In orbit above Earth...
Four battered UNSC vessels stood in high orbit above what seemed to be Earth. Around them, orbited satellites belonging to what seemed to be the old United States and various other nations, said systems currently in use by the planet-borne enemy they faced. 'Legion', an artificial intelligence formerly of the US Military, continued its attempts to breach the firewalls of the four starships.
Though they weren't directly meant for combat, Phoenix-class vessels refit for combat duty in the early days of the war were some of the best planetary invasion support elements available to the UNSC Navy. That they were finally being used for their intended role instead of just supporting ground defenses when the Covenant came knocking was fairly interesting to the crews.
Four Phoenix vessels were barely anything, really. And with the wounded elements of Infantry and Tank Divisions aboard them, not to mention those they managed to rescue from the Fall of Reach, the situation was dire. Supplies were low, so they were hoping that, when they'd arrive at Earth, they'd be able to drop off the survivors, rearm, repair and get gear down.
The leading ship of the task group, the UNSC Hope's Reach, was heavily damaged. Her hull was marred by burns and gashes from Covenant plasma weapons, received during their hurried retreat from the planet they'd fought so heavily to defend. Her ARCHER pods, main guns and additional weaponry were almost depleted and the shipboard production systems were working overtime, the reactor overstressed and their Slipspace Drive, decoupled for the moment while repairs were underway.
Her sister ships, the Tempest, Black Watch and Ides of March were doing only marginally better, though they were the ones overburdened with carrying almost 20,000 surviving Civilians amongst themselves. The Captains in charge of each ship convened on board the Hope's Reach, now focused on understanding just what was going on. The Captain of the Hope, one Marcel Vincent, stared at the hologram display of the code running through the Satellites around them.
He spoke to his AI, "And you're sure about this, Priestess?"
"I am," She replied with a nod. While Marcel was a well-built, stout Frenchman with black hair and dark eyes, Priestess had taken a rather surprising form befitting her name. White as snow, clad in robes that resembled those of a nun with a veil that covered her eyes and a scepter bearing some ancient religious symbol at its head in one hand, the Smart AI stared at the Code with an unmistakable air of familiarity, "The data stream of this 'Legion' surprisingly adaptive. It isn't a Smart AI, not quite, but it is on the first steps of its sentience. Said sentience seems to provide it with a counter-intrusion capability of its own that it is utilizing to lightly counter us."
"Not bad for something made almost 500 years earlier than our best AIs," Murmured the Captain of the Tempest, a dark-skinned woman with short, grey hair and wrinkles. Captain Colleen North, born of Earth, namely in the URNA's Southern regions, asked, "Can you crack it, P?" as she took a puff from her cigarette. She, like most of the others, bore scars, but her right arm had been broken during the miss-jump to whatever this system was.
"I can attempt to, but it is utilizing its own rather primitive intrusion software in brute force attacks I need my processing power to keep at bay for now," The AI replied calmly, "It should not be a problem to deal with soon, however. Its attack patterns aren't exactly randomized, so I may be able to build a counter soon enough," then she hummed, "Utilizing our own brute strength, however, is seemingly out of the question. Due to ionization in the atmosphere and its own counter-intrusion software being so spread out across all Satellites, it is hard to pinpoint where its core is located."
"It'd need a major facility with cooling in order to function properly, aye?" The Watch's captain, Jack Flannigan, your standard brawlin' bruisin' scottsman with greying hair asked. The AI gave a nod, to which he said, "Any major facilities on the Continental US that match that description in our records?" as he pulled up a map marking major cities with radiological warning signs.
"I will start looking through them when I have the processing power to spare. The fact that my sisters perished during our escape does not bode well for my multitasking capabilities..." Priestess commented. Indeed, three more AIs had been assigned to this small task force, each born as 'sisters' to Priestess in the sense of having the same core programming. A pseudo-hive mind spread among four AIs simply for redundancy's sake. And now, only one was left.
"We're sorry, Priestess," Marcel commented, "But plasma doesn't discriminate."
"I know, sir. I'm just happy I live yet to assist you..." The girl replied, bowing her head. It was strange to see an AI thus humble, but, at least, they had her keeping them safe. The minimal orbital defenses being utilized by the Hostile AI were, however, rather concerningly varied. Ballistic Missile Defense kept their options horrendously low when it came to launching their Archers, meaning MACs were about the only thing they could use.
The least damaged ship out of the lot was March. Her captain, Johan Schwarz, father to a young Marine currently representing part of the 5th Mechanized on the planet, remained eerily quiet, rubbing his unshaven, grey beard as his deep blue eyes stared at the map of the location a good chunk of the 5th had been deployed to. He asked, "Are we sure this Resistance is trustworthy?"
"We can only hope," Marcel replied, "Our forces will need to rally humanity, or whatever's left of it, to help defeat the hostile AI. Whatever it is, it's learning how to adapt to tactics, much like we can. Now, in terms of the Civilians each of our ships bear... Best bet would be to put them in Cryo for the duration of our stay here, leave only essential staff like miners."
"Captain, why don't we just leave?" Asked Schwarz, surprising everyone, "I understand humanity here needs our help, but so does Earth in our timeline. Whatever manmade mistake happened down there, it isn't necessarily ours to solve... I've made my views on this matter fairly clear when you decided to approve my daughter's request for deployment to the planet to assist this 'T-Force'."
"My ship's FTL drive is still decoupled, pending full maintenance checks. Yours have been ordered to be undergoing their maintenance cycle, too, like everyone else's, just for safety's sake. It's going to take us at least a few extra days to assess the damage, make a plan, acquire resources, repair ourselves and get ourselves back underway," Marcel shot back, leaning on the table, "Until then, we can at least give this Resistance group against 'Legion' a fighting chance, or learn what they need."
"... That may not necessarily be the only reason we've arrived here," Priestess commented, then clarified to the stunned captains, "Before my sisters passed, they transmitted unto me what occurred during our Slipstream transfer. It seems as though, when we jumped, we were... 'Interdicted'... For lack of a better term. Something within this copy of the Sol system caused said interdiction. We can attempt to jump after one of our ships finishes its maintenance cycle to test if the device still operates. If it does, we will be stuck here anyway."
"And you waited a whole day to give us this report... Why?" Marcel asked the woman.
She replied, "Pardon me for having a lot on my plate, such as keeping us safe from enemy intrusion software and ensuring their weapons cannot hit us, sir..." with a hint of backsass in her otherwise calm voice. It garnered a snort out of Marcel and Colleen, at least. She added, "I also wanted to test the hypothesis with a short simulation while our Drive was decoupled... The currents of Slipspace are turbulent in this area."
"Great, so we're stuck for the time being, with no means to contact backup, an understrength Marine division, a bunch of scared civvies, barely any supplies 'sides what we're scrounging up now through orbital mining and with a piece of Alien tech probably keeping us pinned to what I'm gonna guess is a fuckup of a copy system the Forerunners potentially made to test us," Colleen commented, then sighed deeply, "I swear, I should'a joined the Exploration Corps..."
"It isn't like we haven't been facing impossible odds before," Marcel quipped, arms crossed to his chest and a grin on his face, "The UNSC's always been basically on one overwhelming final stand after another. If anything, this is a cakewalk compared to the Covvies..." only to realize what he'd just said and sigh deeply. Priestess tisked at him, then crossed her arms to her chest.
"Never underestimate your foes, Captain," She then chided, "That kind of hubris has lead to the fall of many."
Marcel let out a deep sigh, then dismissed the staff, allowing them to return to their ships. Captain Schwarz, now aboard a shuttle travelling to his own vessel, pondered the situation they found themselves in. On one hand, he disliked leaving Earth a Division short, even if the 5th had been extremely battered during the Battle for Reach. On the other, was it so bad to wait out the War and just fight with machines every once in a while down there?
The answer to his question wouldn't come to him until he landed. As he exited the shuttle onto the hangar deck, a small, black-haired young girl with blue eyes ran up to him and called out, "Grandpa!" only to pounce on and hug him. He smiled and patted the girl on the head as she looked up at him, then asked, "Where's auntie Erika? Is she with you?"
He replied to her, "She's on the planet below, dear. Why don't you go back to your father for now? We have a lot more work to do.." Only to pause as he saw the pilots and aircrews loading bombs onto their craft. High Explosive bombs. They could do with trying to make EM bombs, he thought, but until they'd get proper resource flow from the Kuiper belt and other planetary bodies around, it was best to not even consider any experimental weaponry.
He wondered how his last daughter fared below...
Near Salina, crossroads toward Colorado
Salina had only recently been retaken from the Wireheads, as it seemed. The UNSC advance force arriving in the AO had also spooked the 'Movement', a constituent part of the Resistance, until T-Force had managed to call in. The Pelicans flying air cover overhead carried the wounded while the armored column and its supporting logistics company moved into the town.
The place wasn't heavily fortified yet, but it was a relatively large settlement that had remained untouched by the nuclear warheads. Soldiers clad in Movement outfits with the currently-under-rebranding armbands belonging to the Resistance greeted the new arrivals with waves of the hand as they entered. A small motor pool lay off to the right and the Salina Grain Elevator, one of the more imposing structures in the place, sat off to their left, behind a bunch of garages.
Erika held onto the roll cage of her warthog as they rolled in, cradling her rifle and watching the soldiers and support staff around start cheering as they saw T-Force and them. The Pelicans swung in to touch down near the motor pool, dismounting their infantry and bringing the wounded out. A CASEVAC Pelican unloaded multiple critical patients and ran to the impromptu field hospital built by the Resistance/Movement members.
When their vehicles rolled to a halt amidst the buildings, Erika jumped out and slung her rifle onto her back before motioning to her driver to get that vehicle situated somewhere. She activated her com and said, "CENTRAL, this Lieutenant Schwarz. We've made contact with a large Resistance outpost. Will move toward Cheyenne to set up early warning and defenses there ASAP. Over."
She looked around at the walls, noting the still-fresh impacts of plasma weapons on the walls, as well as the bullet holes drilled into some of the concrete and through the corrugated steel of storage units nearby. There was a Homonculus laying on the side of the road, torn in half, its plasma rifle broken by shrapnel and its head busted open. She approached the machine, knelt next to it and examined it, murmuring, "Tough tin cans, aren't you...?"
"Lieutenant Schwarz?" She heard a voice call out to her and looked back to see Church. Standing up, she turned to face him, to which she said, "Sorry if I was bothering your examination of our enemy, but I figured we needed to start talking. Specifically, regarding how you all got here in the first place. You said you came here with a Mechanized Division, right?"
"Yes. And four support vessels," She replied, then sighed and told him, "Walk with me," as she stood up. She decided she'd take a walk around the place for a bit, considering the city seemed mostly intact. Church, meanwhile, followed along as they walked through the 'ruins'. He looked to the roofs to see that UNCS Snipers were already setting up next to their own, their dirty green armors showing a faint glimmer in the sunlight. He hummed.
"You did mention you all were in orbit, I think, so I should've guessed," He replied to her as they walked together. He watched the girl take her helmet off again, rubbing the top of her head and patting down her messy blonde hair. She looked at him as he spoke, "This is really starting to sound like those Pre-Judgement Day Sci-Fi movies, though," while he was slightly unable to maintain eye contact.
"Indeed..." She sighed deeply, then looked to him and changed the subject by asking, "I don't suppose you all have contact with other parts of the world that could provide us aid, correct?" while they strolled down into a park area. A SHORAD system deployed by the UNSC rolled up there, too, but the two ignored it, the girl clearly curious about the situation between them and other people.
"Not at the moment, no," Church answered to her, shrugging, "We're working on establishing a resistance network, but considering we haven't heard as much as a peep from any other part of the world..." before looking up at the clear sky. Without Satellites, they probably couldn't make any contact with survivors. He was sure some of them were still around, but still.
"Must be because this Legion AI is jamming your communications," Erika supposed, then added, "That and the radiation has not subsided enough quiet yet to allow uninterrupted coms..." as she pulled out an MRE and opened it. She offered the man something from it, but he raised his hand slowly and shook it left to right to show her he didn't need it. She looked at him and shrugged, then opened a package of crackers and started eating.
He thought for a moment about the previous sentence, then asked her, "Could your people find a way to contact the rest of the world, then?" as he checked his own chest rig. It was probably a good idea to try and patch them through, Erika thought, because it meant them having every single rifle under the sun and moon of this place under their command, provided the UNSC and them agreed.
"I'll put the idea forward on my next check-in with the ships up above..." She replied, then added, " Though I am not sure how happy they'll be about having to divide what is left of our forces," and the more she thought of it, the more she realized that, yeah, divvying up what was left of the division was an awful idea. Especially considering there was supposedly more to the connection than just Legion.
"... What happened to you folks?" Church inquired next, a little curious about their newfound alien comrades as he watched a Pelican take off toward the heavens, dumping flares as it did so. It was one with a red cross, meaning Casualty Evac... He asked her, "You mentioned you came from another planet that came under attack. Never really gave any context to it on our way over."
"Reach..." The blonde frowned, surprising the man. Her voice's volume turned low as she spoke, "My home and the home of my entire family," and she looked him in the eyes as she added, "The planet was attacked by our own foe, the Covenant. An advanced Alien hegemony that laid waste to every planet of ours they came across. We tried to fight them off every time, but..." And she averted her gaze the moment she felt tears well in the corners of her eyes.
"Oh..." Church frowned as he watched her walk ahead, probably trying not to show her tears. He asked, wary, "How many of your folks made it?"
"Only me, my brother-in-law, my niece and my father..." She answered glumly, still turned away from him as her voice cracked. She wiped her tears, cleared her throat, then turned around to face him again, her face stern and impassive once more as she added, "Sister died on board one of the vessels escorting us out of harms way," all while, overhead, more Pelicans flew out, probably for resupply. A tank rolled past them, bearing the scars and scorch marks of the battle.
"My condolences, El-tee..." Church then replied, a little light dying from his eyes, "Didn't expect tragedy to be common even up there."
"Ha. Adorably naive, Lieutenant..." She snorted dispassionately, her eyes showing her veterancy, despite her more young appearance. She told him, "Sadly, the stars are as vile as our own neighbors," before motioning to the heavens and to the machine corpses laying strewn about in the city's remnants. She told him, "It's the sole way humanity will ever unify:A common enemy."
Church shot back, "And we all got it here, too," offering a kind smile to the woman. He told her, "Here's hoping whoever's still out there in Europe and other places agrees to work with us," as they started walking again, marching toward what seemed to be the remnants of a High School where the HQ of the Resistance had been set up. He wondered if he should mention the Founders still being out there for a second.
Seeing the Lieutenant's kindness, Erika replied with a similar attitude, self-assured, "They will..."
"Heh. The guns speak, right?" He joked. Gunboat diplomacy never failed, both thought.
"Yes-" The woman cut herself off, then slammed her open palm into Church's chest, stopping him dead in his tracks. She furrowed her brows and pointed forward. A singular, metallic sensor antenna sat ahead, emitting the faintest red glow from its tip as most of it lay, buried in the ground. Its scanner systems painted the ground in a very thin red line about a meter around the central rod. A landmine of some kind.
"... Calling EOD. That's a Silverfish, mobile landmine," Church told her in a whisper. He motioned for her to take a step back, then radioed, "This is TROUBLEMAKER, we've got a situation nearby the school. Silverfish landmine in the alley, requesting explosive ordnance disposal ASAP..." and looked to the mine. An affirmative reply came over the radio and, moments later, a Humvee rolled out from the barracks area.
Soldiers clad in heavier armor dismounted, all four saluting the Lieutenants, who saluted back. Church tilted his head to the landmine and the four soldiers nodded before retrieving their equipment. The El-Tee then lifted a hand to show his UNSC counterpart to follow and the two walked, giving the area wide berth so that the EOD may do their job. Erika complimented, "It's pleasant to see your still have functioning job delegation."
"We're a military, much as some would like to believe otherwise," Church shot back, arms crossed, "Mason makes sure all new recruits are in top shape while I make sure the administrative, tactical and strategic layers are taken care of. Wish I could delegate more, but we're always on the move due to Legion... Speaking of, El-Tee, why do you want to go to Cheyenne?"
"Assess the Air Station and bunkers and set up a permanent groundside base in a secure location," The girl offered, then told him, "One of our captains has a heart of gold regardless of all the crap he's been put through. He's part of the reason we're even planetside in the first place. Were it up to my father, we would not be here at all, but Marcel was put in charge by the fact he has our Shipboard AI..."
"Huh, interesting..." Church blinked. He either forgot about it, orr didn't know they actually had an AI. Eitherway...
He paused as engines roared overhead. Both of them watched the massive Delta-wing shaped UNSC fighter-bombers flying high, with Erika letting out a deep sigh. Orbital bombers coming down to scout the planet below and maybe clear out a couple more LZs for their Firebase deployment. Both then watched A10s from the Air Force Base they'd managed to secure swinging in, Radios playing their calls to their airborne brethren.
A10s were meant to be Close Air Support, Erika recalled. Historically speaking, they were also sacrificial lambs for the United States Military, or would have been in a Cold War Gone Hot. Right now, though, with as limited airpower as the Legion seemed to have, they'd probably do quite well as their intended role of Ground Support. She looked at Church, examining him for a moment, then narrowing her lips. He had nearly the same face...
He noted the stare and asked, "Something the matter, Lieutenant Schwarz?"
"... You look close to someone I knew, Lieutenant Church," She replied, then, with full intent to change the subject, added, "Should we move to the Command Post? We need to set up," only to get a sudden nod from the man. He rubbed the back of his neck, a little awkward as his cheeks turned a little rosy. She watched him step forward, leading the way, before humming. Shaking her head, she told herself that, no, not really. Not a good idea.
Church, meanwhile, wondered two things:How Cheyenne was in terms of a possible central operations base... And if Erika was single. Despite it all, the man was still himself and he knew very well the way he felt about certain people. He only paused when he saw a truck rolling up and saw a certain familiar face from way back in Chihuahua. He smiled and waved at the dark-skinned Lucia, who gave a thumbs up and tooted the horn of the truck. It was good to have friends, the man thought, even if Lucia was a bit of a pain in the behind at times.
Erika watched the truck pass by and gave a wave, Lucia staring with surprise at her before waving back. Was she that weird, Erika thought to herself as she walked into the Command Post with Church. The place seemed like your standard, too, a massive room where radio equipment, maps and the likes had been set up in order to ensure coordination, proper directions and logistics.