Central Engineering. UNSC Spirit of Fire
Hell breaking loose as it turned out was a very "loose" description of the hell surrounding the bewildered Galactica boarding team.
The sudden and nearly effortless grind of machinery both throughout and surrounding the entire room as the mechanical heart suddenly started to beat, Deuterium began to flow and secondary reactors activated. Ceiling lights and monitors burst into life with symbols and text flowing at rates too fast for Gaius, Tyrol or the others to even perceive.
Then the entire space began to buzz, as the central fusion reactor exploded into life alongside every other system on the ship. Power feeds aglow with the lifeblood of the ancient vessel.
Backup sensors went into standby, primary systems came online and a cascade of not-quite dumb AI programs where shunted into the background as the ships primary systems came online and where fed centuries of accumulated junk data and then crashed.
Routing requests for the primary ship AI where sent, and as they had done trillions of times before – failed and without any other smart AI or even dumb AI to call upon the ships systems routed down to the simplest of of breakdowns of information.
The ship was in an unknown location.
The ship had no central AI.
The ship had no frame of reference for those previous data points.
The ship had recently been boarded by humans that had no form of UNSC IFF or neural jack.
The ships primary sensor systems where also detecting a small fleet of strike craft within danger close distance, alongside another vessel that was clearly armed with mass kinetic weaponry and matched no known vessel in the UNSC database.
Therefore, instead of waking the ships crew in the standard order of C3 staff, auxiliary personnel, medical personnel and then the rest of the ships crew and marine compliment – the list defaulted to "Ship boarded by possible hostile unknowns" and therefore opted to awaken the ships primary response teams from cryostasis.
Namely the UNSC 9th Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Battalion. Alongside Spartan II "Red Team".
The colonials would never know what hit them.
His world was cold, deep to the bones. Colder than it had any right to be.
He didn't even have the words to describe how unbelievably cold everything in his perception had become around him.
They told him that he wouldn't dream, they had been half right.
In the moments before his conscious mind wrapped itself around the concept of being frozen to his core, he had dreamt he was swimming, through a deep and endless sea. Then the almost limitless depths of indigo water became darker and darker still. Then it became black and the cold crept in, growing in waves and intensity.
Then the pain.
Distant dots of light.
Then the beeps of some kind of machine? Digital. Every second. It was close? Or far?
Perception was warped. This was wrong.
Recent memories emerged. The shield world? The Covenant? The Flood?
Third degree incendiary burns across almost all of his right hand side. He hadn't even been hit directly – it had been a near-miss of a Hunters assault cannon, hours away from the detonation of the Spirit of Fires slipspace drive that ended the threat of the ancient fleet held within the unnamed world.
Others had spent their last few hours before cryo fighting for their lives against genocidal aliens or against an all devouring swarm of horrors that had been failingly contained within the megastructure of a planet. Eventually fighting a retreat back to the ship.
His last few hours of memory had been of searing pain, microsurgery, biofoam and cloned skin grafts. Screaming agony and then sleep, cryosleep in a dreamless void.
Then the brain slowly awakening, the cold deep into his core. Pain upon pain and then awakening.
The distant lights had been the lights through the cryopod glass, the beep had been the reporting tones of the medical monitoring equipment.
Then there was sound, screaming somewhere outside the pod.
Footsteps on metal, voices.
The cryopod lid cracked open with an almighty noise, like the slamming of metal against metal followed by grinding – somehow it hadn't been opened in forever, or his mind imagined it to be so. Little did he know that his mind was right.
He fell forward out of the pod, screaming with agony as his instincts saved him a messy fall with his arms held out. Then the wracking cough followed, deep and throaty. Almost akin to coughing up an entire lung full of dust.
Preparations for cryostasis included a form of gel he could never remember the name of – you swallowed it before you became a popsicle and then it would line the stomach and combined with a form of protective lining in the lungs would prevent freezer burn and contain minerals and nutrients for when you eventually awoke. They supposedly had dozens of flavours – they all tasted like lime flavour snot. This time however something was wrong. Very wrong.
What he coughed up was a lumpy grey mixture that tasted metallic, thick and somehow gritty – his training demanded he swallowed it to return what his body was missing from his long freeze. His gag reflex however, demanded that he threw it all up across the deck. What came out was a slew of Gray lumps, like someone made a smoothie out of WD40, swarfega and engine oils.
Just as he finished vomiting, he turned his head to the left – another ODST a few years older than him, a Sergeant? The details where fuzzy, his name lost. The man fell forward in a lump, he too was screaming. His skin was jet black and necrotic, cracked across every single joint on his body – ankles, knees, elbows, fingers, neck, eyes and ears – every single part of his body that could turn or move cracked open the skin across the surface and slowly pushed out jelly-thick crimson as he screamed.
Then he started throwing up thick, almost black blood as the medical technicians arrived.
He watched as their forms surrounded the body as it went into convulsions. Something about being in cryo for way longer than anyone should have been. Something about impossible dates in the system. Another shout about medical supplies being out of date. Syringes full of painkillers turned to dust.
Then another scream joined the orchestra – a woman on the second cryopod deck. Her skin was patched in black and Gray angry necrosis. Her legs had frozen to the pod, and when she fell forward . . . they had split apart at the knees and stayed in the pod while the rest of her had not.
Another scream.
Another.
Then a set of hands on each shoulder, he was being pushed down to the floor. He didn't have the strength to resist. He was being rolled onto his back. Hands ran across his arms and legs, a torch measured his pupil responses.
"Oh Christ we have another one, we've already lost half the medical team and a full quarter of our ODSTs"
"No no this isn't necrosis, it's a skin graft."
"Well it looks like the graft stopped the worst of the damage – get me his obs and clear him"
"You hear me soldier?"
His mind finally put two and two together. The distant sounds where blunted as his mind focused on the immediate – the Medic in front of him as he was prompted through the motions of flexing his hands and toes, counting to ten, autonomic responses.
"Name and rank soldier" The medic prompted.
"Uhh . . ." He replied slowly, dipping his mind into the very outer edges of his memory. Everything felt fuzzy somehow, out of reach. The final details just beyond his grasp.
Reach . . . funny he should choose that word, that was where he was born.
Suddenly the whole fistful of memories came back at once. Mom. Dad. His little sister. Older brother. New Alexandria.
Enlistment. Boot Camp. The Spirit of Fire.
The Covenant.
The shield world.
The Flood.
"61997-41446-EB Evan, Baker. ODST"
"Evan get to the sub-armoury ASAP. Quartermasters KIA. Grab your weapon and gear and repel boarders in main Engineering" The Medic waved a torch from one eye to the other without stopping to speak once to test his pupil responses once again before then clapping next to either side of his head to check for any loss of hearing. The ODST responded flawlessly.
"MOVE TROOPER!" The Medic yelled as he finished his checks moved onto the next pod that was opening far past it's due date. Another screaming voice. Another thud.
By now he was moving – the thawing ice in his veins had in fact thawed partially – enough for him to job, enough for him to move as heat and adrenaline rushed through his internal systems. He moved with purpose as his synaesthesia sent the feeling of "Blue" stone cold pain in his bone was replaced with the "Dark Magenta" as the heat and adrenaline soothed as he moved and oxygen and water started to flow in his veins. Another ragged breath and he was through the corridor at the end of the cryostasis bay and into the sub-armoury where he instantly bolted through the door to one side, into the back and directly for his uniform locker.
Less than 37 seconds later he had donned his full ODST BDU and was moving to the secure weapons locker. Evidently he was not the first here – a Marine from a unit he had fought with against the flood. A Good man, strong leader – this Marine was standing in as a Quartermaster because apparently the logistics section had lost the most personnel.
"Name and Rank?"
"61997-41446-EB Evan, Baker. ODST" He repeated coldly.
Second shelf in, Third corridor – grab as much ammo as you want apparently the auto-printer has been busy while we slept."
With efficiency he stalked into the sub-armoury and grabbed his M7S SMG and ripped the plastic seal and grabbed his weapon in his right hand and with his left he started filling his tactical webbing with as many of the plastic sealed magazines as he could. Next came the unwrapped magazine that went into the SMG with a satisfying thonk-chonk as he moved on to grab power cells, a pair of grenades, his M6C pistol which he also loaded and safetied into his leg holster.
Safety off on the M7S SMG he Jog/Ran out from the sub-armoury and into more central corridors that seemed to be lighting up for a moment before diving the ship into near blackness and anyone whose armour didn't have the polarising systems built into their helmets was blinded. Anyone who might have been wearing night-vision goggles or systems at the time had the after effects of the lights in front of their eyes blinding them both before and just after the lighting flared.
Those with VISR had just enough built in means of seeing where they were going without being totally blinded and events like this had been allotted into their training. Either the covenant had boarded the ship or insurrectionists. Either way the ODST's in their off hours had used wargames based on these scenarios as part of their training with TTR rounds. He knew exactly where to run and slowly as more ODST's and some marines had started to run with him. The M7S SMG pulled into his shoulder as he ran, he and the others closed on the engineering level as quickly as they could run.
It was chaos in the engineering deck. What could only be described as an utterly perfect wall of light and noise. Just as the colonials adapted to the sheer sheet of light they were suddenly plunged into darkness again as the reactor and engine systems lurched into life. The very heart of the ship beat into life and the vessels gravity based systems came to life unannounced. Any colonial that had not already been putting part of their weight on the "floor" of the room at the time developed a sudden relationship with the before said floor. Men and women landed with sickening -thumps- as bones broke and limbs twisted. Those who where closer or better prepared for the drop had tried to move to defend themselves as the ship came into epileptic life around them. Seizure inducing light and sound. The type of song one might hear at the all but literal end of the world as an ancient, angry god arises to devour you.
Gaius had dropped to his knees and then folded into the fetal position on the floor, whimpering to himself as his senses where unable to make coherence out of the barrage.
In the darkness she was the only thing he could see, dressed in nothing in the darkness and somehow lighting the world despite both standing in an endless darkness. He saw her and only her.
Then the light returned and he could only see the outline of her as she stood, almost angelic before him. Barely visible through the light around her creating a form of inverted shadow. Then the lights went out again just as his eyesight managed to bleed in from his bruised retinas as a form all but vaulted into the room at him.
Something caught his eye, a cylinder being thrown into the room. Another almighty bang and flash of light overwhelmed his senses.
Tyrol and another of his engineering crew hit the deck under similar figures as they where disarmed and bound hand and foot with bindings that seemed to be some form of ever tightening single piece plastic – the moment the two ends met they fused and formed a grip that tightened with every single movement made by the now prisoners own kinetic motions.
A third and a fourth black shape wearing what he now saw as armour, the kind worn by elite special forces. Black on black with what looked to be some kind of carbine rifle when his own hands and feet where bound together and he was thrown on his front face down and he couldn't perceive the words being shouted at him – the language was a language Gaius seemed to half recognise from either dreams or the events of childhood.
These . . . humans wielding weapons he had never seen before and armour that hid their faces behind some form of computerised visor but their words? It finally clicked. His father used to take him to various temples to the gods back on his original homeworld, before Caprica. Aerilon.
In the back of the stuffy temple, a small child, afraid and unaware, utterly surrounded the overbearing layers of incense and papyrus. In amongst that sudden shudder of memory he remembered, the chanting – the priests and their oracles, normally loaded up to the eyeballs on Kamalla – but the language, the language was the same.
These people where speaking in the ancient language of the gods.
These people where speaking in ancient Kobolian.
In space, the Vipers sat at extreme range while the Raptors sat behind them with their long range missiles and scanning systems where both pointed at the unknown monster of a vessel.
Behind both of them was Galactica – sliding through space with a deliberate slowness as only can be given from extreme confidence, a supreme predator now re-armed and ready to fight since the fall of the Colonies scant weeks ago. Every single one of her Primary, Secondary and Tertiary weapons had been locked directly on to the unknown.
Fates play fickle games.
Closest to the Spirit of Fire was Raptor flight 644, back in space without the time to change their flight authorisation paperwork yet.
Just behind a flight of Vipers headed by Apollo and Starbuck, Boomer was now in front of the rear of Raptor flight 644 and her attention focused solely on the ECM/ECCM monitors, with the secondary screens switching between a Dradis feed, live camera feed and secondary systems as the vessel before them, almost axe-like from their angle suddenly burst into life.
And this thing lit up like a Pyramid stadium display at the height of season. Suddenly external lighting flared into life and died followed by a staccato burst of external lights from each section before they died again.
"Woah HELL, This things readings have gone off the scale! GALACTICA?! ARE YOU SEEING THIS?" Boomer stuttered in a state of half-panic as the vessels engines suddenly flared into life as well before rising together with some form of smooth blue light as the Spirit of Fire started to move, her main engines burning off the ice from their achievement of winning the longest engine turnover period in the history of fusion reactors.
Then armoured ports opened up across the ship – followed by active laser, radar and lidar based sensor pings across the Galactica and her wings.
Weapons rose from the ports, some instantly, some ground to a halt stuck half ready to fire, half submerged within the hull. The deck guns looked powerful but also damaged from their rousing of near endless sleep.
The missile doors retracted to reveal hexagonal firing blocks of missiles and CIWS guns seemed to be dotting out from the ship akin to ticks. Also damaged from time and disrepair.
Only from the intense unknown from the situation had the Senior Adama held back the Galactica's guns As the unknown vessel powered up, and armed her apparently numerous weapons and then proceeded to do . . . nothing as she struggled to even manoeuvre. Aside from targeting their weapons the Spirit of Fire had done nothing.
"Weapons hold" Commander Adama had spoken into the air mere seconds ago to maintain control of the situation. "All Vipers, All Raptors, All Guns. Weapons HOLD" He growled into the phone piece again.
"Do not fire unless fired upon that is a direct order. All Weapons Hold." He emphasised as he waited. Looking up to the dozen or so Dradis screens hanging above as the unknown ship lurched again, her power systems rising but in staggered steps. The active lock from the ship persisted but so far not one bullet, missile or death ray had been fired.
He looked over to Geata and ordered "Get some way to talk to that unknown – keep an eye on the screen, I want some way to communicate with that ship."
He staggered out from the Cryostasis pod and into the open air. His age hadn't helped, and he appreciated the help from the young Medic who had helped him. He wasn't old, and he certainly wasn't the oldest Captain in the fleet but his joints ached. He felt as if had been coughing up dust and for a few seconds he had known what it was to be blind in one eye.
Within a minute he could see in both eyes again and was handed his captains uniform as he dressed as quickly as the pain could allow. He was passed a glass of water and 2 pills in their own sealed packaging. Paracetamol. He downed them quickly alongside the water and then asked into the air "Serena" He started, and then found his voice as he spoke again "Status?"
He waited but was met with silence.
"Serena? Are you online? Senrena? Status?"
Without even a murmur reply and with escalating worry. he began the swift walk to the bridge, into the meeting of a lifetime.
A moment from Scythe himself.
Whelp I wasn't expecting grieving to get in the way of my writing but over the last few months I've lost a few people that where close to me and it has very much gotten in the way of that general creative vibe you need to be in to go from doing the "dream a scene or three in the back of your head as a daydream" to "OKAY I NEED TO DO THE WRITY WRITY THING OR I AM GOING TO DRIVE MYSELF UTTERLY FUCKING MAD WITH IMPATIENCE LET ALONE THE REST OF THE INTERNET. XD"
So in the end I just sat back and waited until inspiration returned. But the last few months have not been kind to my mental health but I should be back on a regular writing schedule soon.
Anyway a lot of you had "feedback" shall we say from the last section and a miss-judgement on my part about how thingy(cough thick cough cough) 5 meters of Titanium-A actually is. Ahem. *cough* Yeah. That. I was flipping back and forth to the wiki while writing that bit and was re-watching scenes from BSG – specifically then the colonials used raptors to board the prison ship to deal with the worker riots early in the first season, or later boarding actions of Cylon baseships. Those vessels had to have some reasonably thick hulls to be space-worthy at their scale, let alone the internal hull, supports, power runs, water ect – the marines showed experience with that type of scenario and I went "5 meters" of armour from the wiki and just carried right the fuck on without thinking. Obviously I need to revisit that chapter at a later date and correct that little fuckup to an appropriately thinner number. The colonials still cut through, but it will be corrected to sound less fucky.
Would love to know when I get promoted enough to design basic spaceships though. Sounds like a comfy job before all the issues above get into it. XD
Ghostly – the Talos base turrets are the base level for said turrets – for now. Some of them are damaged too. Alongside the deck guns and some of the Archer tubes.
Guests (various) – The Spirit of Fire was indeed taken back in time. Whether this is into another part of the galaxy, the universe or even across universes may or may not be a thing. Still cooking up ideas there. Hoping the colonial realisation that the UNSC seems to be speaking fluent kobolian is pulled off properly – a language half lost from the Sacred Scrolls which despite being around for 4000 years is a language studied and spoken but they are never sure if it's correct due to the number of times its speakers had been wiped out, Most on Kobol itself but some when the colonies are founded before the series even began. Normally the Galactica would find itself drawn from it's period of 150,000 years ago and into the approximate time of the crossover universe. This time around I figured "fuckit" and switched it up. The UNSC is now speaking the in universe equivalent of a dead language and yet the side of the ship has it's name in so called "Standard Caprican" on the side – how the fuck did that happen? Does anybody know? Does anyone even care? We'll find out later I 'spose in the next episode . . .
As for the engineering room? Before I get bombarded with questions – the engineering deck turned into it's own personal rave before Evan and his buddies turned up, flashbanged the room and took everyone prisoner – no spartans yet but they won't be far behind. Will Adama open fire on the Fire for taking his men? Or can they talk this out? Who knows . . . well I know, but I ain't telling.
As for the Fire's current capabilities – we'll find out eventually how bad the damage is from it's big nap in space. Eventually the two forces need to join together and I don't want it to be too quick or else things feel lazy, but at the same time I don't want the intro section to take too long because otherwise we're still in the setting of "episode 2 BSG" without even moving (physically) from one point to another, let alone taking the story anywhere. Still cooking up some writing ideas in the back of my noggin for that.
I started writing this chapter not long after the previous one, but time and space ate up any chanced opportunity to write.
Whelp – right now it's 00:11 in the morning of the 17th of March 2024. I don't have Moon or Mars colonies yet. We don't have (proper) spaceships yet. I don't have cyborg implants yet or hydroponic satellites or fusion power, or the flying car. What did you give me? Oh yeah. Anxiety, Depression and WiFi.
And now? 20th of March . . . going through another rough adit. To the guy who PM'd me – I can't remember your name right now but - Hai. =3
So right now I'm sticking to the tight ideal of "write out of your face and edit sober" and this should be live for everyone to enjoy for a few hours. I'm about to have a nice lil slep and let future Scythe sort that shit out.
Tarrah for now . . .