Chapter 4 – The fleet's reactions

Orbiting the dark side of the moon, the UNSC task force Red Flag was hiding from the sensors and telescopes of Earth. From the outside, the fleet looked to be a perfect model of military discipline and order. However, inside the ships of the fleet there was utter chaos as news of the fleet's current situation was revealed to the crews of the fleet and those they had rescued from the fall of Reach.

Eight hours prior

(0800 hours/ August 5th 1997/ UNSC Cruiser Lyonesse/ Location dark side of Luna)

Captain Keyes was sat in Admiral Kovalic's office with Cortana and Halsey trying to work out a solution to their new dilemma. Halsey and Cortana were discussing the possibility of travelling to what would become a UEG colony and setting up a base of operations there. They had already rejected the possibility of finding a base that the people who attacked them after exiting slip-space had set up and using it as too risky and would cost too many lives that they did not have to throw away in such a manner.

"Well, the advantages of setting up a base that is on a planet that for us was or is a colony would be that we would have the entire raw resources of the planet to ourselves and would be able to create a safe and secure base of operations. However, this would mean that we would need to put people to work farming, mining, and building the infrastructure to do be able to operate there." Cortana explained to Captain Keyes.

"As such, that idea would not be viable to our limited resources and capabilities." Catherine summed up.

"Are there any other options that are available to us." Keyes asked getting frustrated

"We could make contact with Earth and attempt to form the UEG and UNSC earlier than in our timeline. This is certainly a viable option as they already have a burgeoning population and could repurpose the discarded factories and areas that are not used as temporary shipyards to repair the fleet. The problems begin to arise where the governments of Earth's nations are involved. Countries like North Korea are barely fifty Years old and are highly likely to launch a missile strike against our fleet. At the moment, they do not have nuclear missiles. However, they could be supplied with nuclear munitions by their allies. The smaller nations with dictators will be a problem with their need to hold onto power and if possible gain more." Cortana said making the idea sound extraordinarily bad. "The upside to this would be that the more powerful countries such as the USA, Russia, the UK, France, Germany and to a lesser extent China would be more agreeable to forming a world government though it will take some time. This period of time can be reduced because we have the information about the UEG's laws, Charter and government system with me." Cortana continued.

"Well, this seems to be the best idea so far. Cortana send messages to the captains of the fleet, highest ranked ONI official and the Master Chief to meet me in the conference room in two hours' time to discuss our next course of action." Keyes ordered.

(1000 hours/ August 5th 1997/ UNSC Cruiser Lyonesse/ Location dark side of Luna)

Keyes had called a meeting of all the captains of the fleet, the highest ranked ONI official in the fleet and the Master Chief on board the Lyonesse. Once all ten other captains were there as well as Captain Veronica Dare from ONI, he asked for a status update of each of the ships in his fleet. The captains of the Autumn and Red Wall needed repairs to some of their weapon systems and armour plating, but no systems that would be life threatening. The two Halberds had a few breached compartments and some mangled armour that needed replacing but other than that were ready for action. His two Paris Class were a little over loaded so ordered that those that couldn't be held on board be move to the cruisers where there was space to house them. The three Charon Class had little to no issues other than normal maintenance and the two Stalwart class were in the same situation as the Halberds. Miraculously, none of the ships except the Red Wall had sustained damage to any major systems.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, now that we are aware of our capabilities and necessities, I shall move us swiftly to why I called you here. The first thing you need to be aware of is that Admiral Kovalic died from wounds sustained over Reach. I am the acting commander of the fleet." Keyes informed the captains who displayed looks of mourning for a few seconds before returning to the matter at hand. "When we arrived, I am sure you noticed that we couldn't contact any of our colonies or space stations. The reason is much more surprising than you may think." Keyes continued. "Cortana has come to the conclusion that we have somehow travelled back in time to the year 1997." Keyes finished to the looks of astonishment and disbelief by all but the Chief.

"I had a meeting two hours ago about the possibilities that could mean for us and the fleet with Cortana and Dr Halsey. They brought up some interesting suggestions. One was for us to create the UEG and the UNSC without the bloodshed that was experience by our predecessors in the Jovian moon campaign as well as the rainforest wars. Another was to find a UEG colony and settle there. The final one was to find and attack a world held by the people who attacked after exiting slip-space and occupy one of their worlds." Keyes proposed to his captains. This was met with acceptance by all the captains as they remembered having to learn about the amount of blood spilt during the conflicts of the 22nd century while contemplating the other options. "What I would like is for your opinions as to our next course of action and any other suggestions you may have that haven't been brought up. The pros and cons for each option are on the TACPADs in front of you." Keyes said.

The other captains and the chief read through the TACPADs and all decided on the idea to contact Earth unanimously.

"Thank you everyone. As you are now aware of the situation and we have made our choice, you may now return to your ships and brief the personnel aboard as to our predicament and the course of action that we will be taking soon." Keyes said "Before I dismiss everyone. Chief, as the de-facto leader of the Spartans, I am temporarily promoting you to the rank of Commander. I want the Spartans to be prepare in case they are called upon to quell any riots or mutinies in the fleet should they occur." Keyes continued. "You are dismissed. Keyes said to the captains of his fleet as all but one of them filed out of the room.

"Dad, are you sure that this is the best plan right now?" Miranda asked still having doubts.

"Unfortunately, we have no idea on how we got here, how to get home. Nor do we have any way to resupply and repair. This is why I believe that this is the best option we have at this time." Jacob said tiredly.

"Fair enough, dad." Miranda said. With that Miranda went back to the pelican that dropped her off to go back to In Amber Clad.

(1600 hours/ August 5th 1997/ UNSC Cruiser Lyonesse/ Location dark side of Luna)

It had been five hours since the announcement of the fleet's situation had been made clear to the rest of the crews and those they rescued from Reach. So far Lyonesse had a small riot before one of the Spartans decided they were hungry and went to get some food and unintentionally broke up the riot. 15 people were in the brig for fighting but there were no other major incidents. In Amber Clad was in a similar situation as was Iroquois as In Amber Clad's Captain was the Fleet Commander's daughter so the crew and rescues were more afraid to riot on board and Iroquois was Keyes' old ship so the crew who survived the battle of Sigma Octanus IV had faith that Keyes would make the right call even if they were all relatively bad options and reassured the rest of the crew about that.

The Crews of the Black Prince, Commonwealth, Chioglossa and Tannenberg were in a bit of a worse state but remembering that there was a ship full of Spartans not that far away quickly quelled any such incidents but there were multiple cases of fighting. The crews Herodotus and Providence decided that there wasn't anything they could do so just tried to settle with the loss of loved ones and move on to help the fleet complete their objective.

However, the Autumn and Red Wall had major riots on board and Spartan Onyx team had to be sent to quell the riots aboard the Red Wall while the ODSTs and Spartan team Gauntlet aboard the Autumn quelled their riots. The sore point for the quelling aboard the Autumn was that Major Silva used excessive force on one of the riots which ended up killing two marines and a crewman. This got Silva a demotion to keep the crew from mutinying and first Lieutenant McKay was promoted to Major as she was not a part of the quelling of that particular riot.

After the riots had been quelled, Spartan team Onyx stayed aboard UNSC Red Wall to ensure no more rioting broke out. While all the commotion among the fleet occurred, Captain Keyes was attempting to have an idea on how to address the world in such a way as to make them become the UEG and do it little under two centuries early.

Cortana's avatar then came to life in the chair opposite him. "Sir, I have found out what the cause of the massive energy spike that I registered yesterday was." She informed him.

Keyes just raised an eyebrow at her signalling for her to continue.

"Sir, the cause for the massive power spike was an device within the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado USA. It is a device called the 'Stargate'. Having hacked into their mainframe, I have found that it is a circular device that creates a wormhole connection between itself and another stargate. Then people are able to walk through the wormhole and emerge on the other side on a distant planet." Cortana said.

This left the Captain gobsmacked that there was such a device.

Cortana continued. "It is currently being used by the US Air Force under the aptly named Stargate Command or SGC. Each energy spike is an activation of the gate. The Base is currently commanded by a Major General George Hammond. They did pick up the fleet's Slip-space portals on scanners but by the time they had repositioned the NASA telescope, we were behind Ganymede."

Keyes regained his awareness. "Right when I address the world, what chance is that this General Hammond will be the first to respond?" he asked.

"Highly likely Sir." Cortana answered.

"Well then, I guess I have my plan for tomorrow.

(1200 hours/ August 5th 1997/ Stargate Command Centre/ Location Level 28 Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA)

Stargate Command was at Defcon 2 starting from yesterday, an alien contact appeared and disappeared when entering the Sol system. The energy burst created by the UNSC fleet's exit from FTL put every deep space radar unit around the world on high alert. Captain Samantha Carter was sat behind one of the consoles that had been set up in the briefing room to try and find the cause of the mysterious energy and radiation spikes near Jupiter.

All SG missions had been suspended since yesterday due to the mystery. Colonel Jack O'Neill walked into the room looking for Carter. "So, Carter, how is you stargazing going?" Jack asked.

"So far, we haven't been able to pick up any signs of ships or communications of any kind." Sam said frustrated at the lack of head way that the twenty odd people in room had made, let alone NASA and all the other people who were looking out to the stars trying to find the source of their mystery.

"Well, you have been cooped up in here for hours and its lunch. Wanna join me?" Jack asked trying to get her away from the computer screen.

"Yeah, may as well. Seems like nobody else will find the source of the mystery." Sam said and the two went up to the mess hall to grab some lunch. After another six hours of combing the skies with RADAR and radiation detectors, nothing was found. They were set to Defcon 4 to allow for immediate readiness should something occur. Little did they know of what would happen in the next few days.

Edited 18/01/2023