Vanguard

Chapter 23

"Coming up to speed"

[UNSC Vanguard]

With Percival tracking the course the Covenant corvette took when it entered slipspace and the Jedi cruiser Royale having already jumped into hyperspace on its way back to Coruscant, the Gozanti cruiser docks with the destroyer's port docking station letting the trio back aboard into the familiar hexagonal corridors made out of titanium and plasteel.

Jorge-052 was the last to walk aboard the ship where he takes his helmet off, revealing his shaved greyish brown haircut, beard, very firm facial features, and piercing blue eyes much like Longarm's, and he takes a deep breath in and exhales stating "Never would've imagined I'd be missing that stale recycled oxygen."

He then takes a look around only seeing Longarm and Ahsoka around and asks "Where's the rest of the crew?"

Tano and Longarm stopped and turned to the confused SPARTAN, they gave each other a brief exchange of looks, before Longarm takes his helmet off and said with some difficulties "They're . . . they're dead."

"What? Come on now you're joking."

"Did you see any marines or ODSTs when we came aboard that corvette? Do you see any officers or crewmen right now? They all died about five years ago."

The big man now seemed all too confused "W-wait how did this happen?"

Percival chimed in through the ship's intercom system "They all perished when the vessel exited slipspace on a wild uncalculated jump and crash landed on a planet, some survived but our numbers started to thin out as we tried to survive and repair the ship. SPARTAN James here is the last one left . . . and I suppose when I think about it, this makes him the leading commander of the Vanguard."

Ahsoka finally asks "Putting that aside for a moment, how in the world did you end up on that ship for five years?"

Longarm comments "C'mon, you can explain it on our way to the war room; hopefully we can do a threat assessment on that ship so we know what we're up against."

The group began making their way towards the bow of the ship where they'll take a lift up to the command deck, on the way there Jorge began to explain the events that happened so long ago "I was stationed on Reach along with Noble Team when we first discovered a Covenant scouting party at the Visegrád Relay, Zealot class elites being led by a field marshal. Anyways we drove them out and continued to fight the Covenant on several fronts until our first major operation in Ütközet region a few weeks later where we were assigned to take down air defenses and one of their command spires. I and Noble Six were the only ones who made it to the spire where six deactivated the spire's shields and we were evacuated by falcon. Frigate Grafton was on approach and brought the spire down, only to be sliced in half by a Covenant Supercarrier in low atmosphere that was cloaked the entire time."

Longarm dreadfully asks "A supercarrier? My god . . ."

"What's a supercarrier?" Tano asks.

Percival voluntarily answered "A monster of a vessel and most likely the largest class the Covenant has to offer, measuring close to twenty nine kilometer long the CSO-Class supercarrier can carry tens of thousands of ground troops to battle and maintain its own complement of thousands of fighters, dropships, and even its own defense group of corvettes like the one we encountered. All hope would be crushed by the mere presence of such a dreadnought."

The mere thought of a supercarrier in this galaxy struck fear into Ahsoka's heart fearing that even the Republic Navy might not be able to stand up against this monster, anyways Jorge continues "Right . . . while the UNSC was on the retreat, one of our members, Kat, came up with a plan to deliver a makeshift slipspace bomb to the carrier and take it out of play. Her plan relied on Six and I to take a sabre up to orbit and see to it the bomb makes it to a corvette that we can send on a refueling run with the carrier."

"Solid plan" Longarm comments.

"It was, everything went according to plan until the bomb suffered some damage from a little disagreement between me and some unwelcomed guests. At that point the bomb had to be detonated manually and so I said my farewells to six and threw him out of the hangar, I made peace with myself and I detonated the bomb. I should be dead right now but . . . I don't know . . ."

Ahsoka states "I thought a slipspace explosion was supposed to send everything into oblivion, from what Percy and Longarm told me. Is there any way to explain that?"

"Well . . . Slipstream Space is still largely unknown to human science, even I don't fully understand its potential. Nonetheless there's no evidence that slipstream space is actually capable of destroying ships that are fitted with the proper shielding to protect against the effects of transition, despite the toll it may have on organics. Given that Covenant-made vessels are much more effective with slipspace travel it was a certainty that the corvette and the supercarrier have survived the 'explosion' and arrived here" the AI explains.

Jorge however remarks "The supercarrier was torn apart, the only thing that made it through was the mid-section."

"Good, better part of it than the whole package. The Republic would've never stood a chance against that" Longarm states thankful for the circumstances as they arrived to the lift and he presses the call button.

As the lift makes its way down to their level, Jorge states "It's safe to say Six and I completed our mission in taking out that carrier, so when do we head back to UNSC space?"

Tano and Longarm shared another exchange of looks before he asks her "Hey uh Ahsoka . . . mind giving us a moment? Go ahead and get some rest."

"Yeah . . . sure" she replies before heading off down the corridor as the two SPARTANs watched her leave.

Once she turned around a corner and left their sight, the lift finally arrived and the doors opened up letting them walk aboard so it could take them up. Longarm presses a button indicating the command deck and the lift began its ascent to the upper levels of the destroyer.

Jorge knew that this moment of silence after his previous question meant something was horribly wrong, so he had to ask "James . . . what's going on? Where are we?"

James tried to think of a way to tell his closest friend but nothing really came to mind "I-I don't know Jorge" he said rubbing the back of his head "But Percival is trying to calculate a way back to UNSC space . . ."

"James . . . where. The hell. Are we?" Jorge asks with a much more serious tone in his voice.

The SPARTAN sharpshooter sighed before putting his hands down and said it like it was "As far as I know, we're in another galaxy."

"No . . ." the big man remarks with disbelief "That can't be . . ."

"Believe it or not Jorge, we're far from home. We're in a whole new galaxy with completely different factions."

The lift finally comes to a stop at the command deck where the bulkhead hatches slid open allowing the two SPARTANs onto the bridge, a large circular room with an wide complex array of flashing monitors and displays, a line of small angular viewports coming from the sides until coming together in a much larger window pane in the center front of the room, and a large eight by fourteen foot rectangular holographic display table in the middle of the room.

"Percival, bring it on screen" Longarm asks as the two walked towards the table.

"Gladly."

The table came to life lighting up with a gentle blue before projecting a hologram of the galaxy they currently reside in based on information the AI gained from the galaxy-wide holonet.

Jorge looked down at the table seeing the spiraling galaxy and states with some hope "That's our galaxy . . ."

But James corrects him "No, this is their galaxy" he points his finger towards a small blinking light located near the edge "We're here in the Fenion system, along the outer-rim territories."

"Alright, what about these factions you mentioned?"

By cue the galaxy lit up in several portions being distinguished by red and blue zones, Longarm continues "Mainly two big ones, the red zones belong to the Galactic Republic, a long standing government much like the UEG, they have their own laws, senate, and power. The blue zones are part of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, more commonly called Separatists, and they're more like the URF though they tend to use droid armies to hold systems in their grip rather than wild acts of terrorism."

"So I'm guessing those boys in white were part of the Republic then?" Jorge assumes.

"Right, those men are part of the Grand Clone Army of the Republic."

The big man didn't bother to comment on the idea of a clone army and jumps straight to the topic of Ahsoka "And the girl you're with, what's her story?"

"Ahsoka? Well as far as I know she's a former Jedi who got mixed up with me in a chain of events, of all that is um . . . pretty complicated to explain."

"I don't intend to even ask about it."

"Good . . . Anyways she's trustworthy and she can hold her own in combat. Got these 'lightsabers' that pretty much works like Sangheili energy swords."

"Now before we go any further, tell me what the hell is a Jedi?"

"Oh yeah um . . . I honestly don't really know other than they're aligned with the Republic and they have some sort of mystic power like telekinesis or something. They got their own code of order but the only one I know about is something about Jedi not forming any intimate relationships with anyone, something like that."

Jorge nodded quietly taking all this information and processing through his mind, the two SPARTANs became ominously quiet thereafter for several long minutes that almost seemed like hours with nothing but the occasional beeps and chimes of the monitors around them.

James then broke the silence and asked "The Covenant found Reach then . . . right?"

Jorge's eyes looked up and met with his friend's, he then simply said with a solemn tone "Yeah . . ."

"Then it's likely that Reach has fallen by now . . ." the dark SPARTAN gave a deep sigh "Leaving only Earth . . . and that was five years ago . . ."

Jorge knew that James was implicating that all of humanity is nothing but a memory now, with them being the last of their kind, but he maintains the last ray of hope stating "We don't know that . . ."

"And what if it's true? Then we're the only ones left. Now I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little generous and I'll be more than happy to return the favor."

"I agree . . ."

"Good, Percival what're we up against?"

The hologram changed from a galaxy to a single covenant corvette as the AI began his diagnostics "A Covenant SDV-Class Heavy Corvette with a standard armament three plasma turrets on each side and a number of pulse laser emplacements, but what I found very unusual was that this ship was fitted with energy shielding. If I remember correctly, SDV classes don't carry one unlike every other class we've encountered over the decades."

Jorge was quick to start explanations "Sometime after I detonated the slipspace bomb, survivors from a squad and I were ducking and hiding throughout the ship while the Covenant began making repairs using some of the materials from the fragment of the supercarrier that came through, my guess was that since the corvette was the only ship available to them they decided to retrofit it with its own shield generators."

"Thus making our job a lot more difficult . . ." Longarm adds with some displeasure before he asks "What happened to the squad?"

"All KIA when we were spotted after two days of hiding. I don't even know why they kept me alive."

James stood there a nodded for a moment accepting this before he returns to the matter at hand "What about the supercarrier?"

"Only the mid-section came through including the main hangar and from what it sounded like from the crew, a lot of crewmembers on the carrier survived and were converting what's left into a station for their base of operations. No doubt most of the onboard weapons are still operational and it'll be a death sentence to go anywhere near it."

"We'll have to leave that to the Republic or Separatist fleets, we don't have the firepower to take that thing down."

"Not even nuclear ordnance?"

"We have two warheads left, we just used one three days ago and decimated an entire Separatist fleet, anyways if we launch our nuclear ordnance they'll just shoot 'em down. But for now all we can do is take down that corvette, a good one-two punch with the MACs ought to put it out of commission."

"Now the only thing we need to do is find it."

The AI finally chimes into the conversation after a moment of silence "And we're in luck, I traced the corvette's unique energy signature leaving the sector, if we leave now we can follow the signal all the way to its destination point."

Jorge remarks "Good chances are is that the corvette is making its way back to the supercarrier, we jump in like that and we might as well kiss our arses goodbye."

"And if we let that corvette go then we'll probably never see that ship again, meaning more lives will be lost, innocent lives will be lost."

The big man fell silent for the moment weighing their options, follow the ship and risk running into the active remains of a supercarrier, or risk the huge potential loss of innocent lives to the Covenant's indiscriminate onslaught. After some further thinking he looked up at his fellow friend and brother in arms and gave an approving nod.

James nods in response then gives the order "Percival get us underway immediately, follow that signal."

"Aye aye commander . . . plotting in new course, spinning up FTL drives."

The Vanguard's four fusion drive engines roared to life guiding the Halberd-Class destroyer and the docked Gozanti-Class cruiser onto the correct course, Percival then spoke throughout the entire intercom system "All hands, prep for slipspace jump."

Soon after, a rift is torn open in the emptiness of space about a hundred meters in front of the destroyer allowing the ship to enter at full speed, once the Vanguard entered, the portal then closed upon itself leaving no trace behind.

[Three days later, Slipstream Space]

On Deck 13, inside the Vanguard's training bay, Longarm was taking swings at a hanging punching bag landing devastating blows to each side while Jorge was sitting on a bench, making the last modifications to his new M247H Heavy Machine Gun, and Ahsoka sat next to him watching Longarm continue to deal blows left and right.

She was silent for the past several hours, watching the two SPARTANs do their individual activities, until she looks over to Jorge, finally installing the heat cover over the gun's barrel, and asks "So what was Longarm like back then? Before all this happened to you."

Jorge's eyes came up from the gun and met hers "James? Well . . . he's pretty quiet around other SPARTANs except for me, always tended to be alone and really knows his way around a sniper rifle."

The two then looked out to see James continuing to land heavy blows with left and right hooks, uppercuts, and even head blows, Tano had never seen this kind of fighting style and asks "What kind of art is that?"

"Boxing . . ."

"Boxing?"

"Yeah, it's his personal favorite but he can get a bit creative when he has to. He calls it his 'recreational art'"

The two fell silent after that for several moments with only the sounds of fists impacting the fabric, Jorge then comments "That bag's getting a little worn out don't you think?"

Ahsoka looks over at the bag, seeing it being relentlessly bombarded by the SPARTAN's rapid fists, and decides to stand up and walk over to him.

Longarm finishes his routine with a quick upper right hook striking the top of the bag and quickly follows up with a hard right uppercut impacting the bag just below the mid-section before he sees Ahsoka now several meters away and ask with heavy breathing "Hey . . . you wanna take a swing at it?"

She looks at the punching bag, all beaten and worn out, and gladly declines "I think the bag's felt enough for today . . . c'mon I want to teach you something."

"You, want to teach me something?" the SPARTAN asks with some doubt behind his voice and a little hint of sarcasm "Does it have something to do with the force?"

"Not really . . ." she replies before drawing out on of her sabers in a reversed grip position.

"Oh . . . a little swordsmanship then" he comments before grabbing the hilt on his waist and activate the energy sword he took from the Sangheili Ultra from the corvette.

"You ever done sword combat before?" she asks as she began to slowly pace around the SPARTAN.

"Done a lot of hand-to-hand if you hadn't noticed" he answers as he too begins to walk around her.

Jorge eventually placed his weapon aside and begun to watch the two walk around one another before they both charged at one another with swords clashing against each other displaying a brief shower of electricity before the two broke off placing several feet between them.

After a short second of nothing, Longarm leaps back in thrusting his sword forward but Ahsoka was quick to react ducking to her left and throw her saber up in time to block the next attack when the SPARTAN came back around. She then quickly uses the force and blasts the energy sword at of James's hands forcing him to grab his electrostaff and ready it for combat. Ahsoka comes in fast now wielding both of her lightsabers making rapid swings and jabs, high and low, forcing the SPARTAN-ll to try and keep up, blocking blows with the tips of his staff, until she ducks avoiding the first retaliatory strike from him, deactivates her sabers, and make a quick clean sweep of the leg catching the half ton super-soldier by his heels and knocked him over forcing him to let go of the staff. Ahsoka comes right back up bringing her fists to bare as the SPARTAN slowly got back up and saw her with her hands up, he kindly obliges by bringing up his own armored fists and throw the first punch.

His right fist shot out like a bullet but Tano already predicted this move and ducked her head off to her right evading the gloved projectile and giving herself the perfect opportunity to land a quick blow to his exposed bodysuit. She delivers a lightning fast one-two punch to his sides, both blows having negligible effect on the SPARTAN, before he could swing his arm back but she immediately ducks again before she leaps in the air perform a high kick with her left foot slamming against the side of his EOD helmet and knocking it clean off exposing his head.

She quickly puts distance between her and Longarm as he quickly recuperates from the rapid blows and say "Not bad . . . my mistake for taking it easy on you."

"It's your fault, not mine" she replies keeping her hands up bracing herself for an inevitable attack.

Longarm moves in throwing a fast left uppercut but she dodges it and immediately makes a response by launching a quick burst of force energy knocking him off balance before she charges in and throws her one hundred and nineteen pound body in a shoulder barge against his nine hundred and twenty eight pound body and MJOLNIR armor. The SPARTAN-ll, unable to manage the impact from her body against his already unbalanced state, started to fall backwards but not before seizing her right arm and pull her down with him. The seven foot giant fell onto his back with a loud thud against the hard floor and Ahsoka falling on top of him, the two laid there, her on top of him, for a moment as they began to think of their next moves into winning this fight but nothing came to their minds and the two began to chuckle which eventually turned into laughter.

Ahsoka climbs off and helps the SPARTAN back up when he states with a decent grin "Ya' know, you're a real handful."

She gives a warm smile as James began to gather his things, starting with his staff, onto his sword, and finally his helmet in which he puts back on himself, he and Tano then began to walk back over to Jorge who was cleaning his new modified weapon when he looked up to see the approaching two.

Tano then placed a hand over her stomach stating "I'm kinda getting hungry, I'll see you boys later."

The two SPARTANs quietly gave an approving nod and watched the young togruta walk out the bulkhead hatch, James had his arms crossed as he thinks to himself until Jorge stood up, with his new HMG's forward handling bar in his right hand, and asks "You went easy on her didn't you?"

"I wish I hadn't, would've been more fun that way. I'll admit, over the past two weeks since I met her, she's starting to grow on me."

"I don't need to tell you two to get a room don't I?" the big man asks with sarcasm in his voice.

James lets out a light chuckle "That won't be necessary Jorge. I'm sure Percival can get that job done if he has to."

Jorge gives a small laugh before making a comment "Yeah I suppose she has that certain charm . . ." he falls silent thinking for a moment until he states "She sorta reminds me of home in a way . . ."

"I know what you mean . . . I suppose we still have something to smile about."

"For what it's worth, I hope you're right."

The two SPARTANs went silent, looking down at the floors beneath them, thinking about the possible future ahead of them here in this new galaxy. Neither one said anything but eventually Jorge started to glance around the place taking in the silence and realizing that despite his efforts back on Reach and aboard the Ardent Prayer, he'll never be able to see the outcome of what happened afterwards, and neither will James.

Percival soon breaks the silence reporting "SPARTANs, not to interrupt your moment of silence, I've got S-Deck ready for armor enhancement procedures and maintenance routines."

Longarm nodded to the AI's statement "Good to hear Percival, we'll be down in a moment" he then gives a heavy pat against Jorge's right shoulder-mounted EVA shoulder pad prompting the big man to follow him out the training bay.

The two SPARTANs made their way through the destroyer down to deck seven, S-Deck, where they passed through a much larger set of heavy doors, unlike most other hatches throughout the ship, entering a small bay large enough to hold a fully equipped and operational armor RIG station, consisting of three pillars in the middle of the room, each containing an automated mechanical arm equipped with a set of tools needed for attaching and removing armor components, and a small terminal, fitted with six different glass panels displaying information, off to the side to operate and monitor the procedures.

Percival then states "Jorge if you like we can start with maintenance work up on your armor, seeing that five years aboard a Covenant vessel has taken its toll."

The big man shrugged stretching his shoulders "Good, I've been needing a good tune up for a while now."

"Excellent, SPARTAN James if you would kindly monitor the procedure."

Longarm nods to that and walks over to assume his post behind the terminal while Jorge steps into the station and spread out his arms as if he were an airplane.

"Beginning maintenance routine: Analyzing" the AI states as the arms began to unfold and emerge out of their respective storage units.

Longarm carefully watches each screen as they ran their usual diagnostics of Jorge's armor, mostly resulting in a strong recommendation for urgent maintenance or immediate replacement of new armor components. A blue box popped up on screen giving him the option on whether to maintain or replace to which he simply presses his index finger against the 'MAINTAIN' box, which resulted in the box vanishing from the monitor display, and the mechanical arms got to work refurnishing the armor and running all electrical systems through a kind of reboot.

"Ahsoka is on her way down" Percival warns.

"Don't worry about it, we're just cleaning up that's all" Longarm reassures the AI.

The procedure continued underway as expected until another box appeared in front of James stating that Jorge's 'Armor Lock' armor enhancement is damaged rendering it unable to operate, another box appeared asking for which model of armor enhancements should replace the damaged component.

"Hey Jorge, looks like your armor lock enhancement is damaged, want me to switch it in for a new one?"

"Yeah go right ahead" the big man replies remaining still.

He gets to work selecting a new armor lock enhancement for replacement and the arms got to work detaching the damaged module in order to make room for an operating one. The two hear the doors open and close prompting James to look back and see Ahsoka enjoying a pear, curtesy of the Vanguard's cryogenic freezer units that miraculously remained functional after the crash, as she walks up next to him and watch the procedure.

She takes another bite and swallows before asking "What's going on here?"

"Routine maintenance" Longarm replies.

"Don't you guys need a certified technician or something for things like this?"

Percival responds "Normally yes but I'm still more than capable of performing this operation without human aid."

"Fair enough . . ." she replies before taking another bite.

A fourth box appeared reporting that the new armor enhancement has been replaced and is nearly done with the maintenance run, he simply waves it aside and continues to monitor the process until it was finally completed. The arms completed their tasks and retracted back into the pillars allowing Jorge to lower his arms and wait for the AI's reports.

"Armor integrity has been restored to a significant degree, shielding systems green, armor enhancement green. You are now cleared for duty SPARTAN-052."

Jorge shrugs his shoulders and stretches his limbs stating "Good, I've been itching for a little payback."

James then started to switch places with his good friend and assumes position inside the armor RIG putting his arms out to the side allowing Percival to begin diagnostics. The monitors began to display information and reports to Jorge and Ahsoka on Longarm's MJOLNIR and Jorge presses his fingers against the 'MAINTAIN' button causing the arms to come out and begin the process all over once more. Due to the SPARTAN's recent history, ranging back from the skirmish on Toydaria and brawl with General Grievous up all the way to the engagement with the Covenant three days ago, Percival needed to replace some components that were damaged beyond repair from the blaster fire and plasma burns, making the process for Longarm significantly longer. On the bright side, James's active camouflage armor enhancement is overall intact and still in functioning condition, Percival was fortunate that he could work around the armor enhancement and continue on with the routine procedure. Armor components here and there were subsequently replaced by the mechanical arms, exchanging the old and damaged in favor for the new and combat ready, giving Ahsoka brief glimpses of the SPARTAN's actual body, appearing to be much smaller than she imagined but nonetheless still large and very muscular. Eventually the process was completed and he was allowed to walk out of the RIG where he stretches his arms and legs getting a feel for the replaced components.

"Shiny . . ." Jorge comments with a humorous grin on his face.

"And we're in time as well, I'm registering several celestial bodies on approach, we appear to be coming out of slipspace" the AI reports.

James's mind jumped into action "Good, once we drop out we'll need all the information you can get."

"Actually . . . I'm beginning to receive outgoing communications from local settlements, all referring to attacks being reported in one region. I'm putting latest one through now . . ."

The intercoms crackled harshly before a woman's voice, frightened to death, call out with plea "Please! Does a-ne hear me!? We're - - attack by unknown -! If anyone is li- please respond! God help us!"

James quickly gave his next order "Percival, prep the pelican for launch. If you catch sight of that corvette I want you to put its ass in the ground" he then turns to Jorge and Ahsoka "Get your gear together, round two is about to start."

Ahsoka and Jorge nodded complying with those order and the three rushed out of the RIG bay making their way back up to deck eleven where they gathered their weapons, Ahsoka obtaining fresh magazines for her fallback weapon, the compact M6C, James taking his SRS99-D Anti-Materiel rifle and loading out his ammo pouches with high caliber rounds, and a BR55HB rifle as a backup, and Jorge who was mounting a hefty Mark IV/LBE-A Field Case onto his back and picking up his newly customized M247H Heavy Machine Gun already loaded out with a full box of 50. Caliber High-Velocity High-Explosive ammunition.

Ahsoka takes a glance at Jorge carrying the massive gun by his waist and asks "Got enough firepower?"

The big man laughs however "Ha! You can never have too much firepower."

Longarm slings his sniper rifle around his right shoulder and orders "Come on people, we don't want to be late."

"I'd hate to be late to a party" Tano comments with a gentle grin as she begins to follow the SPARTAN sniper.

"When Jorge's around, he is the party."

Jorge chuckles "Telling it like it is . . ." as he brings up the rear behind Ahsoka leaving the armory.

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