Hey guys. I felt the first two chapters of my story were poorly written, so I rewrote them. This is the first of the rewritten chapters.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Halo or Mass Effect franchises. All non-original characters belong to 343 Industries and EA.
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Patrol duty was considered to be one of the most boring posts in the entire Systems Alliance military. Every two months, the Systems Alliance rotated which ships were assigned to it. If you were unlucky enough to get it, the next two months would be spent flying through empty systems looking for pirates, mercenaries, and other ne'er-do-wells. Occasionally you'd get lucky and a pirate ship or merc base would be located. But after a few hours of excitement, the hostiles would be dead, and it was back to waiting for something to happen. You often found yourself flying through random systems with no interesting features, as one such patrol group was currently doing in the Odryskia system.
"Ma'am, I'm picking up a faint radio transmission. It's not on any of the standard military or civilian frequencies, human or otherwise," reported Serviceman 1st Class Alejandro Martinez, one of the bridge personnel aboard the Alamo-Class Frigate SSV Peleliu.
"Check all frequencies and isolate that signal. Patch it in and play it once you do," ordered Captain Maria Fairbanks, the CO of not only the Peleliu, but for the entirety of Patrol Group 9 as well.
"Aye-aye ma'am," Martinez responded while typing away at his station. Everyone could hear him muttering things under his breath, but no one was quite sure what he was saying.
"Got it!" he shouted, about twenty seconds after the order. "Patching it through now ma'am".
"-diate evac. Survivors aboard. Prioritization code: Victor 05-3-Sierra 0117". There was a short pause before the message continued. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate evac. Survivors aboard. Prioritization code: Victor 05-3-Sierra 0117". There was another pause and the message began to repeat again, but Captain Fairbanks ordered Martinez to turn it off.
"Martinez, mute that and start tracing the origin of that distress call", ordered Captain Fairbanks. "Wong, start scanning for Element Zero. Jackson, run a codex search. Keyword: UNSC. Keyphrase: Forward Unto Dawn. Hailey, check for a 'prioritization code Victor 05-3-Sierra 0117. Guzman, contact the other ships. Tell them we picked up a distress signal and we'll move once it's been located".
As her crew began working on their assigned duties, Captain Fairbanks leaned back in her chair deep in thought. Normally she would have been ecstatic for something like this to have occurred, but that wasn't happening. Instead, she found herself getting a gut feeling that something wasn't right. The Captain didn't know what was wrong, but all of her instincts were screaming at her to be careful.
"Ma'am, I just got the results of the codex search," said Serviceman 2nd Class Cindy Jackson. "'UNSC' turned up nothing. The closest results were some stuff relating to the UN back on Earth, along with some old Earth colleges."
"I doubt the UN or any of Earth's colleges built themselves a ship. What about that phrase: Forward Unto Dawn?"
"We did get a hit on that. Apparently it's a line from a poem about humanity uniting under the Systems Alliance and our ascendancy to the stars. It appears to have been written by one Frank O'Connor, a known Terra Firma sympathizer."
"Interesting. As far as I know Terra Firma is nothing more than a political party with some extremist members. If they've got the capability to build a ship, the Alliance might need to look into their activities much more closely. Hailey, you get anything?"
"No ma'am," answered Serviceman 2nd Class Richard Hailey. "There is no 'Prioritization Code Victor 05-3-Sierra 117', at least as far as I can tell. Whoever they are, they sound military. Maybe some Terra Firma members started a militia or mercenary group of some kind".
"Maybe. Wong, how's the scanning coming?"
"I'm not getting anything ma'am," said Serviceman 3rd Class Benjamin Wong. "Other than us and the rest of Patrol Group 9, there aren't any Element Zero signatures in the system".
"Recalibrate the sensors and check again. Guzman, tell the other ships to also perform a scan for Element Zero signatures. Martinez, any luck tracing the signal?"
"Yes ma'am. If the trace is correct, it's near Gidzeraak. That's the red gas giant about 14 AU from Odryskia."
"Thank you Martinez. Wong, direct your sensors towards Gidzeraak. Guzman, patch me into the other ships," ordered Captain Fairbanks.
"Aye-aye ma'am. Whenever you're ready, they'll hear you." She nodded her head and started speaking.
"Attention Patrol Group 9, this is Captain Fairbanks. At 1341 hours, we received a distress call from an unknown but most likely human vessel. We have managed to locate its position. You should all be receiving its approximate coordinates now. Set course for Gidzeraak." She received affirmatives from the other captains, and Patrol Group 9 began to move. Captain Fairbanks got that feeling in her stomach when a ship went to FTL in system as the ships headed towards their destination. From their current position it would take about 20 seconds to reach Gidzeraak.
"Coming into visual range now ma'am" reported Flight Lieutenant Mealer. Looking out the window, everyone could see the distressed ship.
"Sure doesn't look like there's any survivors on board," said Serviceman 2nd Class Travis Guzman. "Hell, I don't even get how you do something like that."
It didn't look like he was wrong. The ship was drifting rather aimlessly, and its front appeared to have been cleanly sliced into two pieces, if not more. There was no sign of the other part of the ship.
"How big is that ship?" asked Captain Fairbanks.
"Sensors show it to be about 300 meters in length, but there's no telling how big it was before," said Serviceman 3/C Wong. "If we assume this is only half the ship, we're looking at some time of cruiser."
"What about Element Zero?"
"Negative ma'am. There is no Element Zero anywhere on that ship. Whoever built it, they didn't use Eezo." Captain Fairbanks wasn't sure how to react to that. Ships built without Eezo hadn't been used in more than a century.
Taking a closer look at the Forward Unto Dawn, Captain Fairbanks tried to see if she could learn anything about it. Ordering the pilot to slowly circle the ship, she took in every detail of the ship.
It was a rather large and rectangular ship, with the hull being a flat gray color. Whoever had built it obviously preferred form over function. Both sides of the ship had a white eagle on the globe, with a banner reading "UNSC" below it. Honestly, it looked kind of like the logo used by the old United States Marine Corps. The cut on the front of the ship was too clean to have been done by anything other than energy weapons. That was the most worrying part of all of this. None of the known races in the galaxy had energy weapons capable of doing anything close to this kind of damage. If there was something out there that could split a ship in two, it could probably take on the whole Citadel fleet and there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do about it.
"Wong, anything else the sensors can tell us about that ship?" asked Captain Fairbanks.
"The ship's hull appears to be mostly Titanium-50, along with tungsten and some assorted polymers. There's still residual power in the ship, but it's extremely low."
"Understood. Tell Lieutenant Kaur I want him and his Marines in the briefing room in five minutes," ordered Captain Fairbanks.
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1st Lieutenant Kaur was the prototypical Lieutenant in the Alliance Marines. He'd graduated at the old United States Naval Academy, commissioning as a Lieutenant in the Alliance Marines. He was currently on his first deployment, serving as the CO of the Marine detachment aboard the Peleliu. So far, the Peleliu had seen no action, and the Marines were getting bored. If the Captain wanted the entirety of the Marine detachment, it meant that something must have happened and they'd finally get some action. As the last Marine filed into the briefing room Captain Fairbanks stood up and began talking.
"I'm glad everyone made it on time. Now, I'm sure you're all wondering why you've been summoned here," Captain Fairbanks said, as she looked around the room. All the Marines looked incredibly eager, and seemed quite excited at the prospects of something finally happening.
"Approximately 14 minutes ago we received a distress signal from a human vessel designated the Forward Unto Dawn. The message indicated there were survivors. However, upon arriving at the ship around 6 minutes ago it became obvious that there are likely no survivors." At this she used her omni-tool to turn the screen on, displaying the ship for everyone to see.
"As far as we can tell, an energy weapon significantly more powerful than anything known to the Citadel cut the ship into at least two, maybe more, pieces. It's also important to note that not only does this ship not match the designs of any human ships on record, it also has no traces of Element Zero.' At that she could see the Marines' interest peak, and Captain Fairbanks understood why. It wasn't everyday you discovered a ship that didn't use any Element Zero.
"In one hour we will be docking with this vessel. Your orders are to search the ship and recover any information you can find about who built it and what happened to it. Checking for survivors is a secondary objective. There is likely no atmosphere and no artificial gravity. Any questions?" she asked. At that a young Lance Corporal raised his hand.
"Good afternoon Captain, Lance Corporal Jackson. Any changes to the rules of engagement?"
"No. Standard rules of engagement are in effect, no taking hostile actions unless hostile actions have first been taken against you. If by some miracle there are survivors on board, they will be our best shot at determining what happened. Any more questions?" No one raised their hands, so Captain Fairbanks closed out the briefing.
"Okay, I expect to see all of you by the airlock in full combat load no later than 15 minutes before docking. Dismissed!" As the Marines filed out of the room, Captain Fairbanks found herself studying the Forward Unto Dawn. Her gut was just screaming at her that something was off here. She'd never known her gut to be wrong before, but she still had no idea what it was trying to warn her about.
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The Marines had gathered in front of the airlock. Everyone was checking each others' weapons and armor, air supply, biotics, and omni-tools. Lieutenant Kaur and Gunnery Sergeant Mealer were finishing checking each other up, and Kaur felt it was a good time to go over the plan of action.
"Ears!" he shouted.
"Open sir!" came the response. Once all of the idle conversation had ceased Lieutenant Kaur resumed speaking.
"All right, here's how this is going to work. We'll be dividing into two squads for this operation. I will be in command of first squad, and Gunnery Sergeant Mealer will be in command of second squad. First squad, we're heading for the ship's bridge. Second squad, you will be searching the lower decks. Check for computers, weapons, bodies, basically anything that would tell us who built this and why, or what happened to it. Now let's move Marines! Oorah?"
"OORAH!" came the response.
As the doors slid open and the Marines entered the Dawn, none of them knew that deep in the ship's cryobay, something was happening. A small blue hologram of a woman stood before a sealed cryotube. Looking up at it, she watched as the cryotube began thawing out and the visage of an orange visor and green armor appeared behind the glass.
"Wake up Chief. I need you".