive, if you truly intend to find that accursed place. Such a journey would take decades, perhaps even centuries, with Earth's technology alone."
"Excuse me," Alan cut in, "but what's this 'Ark' you mentioned?"
"That too would have been 'classified information', according to your UNSC," Otto replied. "Suffice it to say that neither it, nor the Flood, will pose any danger to this galaxy again, if the gods smile upon us."
Alan was starting to get rather fed up of what he could and could not hear. He hated it when people he was supposed to be working with kept secrets from him, especially when they concerned an urgent matter at hand. Kiryuu had been notorious for it; he had always hidden one secret or another from everyone he worked with, Alan in-particular, which went some way to explaining Alan's dislike of him. Still, he did not dare to raise an open objection in case Otto saw it as slander and changed his mind about helping him.
When they weren't discussing their respective histories, Otto insisted on sparring sessions with Alan, in an effort to see if Alan was truly up to the task of finding either Kiryuu or Telek. He wanted to be sure that he was leaving this mission in the hands of someone capable of facing the seemingly-impossible task that lay before him.
So it was that the Sangheili and the mutant would duel, Otto wielding his prized energy sword while Alan lashed with his Technomantic whip. The upgrades to the weapons worked like a charm, though Alan found that he had to adjust his combat style to avoid slicing himself into ribbons. However, while Alan was doubtless highly skilled with the weapon, Otto had trained long and hard with his energy sword and the martial art known as Para'rothu, rendering him capable of moving at blinding speeds on a battlefield.
Otto offered some pointers in battle, though he was careful never to let slip any knowledge of Sangheili combat techniques. That knowledge was forbidden to any non-Aristocrat, and he was not as willing as Telek was to break tradition. In the end, Alan lost every one of his duels with the Arbiter, though on each occasion he did come closer to being victorious. On one occasion when he deflected Alan's strike with the whip and dashed in with blinding speed, raising the point of his sword dangerously close to Alan's neck, Alan could not help but raise an objection.
"No fair, using Elite tricks," he grumbled.
"You were expecting to have it easy, Shipmaster?" Otto retorted. "Your opponents will be using every technique and skill that they know to destroy you, no matter how ethical you might consider it to be. When in battle, you must be ready for whatever may come your way."
"I know, I know," Alan replied, indignant. "This isn't what I'm used to as 'training', though."
"Why not spend a few days on Sangheilios, training with the Spec Ops warriors?" Otto asked, in a rather snide tone. "Perhaps then you will understand why the Covenant had the upper hand in the war for so long."
Alan did not raise any objections to Otto's methods afterwards. By the time the Serenity was repaired, Alan had become much more capable of deflecting Otto's strikes, yet he still could not defeat him. Otto could see that there was potential in Alan, but he felt that the mutant still had a long way to go before he could meet Kiryuu's standards, or even the standards of the best Sangheili warriors.
After the Serenity was repaired, Alan was eager to leave as quickly as possible. All things considered, his time spent on the Shadow of Intent had not been an entirely pleasant one, what with the vicious sparring sessions and the reports from Alistair of some form of misbehaviour or another on José's part. Apparently the former ODST had been picking fights with the Sangheili engineers and the warriors assigned to watch over them, and Alan saw that he was now sporting some very large bruises. Alan, of course, wasted no breath in chastising José for his behaviour.
"Do you want us to get thrown out of an airlock?" he said incredulously. "Trust me when I say that you really don't want to piss these guys off!"
"I just don't like 'em, boss," José snarled. "Not after what I saw them do in the war! You're crazy to trust 'em! I don't know what Lofwyr saw in you, letting you lead a team like this. He's even more crazy than Malcho said."
"I'm not here to impress you, Lofwyr or Malcho, José," Alan said sternly. "Now I need to know that I can trust you at my back, and right now you're not convincing me. If you keep up like this, I'll have you locked in your cabin for the remainder of the mission! Is that clear?"
"Yes... Captain," José muttered, in an unconvincing tone. He marched up the metal ramp back into the Serenity's cargo hold. The ship's engines had been repaired, and had been extensively modified to incorporate the new slip-space technology. They now looked like they had been pulled off a Phantom-class ship, while the bulbous engine on the back of the ship now glowed with a vivid blue light as opposed to the yellow glow from before. The hull plating had been reinforced slightly, and it seemed that Rachel had insisted on some new paint-work, in order for the new jets to not look so out-of-place on the ship. Two rotating plasma cannon turrets had also been added to the ship; one on the front below the 'beak', the other being on the roof above the dining room, with the controls being on the section of the bridge below the flight controls. The ship now looked like an odd hodgepodge of both human and Sangheili design sensibilities. Looking at it, Alan couldn't help but feel if Rachel had a point about the ship losing some of its charm, though he didn't mind such a cobbled-together look as much.
"You think she minds this slight makeover, Rachel?" Alan asked his engineer, humouring her.
"It's still Serenity's heart that beating," Rachel said. "As long as I know that's pumping, I don't think she'll protest too much."
"It would seem that you are very attached to this ship, Shipmaster Tyler," a deep voice suddenly said from behind them. Alan and Rachel turned to see Otto 'Gamam stood behind them, looking over the results of the work his engineers had done.
"Rachel," Alan said, "head inside and prepare the ship for take-off. I take it you were taught how to get the Elite systems up and running?"
"Sure did, Captain," Rachel said. "It's not that difficult, actually. They gave Bishop a tutorial on the slip-space drive too; it's more or less just point-and-click. I'll see you on board." With that, she walked up the ramp into the Serenity and disappeared from view, while Alan turned to address Otto.
"What was it you said, Shipmaster?" Alan asked.
"This ship..." Otto said, looking at it with a curious expression. "It clearly holds a large place in the heart of your engineer. I could not have offered one of our ships to you even if I had wanted to, but I have the feeling that you would have turned me down anyway."
"I've got to admit," Alan said, "after a rough first week, I've grown rather attached to the old girl."
"Let me give you one last piece of advice," Otto said. "If you look after your ship, she will certainly look after you. I hope your bond with the Serenity becomes as strong as my bond with the Shadow of Intent."
Alan was not sure if he could buy into this apparent pseudo-mystical talk that both Otto and Rachel seemed to have in common, but he simply nodded to humour the Arbiter.
"Remember that you gave me your word, Shipmaster Tyler," Otto continued. "I do not know what your chances are of success in your mission, but believe me when I wish you good luck. May the gods favour you and Telek."
With that, he and Alan shook hands, before the captain of the Serenity turned and stepped back on board his ship, the ramp to the cargo hold closing behind him. Now that he stepped back onto the ship and looked around the cargo bay, he could not help but feel that Rachel and Otto had a point; stepping onto it now felt like he had just come home. He breathed in and headed up to the flight deck, finding Alistair and Bishop waiting for him.
"Where's José gone?" Alan asked. He was sure that Rachel would be in the engine room by now, and he was slightly unnerved by José's apparent disappearance.
"He's in his cabin," Alistair said. "He's probably cleaning his guns by now, and judging from his expression I doubt we'll be seeing him until the next meal-time."
"We can leave any time, Captain," Bishop said from the pilot's chair. "I've received word from Rachel that the engines are back online. I must commend Lofwyr for creating such an adaptable vessel."
Alan couldn't help smirking slightly when he thought of the expression on Lofwyr's face when he realised just how extensively the Serenity had been modified.
"Serenity," a Sangheili voice said over the ship's communicator. "You are clear for take-off."
"Roger that, Shadow of Intent," Alan replied. "Bishop, take us out."
"Roger," Bishop replied. With expert skill, he guided the Serenity out of the assault carrier's hangar and back out into the blackness of space. The hustle and bustle of the hangar soon turned into a gaunt quiet once again as the Serenity flew away from the gigantic vessel, which even as it was leaving opened a slip-space portal and headed to parts unknown.
"Well, we've passed the first test," Alan said calmly. "We might as well test our new toy. I just hope we don't end up blowing up our engines or something."
"The Sangheili assured us that the technology on the vessel was remarkably compatible with their own," Bishop said. "Lofwyr must have designed the ship to be capable of accepting a wide variety of upgrades in case the ship cannot reach any human outpost."
"What's the nearest human outpost, anyway?" Alan asked. "We might as well see if we can't make a stop first."
"The nearest one," Bishop said, consulting a star-chart, "would have taken us several months to reach under our own power. Now that we have the slip-space drive, we can get there within a few hours."
"Let's make that our first stop then," Alan said, now feeling more confident. "Bring me that horizon."
"Poetry, Captain," Alistair said, smarmily. "Sheer poetry."
Bishop pressed several switches, the ship shook slightly, and as Alan watched a glowing slip-space portal appeared in the void in front of the ship. As Bishop steered the ship towards the portal, Alan could not help but feel excitement welling up within him once again. The mission now seemed to have become just another G-Chase to him. He did not know what would be waiting for him, his crew and his ship beyond the portals he created, but he felt he knew one thing for certain:
He would have a lot of fun finding out.
TO BE CONTINUED