The enormous cruise ship shuddered as it transitioned out of slipspace, slipping into orbit of an enormous, brown gas giant.
After two weeks in slipspace, the view of real space was a beautiful, beautiful sight. Well, for most.
For some, it wasn't. After two weeks in slipspace, the Spartans expected to see more than just… a gas giant.
"…wow," Linda stared, deadpan out the window, "A gas giant. I'm glad you drug us away from home to see that. I never would've seen something like this as long as I lived."
"You know as well as I do, Linda, that's it's not about the destination, it's the journey." Oscar replied with a raised finger. "That's extra true about cruises."
"Yeah, that's the whole point," Fred snorted, "That's why they call them cruises. You're not being profound there."
Linda rolled her eyes, looking. She glanced at Cortana, who was staring out the observation window., with a shocked and bewildered look on her face. "Cortana?" Her addressing of the other teenager didn't go unnoticed, and John turned his focus to Cortana as well.
"What is it?" John curiously inquired.
"Look." Cortana breathed, pointing out the window. Suddenly, alarms began to sound, as shutters came down to cover the windows. "What!? No! It's right there, look!" She insisted, before the shutters closed over completely. "Damn it! Tell me you guys saw that!"
"Saw what?" Kelly questioned.
"Attention, all passengers, your attention please." The announcement system dinged. "A meteor strike is imminent. For your own safety, shutters have been lowered. Remain calm, and await further instruction."
"You saw the meteors?" Kai questioned.
"Meteor- No!" Cortana hollered, "It was out there, just… floating! I know I couldn't be the only one who saw that!"
"Cortana, saw what!?" Fred questioned.
"I don't…" She breathed heavily, looking back to the shutters. "But it was out there, and it was… It was this huge ring. Like a space station, but it was way, way bigger than anything we could've built! Or the Covenant! And it looked… It looked like it had land on the inside of it. And an atmosphere."
"A ringworld?" Kelly questioned. "Seriously?"
Cortana raised a finger. "There's proof, I know it. The bridge had to have detected it, which is why they lowered the shutters." She spun around, beginning to walk.
"Woah, hold on!" Fred huffed, the rest of them taking off with her. "We can't just go to the bridge and pester them with conspiracy theories!"
"We don't need to."
Cortana led the way into the cabin, searching around for a laptop. She yanked it open, connecting it to the ship's wi-fi. "Most cruise ships have an Executive Officer's Account that can be logged into from any terminal on the ship to get things like sensor status, maintenance alerts, things of that nature. That ring was out there, I saw it. And I'm willing to bet the sensors did too."
"Okay, say that there are sensor recordings," Kelly supposed, "You can't just hack into an Executive Officer's Account."
"Sure I can." Cortana replied, tapping quickly, "The Captain has a social media page. He's an old-style seaman, loves fishing. Loves fishing to the extent that his daughter and his own personal watercraft share a name." She pulled up the login page. "The username's easy, all usernames follow a simple, generated pattern. But the password's changeable. And knowing those two simple things about him…" Cortana bit her lip, typing in the name she'd pulled, and the login attempt went through. "Bingo."
"…you're damn scary, you know that?" Sam asked of her, and Cortana shrugged, as John allowed himself a little, happy smile at her antics.
"I know I am." Cortana grinned. "Now, sensor logs… THERE!" She gasped, pointing at the circle in space, floating in between the gas giant and its largest moon. "That's it! That's what I saw!"
The Spartans peered closer, looking curiously at the data.
"'Estimated diameter…'" Fred read, muttering, "Ten thousand kilometers!?"
"Jesus…" Kai breathed. "That's not possible…"
"No," John agreed, "But it's there. What is it?"
"A ringworld," Cortana pointed at each of the long-range probe values, "Look-habitable atmosphere, artificial gravity, even a landscape."
"That kind of engineering's way beyond us." Kelly muttered. "So… who built it?"
"I don't know," Cortana shrugged, "But-" Her eyes glanced over to a different box. "Wait a second… those are radio waves. Very precise radio waves. That ring… It's trying to communicate…" She began to type something, before John gently took her hand.
"You're sure that's a good idea?" He asked of her.
"…I'm not?" She admitted. "But what the hell, we've fucked up big already, why not go all the way?"
John removed his hand with a slow nod, before Cortana did whatever it was she was doing, and the computer's screen fuzzed, glitching out.
"Oh, hell!" Cortana cursed, as the distortions continued. "I just got this-"
"Warning!" A voice emanated from the speakers, startling all. "By order of Ecumene Council, proximity to Installation 04 is forbidden."
"…please tell me you just stumbled into some weird ARG thing." Linda quietly begged as images flashed by on the screen.
Cortana cluelessly shrugged, seemingly… entranced by the display.
"Your continued presence will result in most unpleasant countermeasures. I must insist that you immediately change course and return to a minimum safe distance of one light-year. This has served as your one and final warning."
"Oh, christ, is that us!?" Oscar yelped as a hologram of the ship was surrounded by a red circle. "We've gotta abandon shi-"
"Shut up!" Cortana hissed. "I'm listening…"
"I have activated defensive systems, and you now have thirty seconds to return to the minimum safe distance of - wait. Curious..." Images began to flash by, taken from what looked like history textbooks, until ending up on…
All looked to John, shocked, as his face was on the screen, the picture appearing to have been yanked right out of his service record. Whatever was going through the data, it must've jacked into Waypoint, gotten into the military's systems, overridden the most advanced encryption known to man…
...all in a few seconds.
"Curious indeed! After all these years… Greetings, humans, and welcome to Installation 04! Ignore prior warnings, and please continue. I have disabled defensive systems to allow your approach, but you must not exit your ship once you have arrived at the designated landing center. This ring contains significant dangers, and even with your assumed legacy, I must verify the presence and pitch of your geas before allowing full access. We have much to discuss, humans."
The screen flashed blue.
"I have been away far too long. You have been away far too long."
The laptop then went dead.
"…what the fuck is going on?" Kai whispered under her breath.
Cortana turned around, looking to John with bewilderment. "You're expected…"
"Wh-" John spluttered, blinking. "Me!? What the hell for!?"
A shudder ran through the deck.
Cortana inhaled. "They're charging the slipspace drive… If we want answers, then we're going to have to go down there."
"Go down-!?" John repeated. "Why would we do that!?"
"I don't know, it just feels…" Cortana frowned contemplatively. "Like we should. That voice sounded like he'd been waiting for people for a while. Maybe he needs help."
"Help," Fred repeated, letting out a puff, "Yeah, sure, and if we get stranded down there, how're we going to get home!?"
"Do you really not think Halsey is on her way after us right now?" Cortana asked in response.
Kai scoffed. "And you do?"
"Of course I do." Cortana grinned, "It's what I would do. Come on. If you guys don't wanna come, I'll go down anyway, and then I'll be stuck surviving on my own…"
John crossed his arms.
"Can't believe we're doing this." Fred muttered, securing himself into the seats of the lifeboat. "Steal a lifeboat to land on a quite-possibly alien, quite-possibly hostile space station. Sure! Let's go! No thought to the contrary!"
"We'll be fine." John replied, sitting in the pilot's seat. Lifeboats had to be as simple as possible to operate, just in case. Even then, he already had some training. "Everyone ready?"
"Yes, dad." Sam rolled his eyes, before John hit the button to launch them. The pod's explosive bolts went off, firing it away from the ship at breakneck speeds…
A shadow fell over the window, as they came closer to the ring.
"Good God that thing is big." Oscar breathed as he saw it out of the window.
Fred coughed, "Thatswhatshesaid." Earning him a smack from Kelly.
"So, what's the plan when we get down there, Chief?" Linda inquired.
"Chief?" John replied, looking over his shoulder.
"Yeah," She grinned, "Leading Blue Team into an ill-thought-out plan into the wilderness? Takes me right back to our training days… Squad Leader."
"Keep giving me lip," John muttered, "I'll throw you out of here…" He muttered, as the glass began to glow orange.
"Oh, God, I hope this wasn't a bad idea…" Cortana squinted her eyes shut as they hit the atmosphere.
"Are we there yet?" Ralph asked.
Halsey groaned. "No."
"How about now?" He asked.
"No!" She almost shouted, looking to Keyes for help.
Keyes shrugged, "Your idea to go charging after them instead of waiting, not mine."
Halsey groaned, covering her face.
It was still going to be a while.