The UNSC Infinity

Above planet Callaghan, Gamma Andromeda System

22:30 Hours,

26th of March, 2559, Standard Military Calendar

Some hours prior to FIRST CONTACT

The most sophisticated warship of the United Nations Space Command was never a place that would rest. Deck crew in the hangars checked and double-checked the Infinity's strike and transport craft complement. Beyond the shields keeping the atmosphere inside the ship, the Carrier's escorting fleet was visible. Autumn-class cruisers, a rebuilding of the Halcyon-class based upon the long-destroyed Pillar of Autumn's specifications, floated next to the vessel, about a dozen of them. Beside them, Phoenix-class support ships, the UNSC's standard Colony and Planetary Invasion support craft, hovered, not to mention the five Marathon-class Cruisers and the slew of Frigates and Corvettes.

In the engine room, the maintenance corps and their Engineer/Huragok brethren worked on keeping the vessel's Forerunner-made engines functioning. One of the human engineers called out to his comrades, "There's been some fluctuations in the power output, but they're within acceptable levels!" words overheard by the woman that had 'bolted' the engines onto the ship.

Doctor Catherine E. Halsey was kneeling by a console whose panel she had removed while working on rerouting a certain amount of power toward the engines to stabilize their output for the jump home. She overheard the words from the Engineer and quickly replied calmly, but loudly, "I am aware, engineer Connelly! I am working to solve that issue as we speak... Fluctuations of even a micron could mean catastrophic issues on not-understood technology such as the Forerunners' engines..."

"Just givin' ya the fifteen min report you asked for, doc!" The man replied jovially.

"My thanks!" Halsey quipped, before leaning further into the console to find the sections of wire coupled to the Forerunner engines themselves. There had been a lot of tech that needed to be cross-integrated and made to cohabitate with each-other in order for the ship to so much as move out of one spot, much less be able to utilize the Slipspace capabilities of their modified Slipspace Drive to its fullest.

She shifted a hint, finding a pair of cables and focusing on them. One was loose, the other was too tight, so she worked on undoing the 'damage' quote-unquote, tightening the second while making the first loose enough for both of them to match in feeling. She pulled a cable taut and made sure the two previous conduits were holding tightly in place. She set the cable aside and hummed, then asked, "What about now?"

"It's starting to stabilize, doc! Suggest leaving the rest to the Huragok!" The Engineer called out, then waved at Halsey from the central command console with a smile. Doctor Halsey nodded back to the man, who said a simple, "Thanks for the help!" that Halsey yet again replied to with a simple nod of her head. She turned and grabbed her tools and tablet, fast-marching toward the rear of the engineering deck, where the trams were.

Boarding one of the trams, which was being guarded by UNSC Marines carrying prototype MA40 Assault Rifles, the woman sat herself down and breathed a sigh of relief, before utilizing the cuff of her left sleeve to rub out some black oil from her cheek. She sighed and looked at the two Marines, both of which had balaclavas covering their faces adn tinted glasses, though their BDUs were the usual forest-green that she'd become accustomed to.

She hummed, pulling up her tablet and starting to write out a report pertaining to the engines for Admiral Lasky to read. She hummed, tapping away on the tablet as the tram stopped at another station. More crew from the lower decks boarded, these ones the waste disposal team. The crew, clad in hardhats and hazmat suits, greeted the doctor as they took off their masks, revealing the tired, sweat-stained faces of young men and women that were proudly doing a service scoffed at by so many others.

Halsey replied kindly to the ones doing the dirtiest of the work aboard the naval vessel, her mind still focused. She was also running calculations pertaining to the chance of a misfire of the Slipspace drive. It was minimal, but still there, which caused some slight fear in the back of the doctor's mind. She did not, however, show it to the crew who was quite literally dealing with the entire ship's refuse.

She heard them talk, laughing about their job together, and was thankful the Hazmat suits they were given could easily 'counteract' the stench of the lower deck's disposal areas somehow. Some chemicals they were imbued with, if the woman recalled, neutralizing the agents that cause the awful smell in the first place. She hummed, tapping away at the report as the tram moved again, stopped at the dorms of the workers, all of whom bid a good day to the doctor, then left again.

Halsey was halfway through writing the report when the tram reached S-Deck. She poked her eyes over the tablet and a faint smile crossed her lips as she saw BLUE Team boarding it, helmets slung under their arms. All of them, save for John, of course. As the two Marines guarding the vehicle snapped a crisp salute at the Chief and his team, she concealed the smile, then greeted, "John, Kelly, Linda, Fred. I hope training the new recruits went well?"

"Evening, Doc," Replied Kelly as she sat down, "It went well, yeah."

"Some of them were more stubborn than the others," John added as he sat himself down. He didn't seem distressed by the notion, however. There was a certain stubbornness necessary to be a Spartan, even a IV. Halsey hummed. The IV class was made up of volunteer soldiers from across the Branches, ranging from ODSTs to even some of the better-performing Marines. Of course, there'd be some pushback to being trained by the 'original' Spartans, so to speak.

"They'll make it yet, John," Linda assured him, taking her helmet off to reveal the short, well-kept scarlet hair and emerald eyes of the sharpshooter. All of them save for John still looked somewhat younger than their current biological and chronological ages would put them at. John, however, looked somewhat haggard behind his helmet. A given, considering he was tantamount to humanity's savior...

She sighed and said, "The IV class may be hard to deal with... But if they are being trained by my Spartans?" looking upon them all with a hint of pride behind an otherwise flat voice, "I'm certain they'll make for some of the finest soldiers mankind has." And those words seemed to invigorate the Spartans a bit, each now bearing the most imperceptible of smiles. She hummed and blanked, then remembered, "Oh, yes. John..."

The Master Chief looked to her, his visor hiding his face. She shuffled her hand around her pocket until she touched something cold. With a smile, she pulled a glowing crystalline chip out of her pocket, its blue tint so familiar to Blue Team's members, before she extended it to John and said, "Her defragmentation's finally complete. She should have another seven years of life left in her now."

John slowly leaned forward and plucked the chip from the Doctor's hand, nodding slowly in thanks. He then slotted it into the back of his MJOLNIR GEN-3 armor and felt the inside of the helmet cool, the faint blue glow of his HUD intensifying. He heard the yawn of a very familiar voice, followed by the ripple of connection in his HUD. The voice spoke, "Ahh... So, that's how humans feel after a good nap..." jovial. "Hey, John."

"Cortana..." He replied, surprised. He knew Doctor Halsey would manage to fix her, he just didn't expect...

"Not even a 'good morning'? Heh, you must've been worried sick..." The AI said shyly, her frame appearing on the left of John's HUD. She had longer hair that was caught in a ponytail, but she still bore the same facial features and 'other' design features as before, though the symbols on her body were all different. She smiled at him, seeing the slight worry in his eyes slowly being replaced by the usual, stoic calm she knew him for.

"Good to see you..." He said, leaning back into his seat.

"Likewise," She shot back, "And very good to see all of you, Blues."

"Hey, CT," Kelly waved, "Hope the nap was good."

"Cortana," Fred replied with a nod, the smile growing.

"Good to know we have our hacker back in our midst," Linda quipped, leaning forward. Cortana let out a melodious laugh at the quips, then wrote something to Doctor Halsey, clearly, as it appeared on her tablet. Halsey rolled her eyes and pushed a strand of grey hair out of her eyes, before glaring at John, or more specifically at his helmet, because she knew Cortana was peering through the HUD-cams at her.

She replied, exasperated, "No, Cortana, I did not provide any substantial boosts of that kind. It seems hair growth is a sign of lengthening of your processing life. To say, I've added a few extra petabyte-strength virtual cores to assist you in better handling data, plus extra storage space..." before she heard the AI audibly giggling in John's helmet. Something had changed about her, alright...

The tram came to a halt in the S-Deck barracks. John stood up and said, "This is our stop, doctor."

"Was good seeing all of you, John," She stated, "Take care of Cortana as you have so far..." And she looked up at him. The Chief nodded, before he and the rest of his teammates slipped out of the tram. It left the station again and the two Marines bumped fists, laughing quietly about having met the Chief and BLUE Team. After the War, they'd all become household names among the ranks of the UNSC's infantry.

Good. All SPARTAN classes deserved their time in the limelight. The IIs, whose sacrifices are well-known, the IIIs, whose sacrifices were yet to see the light of day, and the IVs, whose sacrifices were being written today against the Covenant's remnants and the Forerunner Ecumene's few remaining machine servant armies. She sighed, shoulders sagging as she finished the report and mailed it to Lasky.

When she'd met him, he was just captain Lasky. A hardy man from a dead colony, who lost as much as any of them. As the Tram finally reached the last stop, the Bridge, after several more stops, Doctor Halsey disembarked, giving a quaint, friendly nod to the two Marines guarding the door as she left. Tablet slung under her arm and tools on her belt, the doctor marched down the hallways and entered the bridge.

A hive of activity as ever, the central holographic table shined with a three-dimensional multi-color display of local space and the formation of the forty-plus UNSC Vessels escorting the UNSC Infinity. Halsey wasn't sure if she could call this a Battle Group, or if she should call it a Fleet. Task Force Infinity had several dozen combat ships, plus dozens of support vessels and almost three hundred thousand total Marines, ODSTs and other ground personnel.

Callaghan, the emerald gem below them, still shined in the darkness of space, the marks of plasma bombardment, still burning forest fires and smoke pillars visible from orbit, visible on the dark side. A Covenant remnant fleet had emerged over the planet, looking to find some new artifact that could lead them somewhere. The Task Force had arrived just in time to stop the dozen-plus Covenant cruisers and the two Carriers they were using from completely and utterly destroying the planet. And the ground troops did away with their Search Parties.

At the cost of about a thousand civilians and a hundred of their troops, sadly, including a SPARTAN-IV who went by the name of Ross.

Halsey sighed. She saw Lasky on his feet, staring out of the window at the debris of the Covenant vessels floating ahead of them. His grey uniform now bore the exact symbols of the UNSC Admiralty, but he had openly and specifically asked Lord Hood to remain in command of the Task Force. The Infinity was his ship, after all. This was his crew. She couldn't blame him.

Instead, she cleared her throat, taking Lasky's attention toward her. He turned and gave her a half-smile, then saluted, "Admiral Halsey."

"Admiral, please..." Halsey sighed, pinching her brow, "I don't want to be reminded I'm in charge of the Office of Naval Intelligence while on missions like this..."

"Sorry," Lasky chuckled, "Lord Hood says it's your punishment for bringing Parangosky down four years ago." And he looked at the report on his tablet. He gave an approving nod and stated, "Hope the Engines won't cause us any problems when we jump for home."

"I've tried my best to remedy the fluctuations, but we'd need a quick overhaul of the FTL drives in order to make sure it won't misfire..." Halsey sighed, then nodded, "But I can at least guarantee that, if they fail, they should only fail to transpose us to Slipspace, instead of outright blasting apart the entire fleet..." and watched Lasky reading the report. Beside them, a golden glow emanated as Roland, the shipboard AI, appeared.

"Doc," The World War 2 Bomber Pilot Avatar offered the woman a nod and a smile, his hands behind his back.

"Good evening, Roland," Halsey replied in her usually unbroken stoic demeanor, though she did give the man a quick look-over. She stated, "I see the updates to your firmware have been helping."

"Oh, I feel faster than ever," The Bomberman smiled, crossing his arms to his chest now, "Thanks."

"You are quite welcome," Halsey replied. While, to some, the stoic kindness the Doctor had been showing as of late would seem strange, to the woman, she fully intended to right the wrongs of her past somehow, or, at least, feel like she did. She knew for a fact that the guilt of the SPARTAN Projects, of all of them sans ORION and the IVs, would haunt her for the rest of her life, alongside the face of her late lover and their daughter.

She couldn't ever fully atone. Not in a hundred lifetimes. But she could at least try. Especially now, with being in charge of ONI. She hated the job, but it was necessary. The total and complete reform. It would still maintain much of its normal capabilities, but Halsey intended to run a unit with at least some ethics behind their actions. They still needed a capable espionage and intelligence network and she wasn't going to neuter it. It'd be idiotic.

Just some ethics would be nice, though...

"Good to know..." He spoke, then paused and listened in to coms. Turning to Halsey, he told her, "We have the artifact the Storm Covenant were trying to nab aboard. Let's prep to head home. The reconstituted Colonial Military Administration should be heading over to provide the locals support soon enough," Lasky said, then turned toward the com station, "Call the Shadow of Intent. Tell them we're preparing to head home." and got an affirmative from the coms officer. The man sighed deeply, then stated, "This was a trip..."

"Good thing we found that distress signal in time, eh?" Roland quipped, with Halsey silently agreeing. As the Arbiter and the other Sangheili Elites aboard the Shadow of Intent replied to the coms, the vehicles began their burn to break from orbit so they could jump alongside their allies. All was calm on the bridge as yellow alert was issued and the crews braced for the imminent departure, their vessels' fusion engines flaring. The arrowhead formation of the allied fleet remained tight, with the Shadow, the seamonster-like warship of the Swords of Sangheilios, forming up on the UNSC Capital Ship's left side.

Space ahead began to ripple and darken. Arching lightning flashed, a whirlwind of azure energy slowly sparking to life. The entire UNSC fleet and the Shadow had synched their drives so they could jump together at the same time. As the last calculations were being made and the ships prepared to slip through the massive portal... An alarm wailed.

Halsey, first to hear it, turned to her tablet nigh-immediately, looking over the data streaming from the shipboard computers of the engineering deck. The fluctuations... They'd intensified... She started calculating, preparing for the drives to disengage and for whatever Feedback Loop to hit. Roland called out, "Our Slipspace drives are engaging... Hell... All crew, brace for a rocky transfer! Issuing fleet-wide Red Alert!"

"Lasky!" Halsey called out as the fluctuations grew worse, to the point the entire Forerunner engine system began to overshoot any projected estimates, "Tell the other ships to cut their links to us! NOW!"

"We can't! Not when a jump's initiated!" Lasky replied, looking to Halsey, "Weren't our drives supposed to disengage!?"

"They can not! The Forerunner architecture of the engines is showing power surges well beyond anything we could've even projected! We're chain-linked with everyone, including the Shadow!" The woman replied as she grabbed onto the holographic table, "Hang on!" then she gasped as the highest of the fluctuations kicked into gear. The portal ahead of them expanded like an open mouth, first swallowing the forward picket of the Navy, the Paris-classes, Charons and Stalwarts, not to mention the few Anlace and Strident Frigates they had.

Halsey looked to Lasky and told him, "Brace...!"

... And soon, the Infinity and Shadow of Intent had been swallowed, too...

... Come a few minutes later, Lasky awoke with a start and a raging head-ache thumping away at his sanity. He groaned, slowly standing to his feet and holding onto his head. His vision was blurry and his ears rang as if someone had set off a fragmentation grenade next to his head. He blinked rapidly, trying to wipe away the blur and slowly managing to regain his vision.

He grit his teeth as the ringing dropped to the level where he could barely hear Roland calling for him. Turning to the AI, he saw the blurry golden outline of the AI's avatar, then the rest of the details slowly started coming in. Roland's voice also grew a little more clear, "Sir...! Sir, we've made it!" He called out to Lasky, "We're on the other side... Wherever the other side is..."

"Sensor status...?" Lasky demanded. Best to know if they had eyes and ears first.

"Rebooting. The jump played hell with our systems, but Coms and other important stuff like Life Support are all online, sir... Sensors is the last one that's down..."

"Good," Lasky grunted, then shook his head to clear the confusion. He turned over toward Halsey, to see the good doctor slowly waking up. He helped her to her feet, causing her to grab onto her forehead. A faint trickle of red appeared on her forehead, a cut from the fall. Her tablet was also smashed, its screen cracking in spiderweb patterns. He asked her, "You good, doctor?"

"Aside from the head injury and the raging migraine...? Fine..." She replied, then groaned, "Ugh, that was the worst jump I've had to date..."

"Heh, no worse for driving, eh...?" Lasky sighed, then looked to Roland, "Status on the crew?"

"Minor injuries across all decks, sir..." The AI replied, "No casualties. Fleetwide report's similar, zero fatalities, minor injuries."

Lasky let out a sigh of relief, then said, "Alright, get our sensors back online... I want to know where we-" And he froze as he saw it outside of their viewport. A massive, blue, glimmering gem of a planet lay dead ahead of them. "Are..." He barely finished his sentence as he looked at the planet. As the rest of the crew got back to their stations from the fall.

Halsey noted the planet, setting her tablet aside and murmuring, "Where in the name of the Maker did we just wind up...?" while examining it. Lasky shook his head, unsure himself. As they waited for the sensors to come back online, Lasky made the rounds, walking around to each window to see if their fleet had tagged along. From Phoenixes to the frigates and to the cruisers, the entire fleet was here, as was the Shadow of Intent.

"Sir, comm request from the Shadow. It's Shipmaster 'Vadum," The Com operator, who had now bandaged his arm, reported. Lasky gave the approving nod to patch their alien comrade through. On the forward screen, the bulky, hunchback frame of an alien creature with leathery grey skin and snake-like eyes appeared. Two of his four mandibles had been halved by combat and he still bore the scars on his bone-white armor.

"Admiral, Doctor," Rtas 'Vadum, Shipmaster of the Swords of Sangheilios, spoke with respect.

"Shipmaster," Lasky nodded, "Good to see you and your crew are okay."

"Minor injuries have been reported, but all of ours still live. I understand it is the same for you?" He asked. Happy with receiving a nod of confirmation from Lasky, the Shipmaster spoke, "Good. Our sensor suites are finishing their last maintenance cycle now. We should have our eyes back within the next minute... Have your crews fared better in restoring your sight?"

"I'm afraid we're in the same boat, metaphorically speaking," Lasky shrugged, "Sensors should be back on within a minute here, too."

"Sir," Roland started. The man turned toward him as he spoke, worried, "Sorry to bother, sir, but we're getting a mayday from UNSC Poltava. Their sensor suite's online and they detected two unknown vessels on an approach vector. They're not responding to hails, apparently..." before he paused, blanked and his eyes widened, "... And our sensors are back. Detecting a fleet off our Portside, approximately 40,000 Klicks out, geosynch orbit above the planet..."

"Same ships?" Lasky asked. Roland shook his head.

"Different designs... And different battle-nets, from what we can intercept. One sounds way more like a streamlined communications array. The other sounds like a bunch of voices screaming at each-other..." Roland replied, then balked, "The bastards opened fire! Plasma batteries, from the looks of things..." and he looked to a confused Doctor Halsey. The woman nodded to Lasky and the AI, then ran back toward the trams, to probably take one to the labs.

"Red alert. Tell the Poltava and her Frigates they're clear to engage... And someone get me a link to that second fleet so we can warn them about us being armed." Lasky ordered as he took command. He looked over the sensor images as they started coming in... Outside of the Infinity's hull, in the void of space, a UNSC Autumn-class cruiser powered its engines, its shields flaring under scarlet bolts of plasma...


... Aboard the Resolute, a Venator-class Star Destroyer of the Grand Navy of the Republic, Admiral Wulf Yularen watched with bated breath as the two Confederate warships that emerged from behind Christophsis's dark side moving in to engage the rather large battle-fleet that was seemingly disabled upon their arrival in-system. They'd gotten their systems up and running surprisingly quick.

Wulf wasn't a young man anymore. He was still decently spry for his age, his brown hair slowly beginning to grey out, even on his mustache. He arranged his Republic Naval officer's uniform as he watched the unfolding engagement. He looked at the images playing on the holographic table with a hint of muted awe. They'd only sent two of their smaller ships, probably Corvettes, as well as what seemed to be at least a light cruiser to engage the CIS ships.

"They just arrived, managed to return to active status and..." A Clone officer murmured, awed, as he looked over the images. The unknown ships shifted position to engage the enemy with the cruiser as the spearhead. The Clone continued, staring on, "And now they're facing a duet of Munificents. Their shields seem to be holding..." before the first projectiles began leaving the weapon bays of the unknown vessels in response.

Missiles. Dozens upon dozens of missiles struck the hulls of the Munificent frigates, winged designs with bulky bodies, some of the most heavily-armed vessels per ton per meter in the CIS fleet, with a twin-linked heavy cannon battery in the maw and several dozen turbolasers on the side, bulb-like superstructures beside the main bridge. Armor cratered under the whittling barrage.

"We're detecting dozens of launches, sir," Another Clone crewman said as he looked over the details they were receiving from their Sensors. He blanked, then called out, "Massive energy spikes on all three vessels! They're charging something!" before Yularen went off to a window to stare. Hundreds more images appeared on the display, atmospheric insertion vehicles dropping from the bellies of several ships, including the long, five kilometer dreadnought in the middle.

"They've finished charging..." The sensor officer reported, "Firing!"

Twin white flashes reached all the way to the Resolute's bridge windows, followed by the flashes of reactor detonations. The Clones all gasped in synch. Yularen asked, without taking his eyes away from the black fleet, "What was that...?" his familiar Coruscanti accent. His crew looked dumbfound as they stared at the data streaming through the screens.

"Sir... Kinetic projectiles... They just..." The Sensor officer murmured, "They cored both ships in a volley..."

"Kinetics..." Yularen murmured. Had the CIS vessels forgotten to turn on their shields properly? Did they not expect the enemy to be using slug-based weaponry that was presumably magnetically-propelled in nature? Eitherway, to see two Munificent-class ships go down in one single missile and kinetic weapon salvo from a trio of ships out of several dozen was terrifying. As his clones nodded in confirmation, Yularen asked, "Have we received any attempts at communication?"

"Just now, sir!" The comms officer replied, "Patching them through!"

... A holographic figure of a middle-aged human male clad in a slightly bulky reinforced uniform. He saluted Yularen and said, "Greetings, unknown fleet, this is the UNSC Supercarrier, Infinity, on contact off your starboard side, several thousand kilometers out, we request that you identify your status pertaining to our fleet, or we will assume hostility and open fire."

"This is Admiral Yularen, off the Republic Navy Cruiser Resolute. Infinity, we mean no harm to your battle group. We're here in support of ground operations on the planet Christophsis against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, whose ships opened fire on your fleet," Yularen replied promptly, looking Lasky square in the eye, "We are in open war with the CIS."

"Copy that, Admiral. This is Admiral Lasky, off the Infinity. Your foes decided it'd be a good day to poke the UNSC," He replied calmly, staring Yularen right back in his eyes, "We're requesting permission to deploy a diplomatic corps aboard the Resolute with intent to speak of an alliance. If the CIS want war with us, we're glad to give it to them in full... Once we have context over everything."

"Understood. Stand-by, we'll need to contact the Generals below to appraise them of the deployment of your forces, as well as... Perhaps bring one aboard to help begin negotiations," Yularen replied. He looked to his clones and said, "Get me a link to the Forward Operations Base. General Skywalker and General Kenobi will want to know of this..."

Both Lasky and Yularen stopped, looking each-other in the eye, before a mutual understanding formed. The two nodded to each-other and began discussing various matters in wait for the Generals. Lasky, however, couldn't help but wonder one tinsy tiny, weird detail that had just appeared the moment Yularen mentioned them. Why would Generals be negotiating alliances, much more, commanding entire forces that included Navy units...?

It was weird...