Kurt leaned his head back in his chair, resting his eyes for a moment as he prepared for the weekly meetings that he had to undergo with the staff of the 'Plataea'. He sat at the head of the conference table in one of the ship's many briefing rooms. This particular one was one of those closest to his quarters, giving him just a bit more time before he had dive back into the duties of command.
Spartans weren't built for command. Kurt knew that better than most. Spartans, at least his generation, were made to follow orders and to complete their missions without complaint and without failure. They were soldiers through and through, and although they understood that completion of missions meant that they would have to think outside the box, he and his brothers and sisters in the program had been taught to obey the chain of command to the letter, with only a few exceptions.
Being promoted to lieutenant commander had been a change. Placed in charge of the personnel and resources needed to make the Spartan III program run smoothly had been a test in capability entirely different from what he was used to. Put a gun in his hands and Kurt knew a thousand ways to kill a target, but putting a budget in front of him and forcing him to reconcile it with equipment costs and employee salaries was not what he had been trained for. Fortunately, seven years of practice under Section Three had given him the experience needed that he had not floundered even when requesting further budget considerations for Beta company, but by an even greater fortune, he haden't needed to broker with Ackerson after the transfer of the program under Lord Hood.
One might have thought that would be the end of it. The Spartan-III program was as black as black ops could get, and Kurt had been sure that the head of the UNSC would suspend the next company of the program, but the head of the UNSC had not commanded him to stop training his Spartans, he had ordered Kurt to do it better. Kurt believed he had obliged the fleet admiral, as over the next fifteen years his children had turned the tides in more battles, both official and not, than his own generation ever could. Outfitted with the best equipment and trained by those who were better than the best, Kurt had forged a fighting force so powerful, so capable, that he knew their stories could never be burried under ONI red tape or propaganda misdirection.
Now he was here. He and his own were trapped, alongside nearly four-thousand UNSC naval personnel, on a world that defied all science, amongst people who were bereft of understanding and revelled in a strange, primative savagery that Kurt recognised only through his studies of human history.
The sound of a door opening brought him back to the present, and Kurt snapped his head back into place and opened his eyes, appearing as if he had never relaxed in the first place. Through the door walked about a dozen people, each of whom Kurt knew to hold a position on the Plataea, either military, or democratic.
Sitting to Kurt's immediate left was Jennifer Grace, the executive officer of the Plataea and a carrer sailor who Kurt had worked with over the course of his time as captain. Truthfully, he felt she was far better suited to the captain's chair, a feeling he regularly informed her and their superiors of, but Kurt's status as the head of the Spartan III program meant he needed the appropriate rank and until he had been requisitioned the Plataea, he had been sure he'd never lead a naval mission.
He and Grace had an understanding in the aftermath of their assignment to each other, she was better suited to handle the running of the ship, given Kurt's rank had been awarded more for expediency than capability as a commander of any naval vessel. However, he and Grace both understood the need for a strong, singular leader in these uncertain times. He kept her up to date on all aspects of the Plataea's operations, save for the most classified of details, and she appeared to defer to him in meetings provided they had discussed it beforehand.
Sitting to his right, was CPO Mendez, the head of ship security and head trainer for the Spartan III program. The man was over sixty years old, but looked more than ten years younger than that and maintained a figure ready to leap into action at a moment's notice.
Further down the table there were other UNSC personnel. The head navigators, physicists, engineers, and the like, all of whom were working on the problems of getting their ship back in the air and back home to the UNSC. the final members were the more interesting, since they held no specific military rank that would warrent them being in the room. Tobias Johnson and Maria Flint were the elected heads of the naval personnel of the Plataea, responsible for speaking about the needs of the crew in the civilian and settlement aspects of their society. Joeseph-224 from Alpha company did the same for the Spartan IIIs, though he had few if any real suggestions to make outside of frequently requesting the construction of a wargames arena. Additionally, Jordan Rodriguez and Lian Song were the appointed representatives of the civilian integration committee responsible for cultural, technological and economic contact with the natives. Those two seemed to be the most nervous about their own presence, given their status as necessary was tumultuous at the best of times.
Kurt took a deep breath before letting it out. The door shut and the lights flickered slightly as the electronic failsafes ensured that their meeting was overheard by no one.
"Right." Kurt said, folding his hands on the table. "First order of business. Leonard, Lorena, Diya, where are we isolating the interference that got us here?"
"We're making some progress sir." Diya, a woman of indian descent who appeared to be in her early thirties. "We've untangled the communication error that corrupted the navigation data, but the changes it made effected our slipspace navigation in ways we just don't understand. Whatever it was that scrambled out systems, it was way beyond anything we've ever seen before."
"Autumn indicated they might be a tertiary group of alien beings. Is there any evidence to back up that claim?" Jennifer asked, getting a nod of agreement from Kurt.
"A good deal ma'am." Leonard, the lead slipspace navigator said. "We found symbols and language markers that are only present in xeno-archeological excavations from a non-Covenant group of aliens that predate anything else we've found."
"Alright." Kurt said. "And how long before we can get back, are we talking months? Years? What's the timeframe?"
Leonard, Diya and Lorena, the head engineer for the ship, shared a series of nervous looks that offered no one in the room any comfort.
"That's the problem sir." Lorena said. "See, whenever we enter slipspace normally, we skim through it, only dipping in to travel the vast distances necessary before leaving, and we never try to go deeper than that surface area."
"Let me guess, we didn't 'skim' this time?" Kurt asked.
"No sir. Normally a ship is like a stone skipping over water, what we did was more akin to being a stone dropped into the sea, we just sunk, until we popped out the other side."
"The other side of what, lieutenant?" Asked Mendez.
"Unknown sir. It could be the other side of the galaxy, the universe, we have no clue, and we don't know how to get the slipspace drive to handle that journey again."
"So we're stuck here." Kurt said, raising an eyebrow.
"For the moment, it seems so sir." Leonard said, hanging his head. "We're looking at a very real possibility that we will never see the UNSC or Earth again."
There was a surge of activity around the table. For the last two years, the UNSC personnel on the Plataea had operated under the assumption that as soon as they made it back into orbit, they would be able to return to the UNSC the same way they had come. To know that that idea had been all but ruled out, that they were stuck in this twisted, uncanny valley of a world populated by primitive beings...
"We'll need to announce this." Jennifer said. "Carefully though, we don't want any panic."
"And how are we supposed to tell them?" asked Tobias. "'Hi there everyone, you know how we said that as soon as ship repairs were done we could go home? Well it turns out that's not true. Sorry about that.' Do you realise what that will do to morale?"
"We need to maintain order." Jennifer tried again. "This kind of news could lead to mutiny, we need to handle this carefully."
"Every single person on this ship understood that any mission could end in death." Mendez said. "They knew there was a high chance none of them were coming back home."
"But this isn't death." Maria argued. "If they had died fighting, that they understood, they 'signed up for it' as you said. This is being trapped away from their families, while the Covenant is still hunting them, and being told there's nothing they can do. It's going to weigh on the psyche."
"We'll need to try and provide psychiatric help for anyone that needs it." Kurt said. "And make sure that they had a means of venting their frustrations. I'll have some personnel redirected to finishing the wargames arena early. It'll be useful for everyone."
"Sir." Lian Song spoke up, a little hesitant. "If we are trapped here for the forseeable future, we need to form a relationship with the natives."
Tobias scoffed in his seat.
"What, so you and your little committee can feel important. If we do end up needing something from these savages, we can just take it."
"Careful Mr Johnson." Kurt said. "It is still our job to preserve human life and society. These people, privitive though they are, still fall under our banner of protection."
Maria shared a look with her collegue.
"Sir, you don't really believe that we should cater to these people. You already assigned five Spartan squads to their stupid war."
"Maintaining good relations with the local power structure keeps these people off of our backs." Kurt reasoned.
"Of course sir, but please don't tell me we are actually going to mobalise our people for them, we are in uncharted territory, and we need to protect our own."
"I assure you Ms Flint, I will not be deploying a single member of the ship's crew out into the field. Fortunately, we have the greatest complement of soldiers in the UNSC. I will deploy them when the time comes."
There was silence in the room while Joseph nodded in confirmation with his captain. For all that there was a sense of equality in opinions during meetings and that Captain Ambrose tended to listen and consider all viewpoints presented to him, he was, in the end, the commander that the Spartans would obey, and a thousand Spartans were more than enough to keep the four-thousand naval personnel in line no matter what happened.
"No matter what we believe about them." Lian restarted. "The captain's contact with 'Lord Tywin Lannister' has proven a good entryway into their local politics, both in the immediate vacinity, and in the continent in general. If we are stuck here, then perhaps we should make the most of it?"
"Advancing primitive cultures with more modern technology is dangerous." Kurt said. "The introduction of Japan to the inductrialised West led to a few, very bloody, wars."
"But afterwards they became a technological powerhouse that continued on for hundreds of years. Wallace Fugikawa's name is on the side of one of the most advanced pieces of technology on this ship."
No one really argued after that, the Shaw-Fujikawa trans-light engine was perhaps the single most important invention in modern human history, and one of the most important in all of humanity, alongside fire and the wheel.
"What are you suggesting?" Jennifer asked.
"We educate them. We can start small. Set up something like a school here for the locals. Have them come or send their children if they can. We teach them."
"You'll need volunteers." Kurt said. "People willing to offer their own personal time."
"We already have a list." Jordan said, swiping his finger over his tablet.
Kurt looked at his own device, which was sitting on the table, and saw the number of personnel, educated in a variety of subjects, who had apparently donated their time to the project. There were easily enough to fill two of Lian and Jordan's proposed schools, with enough left over for half of a third one. A curriculum had been devised and textbooks were being organised by Autumn with a fraction of her processing power. Scrolling down to the construction requirements that were needed, Kurt found that again, a fair number of the crew had offered to help buld it off of official work hours. Looking up, he offered a smile at the two.
"Well, you have the manpower required. You could do this with or without my say so given the personal time people seem to be willing to give up and put into this. Permission approved Ms Song, Mr Jordan. I look forwards to seeing the fruits of your labour."
The two shared a smile and there was a slight round of polite applause as the two nodded their appreciation.
"Thank you sir."
"However, we will need to have a meeting about this war the natives are embroiling themselves in. We've gotten reports back one of the opening battles. These rebels seem to be gaining some traction."
The two nodded again, and a meeting was scheduled with regards to further interaction with the natives in both military and non-military capacities.
The meeting continued on for another two hours, with issues brought up from across the ship. People were getting sick of the food, people wanted more time outside, people wanted to build specific things in the new settlement. Kurt addressed each concern with the calm and steely military discipline that a Spartan always had, working though solutions with whoever was in charge of the specific department the problem pertained to, and occasionally defering to his executive officer when matters of naval expertise emerged. By the end of the meeting the ship was scheduled to run at peak efficiency again, just as it had for the two years since they had first arrived.
He watched as they each left at the end of the meeting. Well, all except for Mendez. The old marine stayed behind, not getting up even as Grace left. She spared him one last questioning look about the drill sargent, but he just shook his head and she left. The door closed, leaving the two alone, and Kurt allowed his head to lean back and once again close his eyes.
"This whole kidnapping thing is a nightmare." He said to Mendez. "We're lucky we haven't been dragged in so far, but it won't be long before we're forced to pick a side."
"We?" Mendez asked. "You mean them. 'We' don't have to do jack shit unless you order it."
"And I am ordering it."
"You shouldn't. Kill the king, kill his kid, get rid whoever it is you need to get rid of so that no one bothers us. They leave us alone, we leave them alone."
"We openly begin killing their leaders they'll respond on principle alone, and if we start assassinating them in secret, it doesn't benefit us at all. So far we have forces in both camps, as soon as one side gains a significant upper hand, we side with them and take care of the other."
"You're being too passive. These people are insurrectionists."
"Against an absolute monarch who burns men at the stake because of mental insanity."
"Then let them sort it out, don't get involved. Tell that savage you're dealing with to fuck right off and keep us out of their shit."
"And lose all the progress we've made? We've distributed agricultural and technological advances that have helped the people here immensely, and we have done it on the backbone of the Tywin's word. Tell a man like him to fuck off and we're jepordizing everything we've built in this country."
"He won't do anything. He needs us, men like him, they'll keep us close until he thinks he can get away with getting rid of us. I've seen enough of their kind in ONI."
"You're underestimating his pride. The man won't stand for insults. He's just like any other legacy kid in that way. We disrespect his family, and he'll retaliate, and then we're right back to being invaded."
"Let them."
"The people who will be attacking us won't have a clue what they're doing. They would be sheep, herded toward us and used as fodder for their higher lords."
"They are not our prime concern."
"In the absence to a clear and present danger to our own people, ensuring their protection should be our main goal. It's what we stand for as part of the UNSC."
Mendez glared at Kurt.
"I've seen the plans, order contingencies to kill that crazy royal family, right down to the babies. Why not just get it over with?"
"Because it's better if the order doesn't come from us. It's better for us to be soldiers, following orders than to be the planners and perpetrators. Better yet, it's better if we have attention off of the capitol, it'll make it easier to infiltrate and terminate if it comes to that. Even then, if we don't take action directly, Tywin's reputation is brutal and bloody enough that he will instigate his own version of the plan with enough time and direction and we can keep our hands clean."
Kurt held the older marine's gaze, unflinching in the face of his teacher's judgment.
"Whatever game you're playing sir, don't let it get out of hand."
Final words delivered, Mendez walked out of the room, leaving Kurt alone. The captain of the Plataea stood alone for a moment, before he too left the conference room. However, instead of simply returning to his office or his personal quarters, Kurt strode down the halls of his ship. Along the way, he recieved salutes from anyone he passed, quick snaps to attention before they carried on with their duties. Finally, Kurt found himself standing in one of the Plataea's many observation decks. Specifically, he was in the captain's private deck, which was located on the top of the ship, and could be extended outwards, allowing him a personally calming view of space. Now though with the view he was perhaps higher than any man could be anywhere else on Westeros or in the world, at least when inside a man made structure. The massive vessel stood tall, three times taller than the next largest structure in the world.
Below him, sprawled out along where the Plataea had crashed, there was a rapidly growing settlement where the UNSC personel had been allowed to build more comfortable quarters for themselves. Most lilkely now that there was little chance of going home anytime soon that small settlement would have to expand to provide for their growing needs. Kurt's eyes shifted over to the small shanty-town that was forming outside of their perimiter. The locals who were without a large population center to cling to had formed their own more primative settelment just beyond their own, and Kurt made a mental note to speak with Maria, Tobias, Jordan and Lian about forming a seperate area for the locals to live in, if for no other reason that to make sure they didn't get too close and try and gain access to their settlement.
So we get some more info into the running of the Plataea and the people on board it. I hope to show more as time goes on. As for why the Spartans don't get too involved in the conflict so far, it's for the reasons stated above, and for some more meta ones as well that you can probably guess.
I finished two chapters over the course of two days. That seems to be how I write. I just sit down, and then the words either flow out in spades, or they don't at all. I literally wrote around seven thousand words in just two days.
Something I just realised. House Ambrose in Asoiaf is a house in the Reach. While Kurt was raised on Reach and has the last name Ambrose. Coincidence? I think so.