Incredible moment. You seem to have gotten Picard's character just right, and he portrayed so far as a natural leader, one with depth, concentration, willpower and insight, especially in the diplomatic arena where Picard is supposed to be a master. So far whenever I read your dialogue, it seems to in-character that I actually "hear" Tassadar, Picard, Cortana, etc., speaking as I read, always a good sign that the character's dialogue is believable and what would be expected of them.
That's quite a complement, thanks.
I do really try to keep my dialogue in-character, even if it is somewhat difficult considering the unfamiliar setting and conflict for each. And I really like writing for Data, even if it is just in snippits. He is one of the few characters in my story through which I am confortable trying in inject a little bit of humor.
Some odd choices for characters that need to be validated eventually. Why both Jacen and Aayla? Why Tassadar? Why the Halo characters? Also, if Aayla, is there anything she can do that another Jedi couuldn't have, besides look pretty and dress in a very non-Jedi-like tank top?
The whole thing about the Arbiter losing his xenophobia is obligatory, but I don't know if he was such a nice guy as to gain respect for humanoids. I mean, was he really so much of a samurai as to believe humans are honorable? It seems a bit cheesy.
Tassadar seems out of place. He needs a bit more action, though I know you're writing that in already. By the way, was he really capable of fighting Vader to a stand-still? How powerful are Protoss compared to the Sith?
Does anyone else think that it's going to be pretty awkward once Han and Leia find out who Jacen is? I'm not telling you to never reveal it, I'm just saying that it'll be pretty funny...
Suggestions
More updates! I know you're busy, so by this I just mean don't ever drop this project. Try to update at least once a month, or every two months.
Some sort of physics/technobabble explanation is obligatory to explain why these four universes, and three different times in one universe, suddenly collided. It's a bit embarassing why a space-time distortion would just happen to catch so many characters we know and love and throw them together for no reason. It makes the Halo characters and Tassadar seem kind of wandering about in a completely different universe for no reason (the Trek characters make sense, since they seem to be the principal crossover traverlers.)
More cross-universe exchange would be appreciated. One of the best parts of crossovers, besides the whole battlewank aspect, is the first contact conversations. It's interesting to see how characters from different series think about each other, and the significance of connections between different universes. (For example, it's a nice gag when the Warsies and Trekkies realize they use "proton" and "photon" torpedos.)
So, you should have Picard or another Trek character remark sometime about how similar the Zerg are to the Borg. Also, I'm interested in what the Trekkies think of the Haloverse's Earth's timeline. And does Tassadar know much about the Starcraft Terrans' history? Finally, the most plot relevant part about cross-universe exchange would be how the different characters take their respective knowledge and tactics to apply to problems from other universes.
Simplify this, eventually. Explain the significance of the converging universes. Maybe the Covenant appears in the SWverse and invades. (What would be even more fun is if the Vong attack along with them.) Maybe the Zerg invade the Trekverse, and the Borg try to assimilate them like crazy. Eventually, this is going to be more about "Master Chief, Tassadar, and the Enterprise go for a wild adventure together."
By the way, was he really capable of fighting Vader to a stand-still? How powerful are Protoss compared to the Sith?
Well SC protoss are about halfway between force users and 40k psykers in power (Using psionics to generate psychic storms over a battlefield, invisibility, psychic force weapons...).
And Tassadar is very strong, and can use two completely different types of psionics together and is supposed to be an excellent fighter (And Protoss CC units are powerful, look at a zealot who is just an average protoss with armour and a focuser for his own generated psi-blades)
Photography Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Thanks for taking the time to ask questions like that Battlehymn. It's always nice to see someone cares enough to ask (I'm not saying others don't, but posts here are a bit sparse at times. )
I can't really go into any details on the purpose of some of the more out of place characters, but I will say that the story is going to have a fairly dramatic change of scene, fairly soon. I hope that it will bring validation to some of them at least.
I'll try a more through response later, but I'm in a bit of a rush now.
Some odd choices for characters that need to be validated eventually. Why both Jacen and Aayla? Why Tassadar? Why the Halo characters? Also, if Aayla, is there anything she can do that another Jedi couuldn't have, besides look pretty and dress in a very non-Jedi-like tank top?
The significance of the Halo characters and Tassadar will begin to become apparent in a few chapters, although the specific purpose of Jacen and Aayla will take longer to unfold.
The whole thing about the Arbiter losing his xenophobia is obligatory, but I don't know if he was such a nice guy as to gain respect for humanoids. I mean, was he really so much of a samurai as to believe humans are honorable? It seems a bit cheesy.
The Arbiter's reason for such a change is several fold. By the time he enters this story, he has already been betrayed by the Prophets, and thus is anxious to seperate himself from their teachings, especially the overridding hatred for humanity. As for attitude and feeling towards them, Sangheili does seem to be highly honor-based, and as such there might be a tendancy for those who have fought the humans for a long time rather than being freshly indoctrinated to respect their abilities in combat (this is seen in The Flood , where the Elite specifically tasked with hunting the Chief down develops a grudging respect for him, even after nearly being killed several times.) However, it should be remembered that the Arbiter has been forced to work with the humans to try and get home over the course of the story, and he isn't exactly chumy with them, even if there is a respect there.
Tassadar seems out of place. He needs a bit more action, though I know you're writing that in already. By the way, was he really capable of fighting Vader to a stand-still? How powerful are Protoss compared to the Sith?
DEATH summed it up pretty well, although you should remember that Tassadar was very weak for days after the fight. It took a lot out of him.
Does anyone else think that it's going to be pretty awkward once Han and Leia find out who Jacen is? I'm not telling you to never reveal it, I'm just saying that it'll be pretty funny...
*Snip Rest*
As I said, there is going to be a shift in the story fairly soon, both in setting and style. The rest will be revealed, in time.
Tassadar didn't even come fucking close to killing Vader. Tassadar only was able to stall Vader for a little while and then telekenetically throw him back after exhausting himself, and only at the expense of a plot device (Picard shooting Vader to distract him). If it was a straight out fight Tassadar versus Vader, Vader would win every time from the way Noble Ire has portrayed his powers. Note that Vader wasn't exhausted, Vader wasn't drained, he was only irritated at Tassadar and if he had been able to get through the debris the heroes would have been finished. I'm very happy at the way the characters are being depicted in every respect.
And, it takes balls to bring together totally different characters from different universes and make them work. A good writer can make any topic material interesting, while a bad writer can make any topic material dull. The more duller the material the better the writer has to be, and I would extend this to say the more incompatible the material the better the writer has to be. They are characters from totally different universes with completely different viewpoints and Ire does a good job keeping all their personalities distinct, their dialogue identifiable and their actions in-character.
Keep going Ire, I know there are a lot of people who would rather have you focus solely on the SW aspect of the story probably, but I'd rather have a well-rounded interesting multi-crossover epic with many different refreshing viewpoints.
By the way, was he really capable of fighting Vader to a stand-still? How powerful are Protoss compared to the Sith?
Well SC protoss are about halfway between force users and 40k psykers in power (Using psionics to generate psychic storms over a battlefield, invisibility, psychic force weapons...).
And Tassadar is very strong, and can use two completely different types of psionics together and is supposed to be an excellent fighter (And Protoss CC units are powerful, look at a zealot who is just an average protoss with armour and a focuser for his own generated psi-blades)
Honestly, all of this doesn't really matter, because this is a fanfiction and taking some liberties with what is essentially game mechanics (we have no way of knowing Tassadar's powers for sure) is fine to me. Unlike in debates, Noble Ire has to guess writer's intent or game creator's intent at Tassadar's powers in order to incorporate him into the fanfiction (since it is a game), and I think he is doing a pretty good job with the psionic storm, although I would like to see Tassadar use his illusionary magic and mind influencing (mind control) magic at some point. Since he was close to the Dark Templar and studied their ways, he probably knows a few of their techniques. Tassadar can also overload electrical systems with feedback. There's a lot of ways to wank Tassadar if you wanted to and so far he is low power level in this fanfic if we had to guess game creator's intent.
I never said that Tassadar might kill Vader. I questioned whether or not the Protoss can fight a Jedi to a standstill.
And again, I think that it's great that Noble Ire has been able to successfully combine more than one universes together to make a coherent story. There are still some awkward parts, but I'm sure that will be fixed in the chapters to come.
My only major suggestion is for more first contact/crossover culture conversations, and the use of series-specific tactics and knowledge to solve other series' problems. In many crossovers, the authors neglect that aspect, and just assume that the characters carry on normally among people from different universes, without exploring the interesting contrasts (such as different universes all involving Earth humans). Of course, since the crew of the Enterprise is caught up in dangers, they understandably don't have much time to discuss those things. Still, those discussions are often amusing.
Anyone want to guess at what might happen next? Here's my predictions:
1. The swarm/infectation races- Zerg, Borg, Flood, or at least their controlling forces, will get together somehow, or fight each other bitterly, while invading each universe.
2. Maybe the same will happen to the Yuzhan Vong and Covenant.
3. Picard will somehow be reunited with the Enterprise's crew after a rescue attempt.
4. In any case, more Trek people (maybe from the future of the Enterprise) will find their way into the SW galaxy.
5. Plasma sword vs. lightsaber. Yes!
6. If anyone hooks up, it will probably be Aayla and Jacen, instead of her and Luke. That is, assuming that there won't be a portal found at the end that takes everyone home and fixes everything. I'll have to check the technical notes at Force.net, but I'm pretty sure twi'lek is one of the few races that can interbreed with humans. There's a system.
7. The Arbiter was either genuinely helping the Rebels, or he was quickly following Flitch again, who may or may not be a spy.
8. Reinforcements (from Trekverse, Haloverse, or Starcraft-world) may arrive at some point.
Jean-Luc Picard’s tone was even and calm, not a hint of his ever-present weariness or anxiety at the importance of the short speech he was wrapping up evident in his voice. His audience, a small group of the Alliance’s highest remaining officials, sat in a semi-circle around him, some of them listening intently to the man, while others tapped distractedly at datapads which contained increasingly dour casualty figures and supply reports from the fleet. Picard to ignore the blatant sign of disinterest and forged on, eloquently explaining his crew’s situation, the benefits that could be gained by all in a venture back to the wormhole, and the limited resources necessary to facilitate such an expedition.
Mon Mothma’s Advisory Council and Picard’s small delegation were crammed into a small, sparsely furnished chamber that was serving as Mon Mothma’s temporary headquarters. A former computer maintenance shop, it was located just off the make-shift hospital area and the occasional shout of a medic or moan of pain reverberated through the walls as foot traffic rushed by the room’s sealed door.
Attempting to keep his presentation brief, Picard succinctly recapped the argument he had just made, and then fell silent, watching those around him carefully, their leader most of all. Along with Mon Mothma, who’s faded red hair seemed to have noticeably grayed since they had last met, Princess Leia, Generals Rieekan and Crix Madine, Major Nay’far, a silver-haired female Bothan who was one of the few individuals to have been able to rendezvous with the fleet since the Republica’s arrival, and the acting commander of the Alliance starfleet Captain Ajun Halder all sat in uneasy silence, mulling the captain’s words. Truul was also in attendance, standing at stiff attention behind Mon Mothma’s seat and trying to look as formal as possible.
“Thank you captain,” Mon Mothma said at last. “Please, sit.” Picard complied, coming to rest in metal chair alongside Commander Riker, who had so far been silent, allowing the captain to fully exercise his diplomatic skill. Behind them, Data, the Master Chief, and the Arbiter stood against the wall each watching the proceeding with rapt and very personal interest. “I apologize our original hearing of your cause was cut short, but it was unfortunate necessity, as you are well aware I’m sure.” The woman’s voice was tired and cracked, and heavily tinged with resentment. Picard hoped that the feeling didn’t have anything to do with him or his party; such ill feeling would complicate matters.
“It has come to my attention that you and your crew assisted our forces at Sullust with unusual and unexpected valor, and for that I am grateful. Certainly, the Home One’s bridge crew, Commander Truul’s squad, and perhaps the entire fleet owe you all a debt of gratitude.” The captain noticed that Truul was suppressing a satisfied grin behind the Supreme Commander’s back, and he offered the man a fractional nod of gratitude, but he couldn’t help but notice that Mon Mothma’s expression had not brightened at all when she had thanked him, a foreboding sign.
“However…” Picard’s pulse quickened. He had known the word was coming.
“However, it would not be wise to devote any resources to your proposed expedition and envoy, especially not now.” Nay’far finished Mon Mothma’s reluctant verdict. The Bothan was not looking at either of them, but rather seemed absorbed in a statistical analysis of the star fighter complement of the fleet remnant that played cross the pad that rested on her palms. “We need all functional personnel and material consolidated here, and diverting any force could be suicidal. My contacts in the Spynet indicate that if the Imperial fleets in this sector continue their current pattern of search and expansion, this facility may be discovered in short order. Frankly, we weren’t equipped to handle a full Star Destroyer task force at full strength, and with the fleet in its current state, our chances are significantly lessened.”
A single drop of sweat formed on Picard’s brow. This was what he had fear might occur, and for all his skill with words and compromise, he didn’t know if there was anything he could do if the Rebel leadership was dead set against providing him resources. From the Bothan’s absolute tone, it seemed as though she was confident that the rest of the council would agree with her assessment. Perhaps the effort was doomed from the start.
“Major, if I may ask, given our current state, would temporarily losing a single starship, even one of our cruisers, significantly alter out chances if the Empire ever finds us here?” Surprised at the question, the woman looked up from her datapad and into Leia Organa’s intense eyes.
“Well… it would all depend upon the circumstances of a potential attack, but that’s beside the point. To split up what little we have now could only be destructive in the long run.”
“But your discounting the benefit that might be gained by following the captain’s suggestion,” Leia pressed, edging forward in her seat. “If we can get a diplomatic envoy into Federation territory and broker an arrangement with them, the Alliance could gain something we could never hope to earn in this galaxy, especially now; a truly safe haven, and an established government that could freely lend us aid. Frankly, we need all the assistance we can get now.”
The Bothan officer was clearly taken aback by Leia’s opposition, and Picard began to hope that his earlier sense of the general feeling of the councilors had been in error. After taking a moment to collect her thoughts, Nay’far put aside the pad and stared directly at the human’s intent face. “I had hoped it would not come to this, but there are other reasons why I do not support leading our resources to this fool’s errand. This ‘wormhole’ they discovered sounds far more unstable and unpredictable than the captain would seem to want us to believe. And even if it is stable, how are we to control its path? Even the members in Picard’s team here come from several disparate galaxies and time lines. And even if they have found some way to guide whatever ship we send through to the appropriate time and place, what if the wormhole was to collapse or relocate while whatever ambassadors and ships are still on the other side? A brief expedition to meet with this Federation might have been acceptable, but it sounds as though it may well be a one-way trip for whoever accompanies the envoy.”
Before Leia or anyone else had time to respond, the Bothan turned her gaze upon Picard. “And forgive me for saying this, but I have my doubts about his true motivations here. If I and those I command were to be trapped in some alien universe with only a slim chance of ever returning home, I would do anything to try and make sure that chance was exploited. Have you ever considered Princess that these men may not be who they claim to be? Oh, I have no doubt they are honorable enough and wouldn’t lead us into the hands of a hostile force, their actions have demonstrated that, but this benevolent and wealthy Federation anxious to ally itself with like-minded cultures seems a bit convenient, don’t you think?”
Will Riker’s jaw dropped in anger, and he began to rise, a forceful objection forming on his lips, but Picard extend a hand to stop his number one, shaking his head significantly. Slowly, the commander sat back down, glaring at the Bothan, who returned the look in kind.
“Though I believe that the Major’s suspicions may be overstated, her concerns are legitimate,” Mon Mothma asserted calmly, casting a stern glance in the woman’s direction. “I am willing to believe you on the Federation’s existence, you have earned that much, but the issue of the wormhole’s stability is more troublesome. Could you provide us any assurance that you could regulate and maintain the anomaly if you were to return to it?”
“Commander Data and Cortana are continuing to work on ways to effectively control the wormhole from what data we were able to retrieve about it,” Picard said, gesturing to the two artificial life forms.
Data took a step forward. “We believe that the phenomenon is controllable, perhaps even to a degree more than adequate to address the concerns Major Nay’far has raised. It is impossible to ascertain the likelihood of success without having direct sensor contact with the anomaly, but Cortana and I have hypothesized that an Alliance starship, with minor modifications to its deflector and EM arrays, could strengthen and direct the course of the wormhole. Then, it is a simple matter of calibrating the arrays to a setting identical those sensed by the derelict Federation vessel before reversion into this galactic plane.”
Picard thanked the android with a silent gesture, and he stepped back against the wall in silence. Despite its long-winded and complex nature, Data’s speech seemed to have had the desired effect; Mon Mothma still looked worn and dour, but some of the regret that had creased her face was dissipating. Nay’far still looked incredulous though. “Who would you propose we send on this mission? Can we really afford to lose any of our key personnel at a time like this? And what of the ship they would commandeer?”
“I can solve part of that at least,” Captain Halder said. “If we are attacked here in by any force of significant number, it will hardly matter if one of our lighter capital ships is absent. Perhaps the Republica; her drive’s are in better working condition than either Arrot Dar or the Redemption, and she’s the only one I’d trust to make it back through the Imperial probing lanes.”
“The Republica! You would throw away one of our last line star cruisers on this venture?” The Bothan gaped at the acting Admiral in shock.
Her hair bristling with anger and embarrassment, Nay’far cast desperate looks at each of the council members, and then offered a small, formal bow to her commanding officer. “I’m sorry General, I overstepped my bounds.” With that, the Bothan slumped into her seat, silent, but still glaring resentfully at the others in the chamber.
Clearing her throat, Leia Organa rose slowly. “If you will allow me, I would like to fill the roll of ambassador to the Federation. This is an opportunity that cannot be passed up or thrown away, and I intend to see it through.” Mon Mothma looked inquisitively at the young woman, deflated at the prospect of her departure, but after a few moments o thoughts, she nodded in consent. “Alright, I will authorize the expedition. Captain Halder, brief Captain Ryceed of her new mission. As of her return, Leia Organa will have complete authority over the mission and executive authority onboard ship. See to it that the Republica is fully re-supplied and restocked with fightercraft, and ready for departure by tomorrow morning.” Halder saluted and exited the chamber for the crowded passage beyond. After a few hushed words with Mon Mothma, Rieekan, Madine, and Nay’far left as well, the latter still carrying an air of defeat and apprehension.
“Major Truul, you have had more experience than any of us with the Captain and his crew. I trust you have no objection to being leading Princess Organa’s security detail and serving as an envoy between her and our guests?” Truul grinned and snapped a stiff salute. “It would be my honor sir.”
Mon Mothma looked over at Picard. “If the appointment is alright with you of course Captain.” Picard smiled and nodded appreciatively. “Of course, I couldn’t think of anyone better suited to the job.”
As Truul left to authorize his own transfer and assemble a security team and Picard and the other followed, eager to return to the Republica and inform the rest of their group of the outcome of the negotiations, Mon Mothma at last turned back to Leia and took her hands. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? I could find someone else to fill the post.”
Leia smiled and shook her head. “No, I want to go. I… well, I’ve just got a feeling about this.”
“A good one I hope.”
Leia nodded, but deep down, she wasn’t so sure. She still did not know why she had been so compelled to support Picard in his cause. Certainly, it held much promise, and perhaps even salvation for the Rebel cause, but something else was motivating her. Her thoughts drifted back to the night before, to her conversation with the man named Jacen. There had been something about him, and she was strangely driven to ensure his request to help Picard would be fulfilled. Odd.
“Well, good luck Leia. The hopes and dreams of our cause, and the lives of every free being in this galaxy may very well rest on your shoulders. May the Force be with you.”
“And you as well,” Leia replied with sincere conviction. The two women, so alike in cause and history, embraced briefly in friendship, and then they parted, each to strive for the same goal, along very different paths.
------------------------------------------------
There was a flash of transient light, a blur of motion, and then nothingness. The Republica was gone again, one less battle scarred hulk to crowd the supply depot’s docking vectors and sap its waning stores, but nevertheless, one person in particular was sad to see it go. Iask, captain of the small transport vessel Coral Iris, stared regretfully out at the empty space that had berthed the light cruiser only minutes before. The Mon Calamari had been lost amid the jumble of confused Alliance regulations and disorganized communications while waiting for re-supply, and had only just discovered that the starship that bore his former saviors and allies had arrived at all, and had filed a request to board the ship too late to catch it before an abrupt and unscheduled departure. It was a shame, he reflected as graceful fingers swept over the transport’s command console, triggering the main drives to awaken from their diagnostic cycle and prepare for usage. He might never see Riker or Jacen and the others again. In Iask’s lonely line of work, one rarely kept friends for long.
After the Mon Cal’s astromech R2-E4 rolled onto the small bridge and tootled brightly, which Iask interpreted as an affirmation that the docking ports were sealed and engines in working order, the Coral Iris hummed to life, engaging its maneuvering thrusters and disengaging from narrow supply pylon Iask had managed to commandeer for his temporary use. The drives arrayed along the small starship’s tail fin lit up with blue fire and the vessel slowly moved away from the old space station, careful to avoid the traffic still bustling around its main docking ports.
With his ship repaired and restocked as much as it could be with limited resources left at hand, and the Republica gone again on some unknown mission, Iask say no reason to remain with the fleet. Certainly, he had no love for the Empire, but he was no fighter, and his ship would likely not hold up well if thrust into another combat situation. Really, that was all that mattered; the Coral Iris was his life, and he wouldn’t put it in harms way again. Remaining with the Alliance definitely contradicted that goal.
“Engaging ion drives,” the pilot mumbled to himself, a habit he had picked up after years of lonely hyperspace hauls along the Hydian Way. Interfaced with the main computer, E4 reported that a safe hyperspace course back to Ord Mantell would be plotted in the nav computer by the time he cleared the Fleet. Iask would have liked to have returned to his homeworld to recuperate after the harrowing voyage, but from the scattered rumors he had picked up from Alliance crewers and comm officers, the watery planet was not the safest place to go at the moment. Deep inside his gut, a dire concern for his people was hawing away at him; for all he knew, the world was just a hunk of molten slag now. In any event, Ord Mantell, where he got most of his contracts, would be safer for the moment.
The transport’s ion drives increased in output, and the ship began to accelerate from the tattered fleet, gliding gracefully between two of the most heavily damaged Alliance capital ships, each covered with construction droids and space-suited engineers. Even as his right eye monitored his flight controls, Iask’s left orb took in one of the vessels, and he sighed softly, sickened at the sight of one of the graceful, almost organic starships in such a damaged state. If he were another of his race, the sight might have compelled him to stay, to take up arms against the oppressive Empire, but he was too reclusive and stuck in his ways. All he needed was his vessel, his home. Idealistic crusades were for the young and ship-less.
As the Coral Iris passed out of the outermost reaches of the fleet assemblage, and E4 began feeding him hyperspace coordinates, the ship’s sensor suite picked three blips, breaking off from the Alliance fleet to and rapidly gaining on him. Opening his mouth slightly in a Mon Calamari frown, Iask tapped his subspace transceiver.
“Alliance ships, this is the Coral Iris. Is there a problem?”
The bridge’s comm crackled to life with a human man’s voice, unsurprisingly tired and hoarse. “Coral Iris, this Lieutenant Celchu of Rogue Squadron. I’m sorry, but you don’t have clearance to leave the fleet staging area at this time. Command thinks it’s too risky to have too much hyperspace traffic leading away from here. You’ll have to disengage and return to the station.”
Iask’s frown deepened, and his fingers hovered over the acceleration dial, but he did not slow his ship. “There must be some mistake Lieutenant. I cleared this departure with Fleet control only an hour ago.” This was true, but as soon as he said it, the captain knew it would hardly matter; with the state of disarray everything was in at the moment, it wouldn’t surprise him if the High Council’s moratorium on departures hadn’t reached the makeshift flight coordination center by the time he had asked for approval.
“That’s a negative Iris; our orders are straight from the top. Disengage, and head back to the fleet, we’ll escort you.”
Predictable. Well, there wasn’t much he could do now but comply; his ship might be fast for it’s design, but there were A-Wings among that squad, and he wasn’t about to negate their speed advantage with any hostile action. Shaking his large head wearily, Iask grasped the navigation controls, and pulled his craft into a gradual 180 degree turn; at last bring his cockpit back in view of the Fleet and his escorts. The starfighters, two stubby A-Wings and an X-Wing, raced past and came about, forming a loose triangle directly behind the transport. Such a precaution wasn’t really necessary, but he supposed that the fighter pilots were always on edge these days, and with good reason.
The four ships made a slow arc back towards the dilapidated fleet, giving Iask time to admire the Coral Iris’ own acceleration ability; they were millions of kilometers still from the fringes of the fleet. All that could be seen were the dim silhouettes of the large cruisers in the fleet against the starfield, hanging quietly in the emptiness around the old observatory station, the space between them filled with a hundred tiny sparks; fighters and shuttles all. At this distance, beyond sight of the scars and hull breaches, the Rebel force was really quite calming, attractive in its own way.
The Mon Calamari’s skull smashed against his control terminal, jarring his mind away from reality and skewing his vision as the world roared and spun around him. Thrown back against his high-back seat by centrifugal force, Iask could barely hear his droid’s panicked whistles over the warning clangs and proximity sirens that were resounding around the small chamber. Struggling to regain coherence, Iask grabbed the controls blindly and tried to reach the stabilizer controls, which were blinking furiously. As the ship spun and the inertial compensator’s built into the hull attempted unsuccessfully to regulate the sudden pressure, his hands were shoved away violently, but he persisted, at last grasping the controls and counteracting the turbulent dive his vessel had gone into.
The Iris took over the attitude correction, firing emergency barking thrusters automatically to aid its pilot, and finally the spinning stopped. Still light-headed, Iask felt something warm on his bony cheek; greenish blood that was trickling from his jaw onto his simple pilot’s tunic.
“E4, are you alright?” he called, still in a daze. A squawking, grumpy reply greeted his ear nodes, but it was a reply nonetheless.
At last clearing the bile that had risen into his throat, the captain started to ascertain what had happened. The incident had knocked out his sensors and shielding systems, but everything else seemed to be in working order. Smacking the transceiver on again, Iask called out. “Lieutenant? Rogue Squadron? Are you alright?”
Through his viewport, the Mon Cal’s keen eyes spied the glow of two of the fighters a half a kilometer away, each correcting their own orientations.
“We’re operational Iris,” Celchu confirmed a moment latter, an alarm still noticeable clanging in the background. “Rouge seven, did you get a read on…”
“Emperor’s Black Bones!”
With that exclamation, the comm line went silent, leaving Iask bewildered by the sudden exclamation of shock. Then, as his sensors began to come back online, his own proximity detector began to shine in warning, and he hurriedly glanced at his transponder display to see the source of the disturbance. A tiny Imperial emblem glowed red on the display.
Something visible out of his viewport drew Iask’s attention away from the ominous sensor indicator. Directly above his small vessel, no more than a few dozen ship lengths away stretched the massive triangular belly of an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer, studded with turbolasers and Ion cannons of all classes. The mighty warship’s huge bank of Ion drives belched a cone of energy into the blackness that tore at cosmos; Iask absently reflected that he must have been on the fringe of the ship’s drive wash. A few degrees of orientation starboard and the transport would have been atomized by the pulsing engines.
More tiny insignias began to appear on his display, each accompanied by a class descriptor. Star Destroyers, anti-fighter Lancer frigates, Interdictors, Carracks, communications vessels, and Tie Fighters. Hundreds of Tie Fighters.
Horrified attention split between the readout and the real force emerging silently from hyperspace in an entrapping circle around the ragtag Alliance fleet, Iask barely noticed as his comm crackled to life again.
“All Rebel vessels, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Abolition. You will stand down and surrender you fleet immediately. This is your only warning. Comply, or be annihilated.”
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A thousand light-years away, Jacen Solo stared into the swirling blackness of hyperspace. Seated cross-legged on his small bunk, he allowed the flow beyond his viewport to lull him into a meditative state, centering his own thoughts and easing the tempest of uncertainty that still raged within. There is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is the Force.
What will be will be. So is the way of the Force.
Sorry if this new installment is a little long. I was going to divide it up, but it worked better thematically this way.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Almost time now. Less than an hour more and he would at last be off this blasted ship and safely in Imperial hands again. So he longed to be away from the headache inducing curves of the Mon Calamari vessel, and the multitude of traitorous, anarchist scum that inhabited it. Just a little while longer, he could wait. Besides, there was still one thing left to de done before he could arrange for departure. It would be a delicate and crucial procedure, but a necessary one; nothing he hadn’t done a dozen times before on this damnable assignment.
With practiced ease and familiarity, only imperceptibly tinged by nervousness he thought, the man walked calmly down the long bright hallways that lead to his destination, paying only as much attention as was necessary to those who he passed. Don’t give them any reason to look at you, and they won’t. Unconsciously, he pressed the plain carrying case he held at his side closer, making sure it would not be jostled by the oblivious passersby.
The man made his way quickly down the narrow passage, and entered a turbo shaft, which delievered him to deck seven, in a section very near the ship’s center. Emboldened by the decrease in foot traffic farther away from the crew sections, his footfalls quickened and became more definite, and rounding a corner, his objective was brought into view. At last, almost there.
He noted a small group of armed Alliance marines, absorbed in a loud conversation on some mundane topic, were approaching down a side passage. The man realized that the group would cross paths with him just before he could reach his objective. Stay calm; there is no reason for any of them to even notice you. Just don’t run or break stride. A moment later, they were arms length apart, the soldiers laughing uproariously at some joke one of their fellows had just told. As they walked past, one turned her gaze towards him, and the man almost froze in fear, but she simply offered a small gesture of greeting and sped away with the rest of her comrades. The man wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but that would look suspicious right there in the hall. Besides, his goal was mere footsteps away.
A pair of thin doors slid open, revealing a small, empty room, its walls lined with computer screens and blinking displays. An energy monitoring room, just off Main Engineering and the hypermatter reactor that drove the starship; it would suite his purposes perfectly. Sparing what he hoped looked like an innocuous glance back at the passageway, the man slipped inside, waited for the doors to close behind him, and then set to work. Pausing only to lock the door, the man moved over to the nearest computer terminal and placed his carrying case on top of it. Seating himself on the terminal’s adjoining bench, the man immediately set to work, energizing the computer interface and imputing a variety of pass codes.
Finding the security measures easily passable with the codes and rank clearance he had accumulated, the infiltrator located and drew up the required section of the ship’s computer network. A few more key strokes brought him to a specific subsystem, not particularly vital, but perfectly suited to his goal. Taking in a deep breath to try and steady his trembling hands, the man began to input one strand of memorized code after another, each a simply logarithmic pattern. Apart, they were harmless, static in the network, but if entered in just the right order they could dramatically impact the subsystem he was targeting.
“Halt.”
The word boomed into the man’s thoughts, causing them to briefly degenerate into a state of chaos and confusion. The lapse was brief, and within milliseconds, his training kicked in. He’s too close. Start the innocent routine.
Allowing his right hand to tap a few more keys, an action that yielded an expected and satisfying beep from the computer, the man spun around on his seat, his expression one of mild surprise. Before he could utter a single word though, a huge hand reached down and latched onto the fabric of his tunic and then wrenched upward, dragging him helpless into the air.
A blasted of hot, moist air hit him in the face and he sputtered, disoriented by the violent action. A frightening visage hovered directly before his eyes; four stiff, gray mandibles covered in sharp teeth, covering a fleshy, gaping mouth. Above the creature’s formidable jaws two small, narrowed eyes glared into his own, unblinking.
“Wha...what is the meaning of this?”
“Do not bandy words with me, human. I want to know what you were doing with that computer. Where is the device?”
Gulping as the hems of his uniform began to etch into his back, the man tried to think of some warning or explanation that would convince this creature to release him. Then all he would need was to get to the case…
Turning his gaze away from the human, the assailant looked over the terminal that he had been using, and the small container on top of it caught his eye. “What is that? Tell me.”
Desperate for a way out, the man allowed his own fear, amplified for effect, to filter into his voice. “I’m sorry sir, there seems to have been some sort of understanding. I was just performing some routine system checks for my superiors. I was certain that I followed all the proper procedures logging in and...”
“The case,” the alien repeated, his voice deep and menacing.
Behind them, the click of several boots impacting the deck plating diverted the man’s attention the doorway. Several armed marines, the very ones he had passed in the hallway, were quickly filing into the room, their blaster pistols drawn. Behind them, the door’s control was sparking profusely; the alien must have broken the hall-side interface to gain entry.
“Drop him and back against that wall!” one of them, a dark-skinned man without his blast helmet on ordered, his side arm pointing squarely at the assailant’s back. The other soldiers fanned out into the room, keeping their weapons trained on the tall, gray-skinned alien. Growling in contempt, he loosened his grip and the man tumbled to the floor, but did not move away.
“Against the wall with your hands up!” the marine ordered again, emphasizing his point with a flick of his pistol.
This time the alien moved, not towards the wall, but instead towards the soldier, his hands falling to his sides. Easily two feet shorter than the being, the marine also took a step back, intimidated by the mountain of toned sinew and reflective armor plating. With the attacker distracted, one of the other soldiers grabbed the infiltrator and pulled him into the protection provided by the circle of marines. “Are you all right, sir?” one of them, the woman from before, asked, her weapon still pointed at the alien. Already factoring this unexpected circumstance into his plans, the man nodded, rising to his feet.
“Thanks. I’m not sure what happened. It just attacked.”
One of the other soldiers leaned in close to their commander’s ear and whispered something urgently. Nodding, he turned his attention back to the alien, who stood in the center of the room staring back at him. “You’re the Arbiter, right? One of those visitors everyone was talking about?”
The alien made no motion of dissent.
“Mind explaining what you were doing then? You might have some diplomatic leeway from the Council, but that doesn’t mean you can smash entry locks and assault our officers without a very good reason.”
After glaring for a moment longer, the Arbiter flexed his mandibles in irritation. “There is no time for this. That man is a traitor, an infiltrator sent here by your enemies. He plans on disabling or destroying this vessel.”
The marine sergeant looked incredulous, and cast a skeptical glance at the frazzled man, dressed in the uniform of a Lieutenant. “Him? Lt. Flitch, correct? One of Major Truul’s men.”
The man nodded in recognition, keeping a wary eye on the Arbiter, who had turned his gaze back on him. “Yes, that’s right. I was just in here looking for the officer on duty. Major Truul wanted to know about an energy sub-system in one of men’s duty areas, and since I have the clearance to check from here, I did so. Then he attacked me, for no reason I can think of.”
The Arbiter growled darkly. “You’re lying. If you are performing a simple network search, what do you need with that case?” He indicated to the inconspicuous, flexiplast container with a jerk of his long neck.
The sergeant frowned. “Dillik, bring me that.” The marine, a tall Mon Calamari, edged around the Arbiter and grabbed the case with his free hand. No one noticed Flitch sway slightly as the soldier picked up the container.
“What’s going one here?”
Standing in the hallway beyond the small room was Major Truul himself, flanked by a pale-skinned humanoid and a towering, battle-armored man, both Flitch instantly recognized as being other ‘visitors’, as the soldier had referred to them. His pulse quickened and he began to edge away from the marines who currently were surrounding him.
The marine sergeant offered a nod in salute, keeping his weapon fixed on the Arbiter. “Sir. This Arbiter was just apprehended assaulting your one of your Lieutenants. He claims that Lt. Flitch is an Imperial infiltrator.”
The gruff man’s eyes widened in shock and he looked from the alien to his man in alarm and confusion, then focusing back on the Arbiter. “I’ve fought alongside ya before, and I’m inclined to trust your judgment, but you’d better have some goof proof that my man is a traitor. I don’t take kindly to unprovoked assaults on the officers under me.”
“I’ve been watching him for days. Flitch has entered several sensitive areas both on this ship and the Alliance supply station to interfaced with their computer systems. Have you not noticed any suspicious behavior on his part?”
Truul frowned, stroking his stubbly chin. “Nothing comes to mind. And I ordered him to gain access the supply station’s computer. I needed locate a few officers in fleet before we left again.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Really, if that’s all you got, I think you might be overreacting. Not surprising really, considering all we’ve been though lately.”
The sergeant nodded towards the Mon Cal soldier. “Check the case.” Holstering his sidearm, the man opened the container’s electrical clamp and quickly flipped through the contents. “There’s not much in here, sir. Just a few datapads, some flimsies, and a vox recorder.”
“All things I need for my regular work,” Flitch said sourly, now standing a few steps away from the marine line, back next to his computer terminal. “I intended on working on logging and finalizing the new transfers to Major Truul’s guard unit in my quarters after I was finished here.”
“I did ask him to do that, and I did need him to talk to Ensign Teeri about the power substation in my soldier’s barracks,” Truul confirmed, and then noticed that the officer how normally operated the power station was not present. “Where is Teeri anyhow?”
“I’m not sure, sir. He wasn’t here when I arrived.”
The Arbiter’s eyes narrowed.
“Anyways, I think this may have all been a misunderstanding. Unless, of course, you have some other evidence,” Truul’s tone was skeptical.
“Yes, I would like to know if you have any other grievances with me so that I might clear them up now. Forgive me for saying so, but I am far to busy to be assaulted on duty again today.”
The Arbiter issued another low snarl, but stopped suddenly, fixated on Flitch’s right hand, which now hovered over the command board, index finger close to the glowing ‘execute’ key.
“Well?”
Balling his huge hands into fists, the Elite glared into Flitch’s eyes, which stared back in mocking victory. Turning away suddenly, the Arbiter ducked down and marched toward the exit, the sergeant and his troops making way for the fuming warrior by Truul’s command.
“Sergeant, I want you and your troops to escort him to his quarters and see that he stays there for a few hours. Needs time to cool down.”
“What if he resists?”
“Make sure that he doesn’t have to,” the Major said significantly. “I don’t want to have to deal with an internal confrontation with one of my charges on this mission, especially not so early on.”
The marines filed off down the hall after the towering alien, Dillik pausing to hand Flitch back his case. With them gone, Truul turned to Lt. Commander Data and the Master Chief, who had watched the exchange in silence. “I’ve got to have a word with Flitch. Sit tight, and we can continue our conversation in a moment.”
When the major had disappeared into the room and used the interior control to close the door behind him, Cortana spoke up, whispering to the Chief through his helmet’s interior comm.
“He gets more and more suspicious by the hour, doesn’t he?”
“Do you think he’s a threat to the mission?”
“I still don’t want to jump to any conclusions… but it’s starting to seem more and more likely. He is an Elite after all, and it’s possible that he’s never really been on our side at all.”
“It appears I have found something.” The Master Chief turned to see Data crouched on the deck, picking something off the metal floor delicately.
“What is it?” the Chief asked over the open comm.
“I noticed the Arbiter surreptitiously drop this object in the hallway before he departed. He may have intended for us to locate it.” The android walked back over to the Chief and held the thing up; a tiny, square chip studded with regular golden nods. “I believe it is a memory storage device of some kind, most likely corresponding to the technology employed by the Alliance or Empire.”
“But why would he leave it for us, whatever it is?” Cortana asked, using the sensors built into the Spartan’s suit to inspect the chip more closely.
Before Data had time to stipulate a hypothesis however, a voice rang out over the ship’s intercom. “Counselor Organa and all ambassadors to the command bridge. Hyperspace emersion in ten minutes.”
“Ambassadors? Well, I suppose they had to give us a tag of some sort eventually. It’s better than ‘the visitors’ at least,” Cortana commented, still inspecting the small device.
Major Truul emerged from the power monitoring room and rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “Well, it’s about time. I suppose I should be getting you all to the bridge.”
The human started off down the main hall and the others followed, but they hung back, still inspecting the chip.
“Perhaps you can access whatever’s inside,” Data suggested.
“I’m still not too familiar with all of their technology, but I ought to be able to handle a simple record file. Chief, plug that into the scanning slot above my own matrix.”
Carefully, the Spartan took the chip into his own gauntleted fingers, but hesitated before placing in the slot that hidden on the left side of his helmet. “Are you sure we want this in our heads? We don’t know what he could have put on it.”
Cortana let out a little laugh. “Please, I’ve dealt with Covenant viruses before. At the most, you’ll feel a slight burning sensation in the back of your head as I reduce any intruder into binary code segments.”
“What about Ysanne Issard?” Gam Rothwall suggested, placing his glass of fine Muun port gently on the table. “She has always seemed quite eager for ways she can elevate her status.”
Ars Dagnor, seated next to Gam at the large dining table, tapped his lips with a silken napkin and leaned back in his luxurious chair, shaking his head slowly. “It’s too great a risk. She certainly would be willing to hear us out, especially if some reward was offered up front, but as you say, she craves power too much to be trusted. If Vader ever found out, she could easily be turned against us by a generous counter-offer. Our new eminence (the word rolled off his tongue with obvious contempt) may be a brute, but he isn’t stupid, and his skill with the Force will make stealing away high-ranking officials difficult.”
Nodding in agreement, Rothwall sighed, and then began poking at the succulent cut of meat that had been prepared for him, deep in thought. He and Dagnor, as well as Janus Greejatus and Hixa Torenvom were seated in a spacious private dining room, located on the top floor of Menarai, the most exclusive restaurant in the Imperial Center. The circular chamber sported a 240 degree view of the city below, skyscrapers and traffic lanes lit brightly against the night sky as they spread out in all directions. Fixed atop Monument Park, the only exposed mountain peak left on the entire planet, the restaurant sported the finest views anywhere in the galactic core. That, and it’s isolation from the unworthy masses, made it a favored place of relaxation and indulgence among the Coruscanti elite.
The only remaining member of the Ruling Council not present, Kren Blista-Vance, had protested against meeting in such a public venue, but Dagnor, defacto leader of the group, had ignored the concern. His private chamber there was one of the most secure places on the planet, fitted with security measurers even the late Black Sun entrepreneur and crime lord Prince Xizor could not buy. Besides, he had noted, it would be better for them to be seen in public, unafraid of Vader’s rule, before any coup was staged. The people would hardly look up to those they perceived as cowards.
“Have you tried to Crueya yet?” Hixa Torenvom asked, helping himself to a platter of rare Kaminoan shellfish, one of the many delicacies that were heaped unto beautiful obsidian plates and containers.
Ars stroked his smooth chin reflectively. “I have. He seemed quite open to the idea of aiding us, and COMPNOR’s support would certainly go a long way in solidifying our control.” COMPNOR, under Lord Crueya Vandron, was the agency that supervised the massive bureaucracy galactic government needed to remain effective, and was a key intelligence and logistics resource for every Imperial politician, Moff, and Admiral. “However, both he and I share the concern that open dissent from such a significant and core-ward agency would be sure to quickly be noticed and investigated by Vader and those loyal to him. For now, the support he can provide is strictly non-material.”
“I do wish to alert you all to one significant success though. Only hours ago, I was able to secure the support Grand Admiral Grazre.”
“Totl Grazre! The commander of the Core defense fleet?” Rothwall nearly knocked over his glass of pale liquid as he stood in surprise.
Ars Dagnor grinned. “We all knew that I had connections. I suppose I must have simply neglected to tell you all about this one.”
Rothwall was grinning now too. “I can just imagine Vader’s mood when he discovers half a dozen destroyers drawing a firing solution on his shuttle.” He swept the glass off the table once more, spilling some of its contents on the dark, velvety tablecloth. “A toast! To the resurrection of the old Empire, and our new place in it!”
“Indeed, indeed,” Janus Greejatus wheezed in agreement, taking up his own challis.
“Now, now, the battle is not yet won… but I suppose libation of victory now could do nothing to hurt us.”
The four conspirators raised their glasses and drained them, backlit by passing traffic and floodlights from the park below.
As a humanoid serves droid hummed around the table, refilling each of their drinks, the private chamber’s door comm chimed, and a pair of armored stormtroopers entered, bowing slightly before taking up places on either side of the door. A moment later, a tall, thin man entered, dressed in a sweeping, black robe. Though he was unusually pale, his gaunt features were easily recognizable.
“Ah, Kren, I am glad to see you have come,” Ars Dagnor said smoothly, opening his arms in greeting. “We had thought you were too paranoid to join us here. I am glad to have been mistaken.”
He motioned to the server droid. “Coruscanti testril I think, the house’s finest. A full bottle for our honored friend.” As the droid hurried over to a wall-mounted dispensing slot, Blista-Vance stepped away from the door, still silent, and another figure entered. All four seated men stopped in their merriment to inspect the newcomer.
She was tall and slim, curved in a way that made females of her species renown galaxy-wide. The Twi’lek’s long lekku, a brilliant blue like the rest of her well formed body, were draped seductively down her front, trembling only slightly as she walked. She wore silky dress, similar in color to Blista-Vance’s own robe; so much fabric was absent from the chest and waist areas that a few of the men in attendance wondered secretly if the garment was held up by a repulsor hidden somewhere on her form. A long, black glove covered her right arm, drawn up nearly to her exposed shoulder. The woman bore a mild, submissive smile on her face, and flowed gracefully to Kren’s side, placing an arm around his waist.
The older man said nothing, instead walking to a vacant chair and draining a goblet of some green liquor before sitting.
Ars raised an eyebrow. “A new acquisition? I suppose that might explain why you were late.”
Greejatus chuckled, his beady eyes still probing the beautiful Twi’lek.
“Her name is Aayla,” Kren said simply, filling his glass again with intoxicating liquid. “Pay her no mind.”
Ars spared another glance at the striking specimen, and then turned his attention back on the final Council member. “So, have you done as I asked?”
Not bothering to even look up from his drink, the pale man nodded. “Jerjerrod has informed me that the construction effort around the Sanctuary Moon is ongoing, and at the current rate of progress, it will be completed in less than three months. The test firing on a local asteroid was successful, but its primary weapon still has to be calibrated before it is fully operational.”
Ars took a bite out a small wedge of fruit. “Excellent. By the time the weapon is completed, our control of the galaxy should be well established. With battle station like that under our command, no upstart admiral or Sith Lord will ever challenge the rightful heirs of the new order ever again.”
Standing just behind Kren’s chair, the Twi’lek allowed her smile to broaden. Blista-Vance gulped down another glass and leaned back in his chair, his hands noticeably trembling.
“Are you alright?” Hixa asked, staring at the gaunt man over a plate of fluffy pastries.
Before he could respond though, the Twi’lek behind him shifted position, bringing her arms down to her sides. “Personally, I’d be more concerned about myself than him. Of course, in a few moments, I suppose it won’t make much of a difference.”
Hixa sputtered, dropping the utensil he was holding in alarm. “What did she…”
“Thank you Kren, you’ve been most helpful. Unfortunately, Lord Vader seems to dislike traitors intensely, and I’m afraid we’re going to have to go back on our little bargain.” The woman’s voice was so soft that the others around the table had to lean closer to hear clearly, but a sort of dark pleasure was quite evident in it.
Kren Blista-Vance shook his head slowly and gritted his teeth, closing his eyes as he did so. “Sithspit.”
A beam of blue light erupted through the chair’s back and impaled the old man’s heart, incinerating it instantly. A blast of air and vaporized blood escaped his lips and his head lolled on its shoulders, his face a mask of resigned defeat.
The other at the table, however, did not that the incident so well. Hixa fell backwards out of his chair, food and drink spilling onto his round belly as he tried to scramble away, and the other three shot up from their places, momentarily unsure what to do, Kren’s death still not registering in their stunned brains. Aayla did not wait for the moment to sink in though, instead bringing her lightsaber clear up through the top of the chair, nearly decapitating the deceased Councilor. She then flipped sideways with superhuman speed and agility, landing easily on her feet a few meters way, where Hixa Torenvom was trying to drag his body away across the richly-carpeted floor. The woman grinned down him, her saber humming gently as she held it less than a meter above his heaving chest.
“W…” Before the sputtering man could even finish a single word, the blade sang, neatly removing the man’s head from its confining neck without even singeing the carpet.
By now, both Greejatus and Rothwall had uncovered holdout blasters from their cloaks and were backing toward the nearest window, Ars hunched between them, he too fumbling for a weapon hidden in his robes. Rothwall fired three shots at Aayla as she brought her weapon up from the killing stroke, but before he had even seen the red bolts cross the room, they scattered away from the assassin in all directions, two scorching the ceiling and the third impacting a vase of white flowers, which exploded spectacularly. Gaping, Rothwall pulled the trigger again, and the Twi’lek almost lazily moved her weapon to intercept the incinerating bolt. It hit the blue blade and recoiled back, directly into the Councilor’s open mouth. Gore and burned bone splashed against the expansive windows as the smoking corpse fell to the floor.
By this time, Ars Dagnor had located his own weapon, a contraband and especially nasty make of disruptor pistol, and without even bothering to glance at his fallen conspirator’s body, opened up. The first green silver pulse missed Aayla entirely, smashing an entire ten meter pane of glass and impacting the security shield in place outside, which rippled and glowed as it diffused the energy. The next shot was better aimed, but it only served to incinerate carpeting and atomize a large chunk of the metal floor beneath, as Aayla was already in the air again, leaping over the wide dining table with ease.
Sending a shot from Janus into the floor harmlessly even before she had reached the ground again, the Twi’lek spun, angling her weapon so it would decapitate Greejatus in a single blow. Before she could make contact though, the chamber’s lone door slid open and several stormtroopers rushed in, E-11 blaster rifles already raised. Without even looking in their direction, Aayla altered her stance mid-strike and threw her saber sideways rather than following through. The twirling sword halved the first two soldiers before they had even located the source of the disturbance and sliced the gun arm off a third.
Years of discipline allowing them to ignore the gruesome deaths of their comrades, the other three troopers opened fire, pulsing a dozen shots at Aayla in under two seconds. Temporarily without her weapon, which was still twirling through the air, she was forced to leap away from her prey, using the dining table as cover. Huge chunks of hand-carved wood combusted under the sustained Imperial firepower, but what was left of the object heaved suddenly into the air, confusing the soldiers and making their shots erratic. Before they could correct for the sudden change in topography however, the heavy fixture rocketed towards them, crushing one of the troopers against the wall with a sickening thud.
The remaining two rolled sideways avoid the missile and reestablish visual contact with their target, but they found she was already between them, her glowing weapon back in hand. With two deft strokes, she cut both troopers in two.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Ars and Janus were rushing for a small computer console set into one of the benches that lined the curving wall. One of the dead soldier’s blasters flew into her free hand, and barely stopping to aim, she pulled the trigger. A fireball engulfed Janus Greejatus’ back and he screamed, falling to the floor with a cloud of ash and blistering smoke issuing from the deadly wound.
Ars tumbled to the floor, thrown off balance by the near hit, and before he could even raise his head, the sound of Aayla’s breath, only slightly labored from the exertion, filtered into his ears. He felt warm fingers wrap around his chin and jerk it up, bringing the woman’s beautiful face into view, no more than a hand length away from his own. The same half grin still graced her lips, and a patch of residue on her left cheek, blood spray, only served to accentuate her striking features. Ars attempted to bring his blaster to her stomach, but it flew out of his hands and clattered uselessly onto the floor, out of reach.
“If you’re going to kill me, do it now,” he spat, trying to retain some sense of control.
“It is not her place to kill you.”
Aayla’s saber snapped off and she let go off Dagnor’s head, leaving him to fall back to the ground as she stood and moved to the side, revealing the doorway at the far side of the room and the figure that now filled it.
“Vader,” Ars managed, hefting himself onto his knees.
The Dark Lord of the Sith paced across the room, ignoring the bodies strewn around him and the stench of cauterized flesh that filled the air. When he reached Aayla, who had her head bowed in respect, he paused, looking her over reflectively. “You have done well, my apprentice.”
“They were traitors and fools, my lord. I had no qualm about culling them from your Empire.”
Darth Vader turned his focus now to Ars Dagnor, who was slowly rising onto his haunches.
“I had always suspected you and your allies would need to be disposed of. You were always too close to the Emperor.”
To Aayla’s surprise, the sniveling little man actually began to laugh. A weak, hacking rasp, but a laugh nonetheless. “Didn’t have the stomach to do it yourself though, did you Vader? I can tell, killing the Emperor took the nerve out of you. He always was the true power, the one who gave you your ability and will, and without him, your nothing but a feeble man in a life support suit, trying to fill a far more worthy being’s place.”
Vader’s right hand shot out from under his cape and gloved fingers wrapped around Dagnor’s neck, hauling him into the air. Gasping for air, the man clawed uselessly at the iron grip as Vader pulled him close to his nightmare mask. “Where is the rest of the Privy Council? Where is Sate Pestage?”
Ars mouthed something desperately, saliva bubbling from his mouth as he tried in vain to suck oxygen into his quickly starving lungs. Vader’s grip tightened and the helpless man began to squirm even more violently, kicking Vader’s armored torso weakly. After a few more long seconds, the Sith lord relaxed his grip, and Ars fell backwards, hitting his head hard against the curved window that overlooked the vast city below.
“You have but this one opportunity,” Vader said darkly, looking down on the gasping creature. “Reveal the location of the rest of the Council, or I will tear the information from your mind.”
Ars Dagnor slid down the window, coming to rest on the carpeted floor, his limbs splayed out uselessly on the sill and the bench next to him. “Pestage…”
Vader looked down upon the pitiful creature, seemingly uncaring as to the course by which he would receive the required data.
“Pestage,” Ars repeated, pausing to cough up a large clot of blood. “Pestage may have been a coward…” He paused, gasping for breath, and then stared up at Vader’s mask. “But you are a fool!”
Right arm draped against the low bench, Ars was in reach of the console he had ran for a minute before. A single finger punched at one of the keys, and the object began to beep shrilly. Even before the sound met the beaten Councilor’s ears though, Vader had turned away, his Force-aided senses alerting him to a sudden danger. Ars Dagnor’s eyes widened as the sound cut off, and his body disappeared in a ball of light and fire. A resounding explosion rocked the room, and indeed the entire facility, knocking over food trays and sending the clientele diving under their tables and booths.
Vader and his young servant had not been in the radius of the blast however. Aayla Secura, disoriented by the explosion, wiped soot from her eyes and discovered she was on the other side of the room, looking at Darth Vader’s metallic chest plate. He had saved her from the Councilor’s last bit of venom, a bomb that was meant to ensure that whoever was capable of bringing down the great Ars Dagnor would not last to relish his victory. Obviously, the device’s designers had not anticipated that the intended target would be a Sith.
“Thank you, my lord,” she managed, regaining her balance. “I am not worthy of your action. It was my carelessness that allowed him to even reach that device. You should have left…”
A sudden wave of annoyance from the cyborg told Aayla it would be best if she became silent. She stepped away and glanced over at what had once been Dagnor’s dining chamber. The suicide explosive had carved a very large hole out of the chamber, and much of it was exposed to the open air. The rest of the room had been shredded by shrapnel from the blast; it was only Vader’s armored suit and his adeptness with the Force that had saved her from ending up like the serving droid which lay next to her, decapitated and oozing dark coolant from every joint.
Turning her attention back to Darth Vader, Aayla noticed that he was staring up into the sky through one of the shattered windows, his hands folded in front of him.
“My lord?”
“Something is occurring, something of great importance.”
The woman stared quizzically at her master as he continued to probe the heavens, as is if searching for a star that was beyond his ability to perceive. Though his mental barriers were as effective as always, she could sense could sense some conflict in him, but on what she could not tell. At last, he turned towards her, his rhythmic breathing echoing eerily in the blasted shell of a room.
“I am needed elsewhere. Come.”
With that, he stalked past her and exited the chamber, where his personal squad of storm troopers waited, clearing bodies out of the passageway and sealing the area off against further intrusion. Aayla did not follow immediately, instead looking up into the hazy darkness, searching for any sign of what her master had sensed. She found nothing amiss. It was of little importance though; her master had set a course, and she would follow, wherever they ended up.
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By the time Truul, Data, and the Chief reached the command bridge, Leia Organa, her protocol droid, and most of the remaining members of the Enterprise’s crew were already assembled quietly watching the main viewport from the lower level of the chamber. Captain Ryceed seemed to be trying to ignore them, and was engaged in a whispered conversation with her XO.
“Data,” Commander Riker said in greeting as the three latecomers joined the group. When the android had come a little closer, the commander leaned in close and whispered into his ear. “Are your calculations finished?”
Noting the human’s conspiratorial tone, Data lowered his own voice. “Yes Commander. Cortana and I believe that we should be able to manipulate the wormhole as soon as we arrive. I will, however, require direct access to the ship’s deflector, transmission, and tractor beam controls.”
Riker nodded. “The captain and Geordi have already worked something out with Ryceed. There’s a station prepared for you over there.” He indicated to a large bank of control consoles, at which the dark-skinned engineer and a pair of Alliance technicians were already at work.
“I’d better interface directly with the main computer system,” Cortana, who had evidently been listening in on their conversation, said, and then used the transmitter built into the Chief’s armor to beam her consciousness into ship itself.
“Ready to disengage hyperdrive,” a helmsman called, and all conversation on the deck ceased.
“Do it,” Captain Ryceed ordered, settling into her command chair. She had no particular desire to come back to the desolate system they were approaching, but she would be damned if her apprehension interfered with her composure.
In a surge of pseudo motion, the light cruiser spat from the hyperspace tachyon realm and into realspace, an endless void only broken by system’s distant star, a glowing ember which hung high above their plane of entry. Except, this void was not quite as empty as they had left it.
“I’m picking up Imperial warships to aft!” one of the bridge officers yelled, alarmed and desperately rechecking is original readings. Ryceed gritted her teeth and slammed a fist onto her chair control pad.
“Battle stations! Deflectors to maximum, double aft!”
Mere seconds later, a shockwave blasted through the bridge and warning klaxons began to blare plaintively.
“One of their tracking shots, we were able to get deflectors up in time. No damage.”
Ryceed tapped a few commands into her panel, and swiveled her seat towards the chamber’s main holographic display. “Get me a read on those ships now!” The space in front of her flickered to life with multicolored flecks of light, which rapidly coalesced into four distinctive forms; an Imperial-class Star Destroyer flanked by a smaller Victory-class and a trio of Lancer frigates. As she looked on, dozens of new contacts, TIE fighters and gunboats, began to register, pouring out of the two larger ship’s holds.
“Open fire, all rear batteries! Target the forward Lancer.”
As comm officers rushed to relay the order and the Republica’s Chief weapons control officer began to coordinate the jets of deadly energy that began to pulse from the cruiser’s hull, another turbolaser blast rocked the ship, nearly knocking Leia Organa over as she climbed the short stairway to the main command area.
“How did they now we would be here?” she asked breathlessly.
“Not a clue. Why don’t you try asking your friends down there?” Ryceed said hurriedly, and then turned her attention back to the hologram, which was showing the first wave of fighters wash up against the cruiser’s point defense guns.
Leia glanced down at Captain Picard and his officers, who were watching the battle unfold on various viewscreens and tactical display with concern. The situation did seem awfully suspicious. But no, she disregarded the thought almost immediately. She had a feeling about these people, they wouldn’t have turned the fate of the Alliance and their own hopes at returning home over to the Empire. Still, it seemed very unlikely that the Imperials could have detected or anticipated them like this without some assistance…
“Captain, fighter squadrons are standing by. Do I give the launch order?”
Ryceed considered Commander Gavplek’s question. Under more even circumstances, such an action would be a given; allowing TIE fighters to harass the ship unopposed would be suicidal, but they were vastly out numbered now, and given her previous experience with the unstable gravitic nature of this star system, it was likely her only avenue of escape was cut off. Her only normal avenue at least.
She put a hand, telling her XO to delay the question for a moment, and stood. “Captain Picard.”
The bald man looked up at her, his face drawn with concern.
“Have your men finalized the wormhole procedure?”
Riker gave a nod in the affirmative when Picard looked in his direction. “It’s ready. But can your ship make it to the coordinates before they catch up to us?”
Ryceed smiled proudly. “Captain, you haven’t seen half of what my ship and her crew can do.” She caught Gavplek’s attention again. “Tell the squadron leaders to stay put. Were heading for the wormhole. Make sure we get there in one piece.” Though he was deeply disturbed by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, Gavplek had been in enough engagements to know that when she had an objective selected, there was no force, Imperial or otherwise, that could stand in her way. He offered a quick salute, and then turned to the rest of the crew, who were busy coordinating fire and compiling damage estimates from the last turbolaser blast that had struck the ship.
“Were making a straight burn for the wormhole. Helm, increase power to the main drives, even if you have to siphon off energy from the weapons, but keep the deflectors at optimal. Fire control, focus on laying down a flak perimeter around our rear quadrant. The Imperials know we can’t do any real damage to them, and there’s no point in trying, but let them know that if they get to close, their ship’s are going to lose a few of those pretty points.”
A luck series of shots from the Republica’s rear turbolaser grid breached the shields of the forward most frigate, send gouts of flame roaring across it port side and sending it on a down spin, out of formation. The small victory seemed to encourage the Alliance crew, but the other four warships pressed forward, intensifying their own firepower to make up for the damaged pursuer.
“I’m locking the estimated coordinates of the wormhole into the navigational computer,” Cortana, who had appeared above the secondary hologram tub, reported easily. The Mon Cal cruiser’s ion drives flared as terawatts of reserve power poured into them, and the sleek ship rapidly began to put distance between itself and the encroaching strike force. The four capital ships that still remained in the battle quickly compensated, dumping their own reserves into vast, coruscating engines, and the gap began to close again. The void between the ships was filled with streams of green and red bolts with enough power to devastate small cities, with squadrons of TIEs flitting around volleys and continually igniting the Republica’s weakening deflector screens with pinpricks of fire.
At Data’s jury-rigged command station, Geordi La’Forge nervously checked the power readings from the core. “The program is ready, but if this rate of power consumption keeps up, we might not have enough juice left to maintain the correct modulation in the deflector network.”
“We should reach the wormhole in two minutes, thirty one seconds,” Data noted, taking in several tactical and energy displays at once. “Assuming there is not an exponential increase in Imperial firepower within that period, there will be enough power left to perform a directed trans-galactic transference.”
“I hope your right.” The engineer had no wish to return to a holding cell or be vaporized by the Imperial assault, but exploding in the wormhole due to uncontrollable feedback overload was equally as undesirable.
As the rest of the Federation officers watched the running battle with silent apprehension, a sudden thought struck Picard. If Data was right, that wormhole was a pathway directly into Federation territory. If the Empire knew about such a conduit, they might be able to send ships through as well, and Picard had seen just what the warships of the galaxy could do.
He made is way quickly over to the Data and looked at the information flashing across his screen. It was largely gibberish to human eyes, the android had programmed his station to transmit at a rate many times its normal rate, but the captain did notice a marked increase in the number of figures that appeared on the display when a sensor officer reported that the anomaly was within active scanning range. He hoped the increase was a good thing.
“Is there a problem, Captain?” Geordi asked, noticing his superior’s presence.
“I’m not entirely certain. Tell me, do you know if more than one ship at a time can travel through the wormhole?”
Data stopped scanning the screen for a moment, focusing his positronic brain on the quandary. “If you are referring to the pursuing Imperial starships, than I believe that it would be impossible for them to enter the anomaly after us without knowing its exact dimensions or how we were able to manipulate it. It is unknown if they are even aware of its existence.”
“So they couldn’t simply follow us through?”
“I do not believe so. Judging by the data that is current known about the wormhole, it appears to latch on individually to each object that enters it. Without employing the deflector control Cortana and I have postulated will guide a ship to the correct spatial and dimensional coordinates, any pursuing starship would be deposited randomly at some other entry point, as the Enterprise was, or destroyed outright by the feedback present during the transit period.”
Picard nodded and glanced back at the tactical hologram, which showed the distance between the Republica and her assailants was continuing to diminish. “I suppose we have no safer course of action.”
Another blast rocked the ship, and several warning alarms began to blare. “Were losing deflector strength in grid twenty four, captain,” Gavplek warned, his eyes locked on a representation of the Republica displayed on one of the tactical screens. Several of its rear sections were glowing red.
“Time to the wormhole?”
“Twenty seconds,” Cortana replied, watching Ryceed intently from her pedestal. The woman glared back, ignoring the next thermonuclear explosion that rocked her ship.
“You’re sure that you can pull this off? I’d rather go down fighting than be stranded in some distant backwater or deposited in a star.”
Cortana replied only with a wink, and then turned her attention to Data and his team. “Are all the systems prepared?”
“Affirmative. I am shunting deflector control and all other required protocols to the systems you can directly interface. I recommend you begin the sequence in exactly fifteen point seven seconds.”
Cortana took one last look around the bridge; Ryceed’s distrust, Picard’s nervous anticipation, and the Chief’s calm and trusting patience. She could still feel his confidence and faith in her abilities through their neural link, and they encouraged her. She wouldn’t let him down, let any of them down. After all, how hard could navigating an uncharted spatial anomaly of unknown origin with a margin of error less than half a second long be? It’s not like she’d never done such a thing before.
“Alright, we’re going in. Wish me luck.”
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The odd thing about Alliance computer systems, Cortana reflected, was that even though they had more space and processing power than anything she’d ever encountered before, they were oddly confining, probably be design. Every system and subsystem was separated from one another, and it was difficult to access more than one of them at a time. It probably made incursion by hostile virus programs or infiltration algorithms far more difficult, a prudent safety measure, but it also served to slow Cortana’s processing ability and reaction time to a level significantly below what she was accustom to on a UNSC starship. It was good then that Data had had the presence of mind to manually connect all the systems Cortana would need into a temporary nexus; the anticipated maneuver would be impossible otherwise.
Using the Republica’s sensors, she could see in every direction; the Imperial strike force, the clouds of TIE fighters pelting the engine block with blistering green hail, the unnamed star system’s distant primary. The one thing she could not actually perceive was the wormhole they were barreling towards, it was virtually invisible to all but the most aggressive and specific of scans, but she new exactly where it was, and where she needed to be. The Cornwall’s data banks had told here that much.
A few seconds later, a significantly extended period to the AI now that she was fully cut off from the outside world, the bow of the Mon Calamari starship plunged into the unknown abyss, and Cortana set to work.
At first, there was nothingness, no readings from any of the ship’s active or passive scanners, no pressures or discharge from the deflector perimeter. Then, slowly, like an itch spreading up one’s arm, the lashing discharges started. Something, out there in the abyss, was grabbing at every joule of energy that was diffused beyond the hull of the ship and turning it back inward, distorting the shields and disrupting the sensors. One stray vein of energy bypassed the shields entirely and lanced directly into one of the starship’s power supply lines. Cortana felt the fire control computer for an ion cannon on deck five overload.
I hope no one was using that.
One of her own subsystems, a chronometer logarithm, alerted her to the time; Data’s countdown was up. Cortana reached out, expanding her consciousness into all of the scanners and sensor arrays that were still operational. She was looking for some pattern, an underlying root of the attacks that could be identified, and harnessed.
There it was.
A clear loop of discharges and pulses emerged, stable yet complex. Oddly so in fact. She would have expected any pattern in the phenomenon to be erratic and difficult to harness, yet this one was very clear, almost screaming to be found.
Cortana switched her attentions, seizing control of the deflector shield network. A very fine adjustment to the power output for the system, and a resonance began to emerge in the invisible barrier. As the vibration began to grow and fluctuate, the AI began to bombard the shield with tractor beam micro-pulses, driving the ship’s own pattern to match the one she could feel in the void around her. For a moment, the patterns met and then fluctuated apart, but Cortana seized the initiative, varying the micro-pulses more quickly. The patterns came back in line.
Now there was only one more step; apply the frequency recorded at the beginning of the Cornwall’s journey to the Republica’s deflector array. Something in the back of her mind told Cortana that she was running out of time, the energy feedback was becoming more and more intense. With renewed urgency, she pulsed the tractor beam generators and shield emitters, slowly at first, and then more quickly as the deflector began to align.
She winced as one of the sensor arrays overloaded, and a full quadrant of the ship was blocked from view. What remained though was beginning to pick up something very interesting. Rather than remain a solid frequency, or taper off into a thousand disparate stands, the ambient pattern began to break into exactly four distinct and stable pieces. Cortana was amazed, for she had never seen a natural phenomenon behave in such an orderly and logical manner before.
Her fascinated inspection of the unique series was cut short however, as the ambient frequency began to change, pulsing in syncopation with the deflector system. A tremor ran through the ship, and Cortana sensed one of the four strands becoming more prominent, it’s frequency ringing in accord with the Republica’s. She felt the ship jolt again, the pattern began to distort, the energy discharges coalescing into a wall of light...
And then it was over, the charged void began to vanish, replaced by the familiar blackness of deep space. Sum time in transit: seven seconds.
Before the AI had anytime to really begin to appreciate her success, or start assessing the damage the ship had suffered, something else, one of her own subsystems again, distracted her. Cortana had almost forgotten about the fragment of her consciousness she had assigned to analyze the Arbiter’s data chip, which was still nestled in the Chief’s helmet. The task was noted as being completed, and curious, the AI accessed the results.
It took her .45 seconds to realize something was horribly wrong.
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“Transit is complete, captain.”
The helmsman was somewhat amazed at the sound of his own voice, as was everyone within earshot. The last few seconds had been so remarkably strange, that it was odd to discern anything that seemed familiar. At first, it had seemed like everyone had passed out, but all of them to a one had then witnessed a lightshow of impossible colors and pulses, an experienced that seemed to have transcended time and conscious reality itself. And now that everyone was firmly back in control of their mental faculties, it seemed that no one had collapsed or moved in any way. Even Data seemed to have been effected similarly.
“Fascinating,” the android stated simply, rising from his seat and looking around the chamber in what almost appeared to be a state of amusement.
Ryceed was the first to fully recover, rushing over to one of the ship’s status readouts. “Damage report.”
“Minor damage to main ion control and the hyperdrive motivators,” Gavplek reported. “There also seems to be some sort of feedback in our sensor array, but Comm is already filtering out the static.”
“Structural damage?”
“None reported.”
“And the Imperials?”
“Sensors aren’t picking up any enemy transponders in our immediate vicinity,” a Mon Calamari lieutenant reported, still working to factor out the static that was clouding his instruments.
At last, the slightest of smiles crossed Ryceed’s face, and she turned to Picard and Leia, who had climbed to the command deck beside her. “Well, it looks like your droids did it Picard. I suppose I owe them both a debt of gratitude.”
Picard smiled gratefully. “I’ll pass that long. Now, shall we figure out where exactly that wormhole deposited us?”
“Captain.” The same lieutenant spoke up again. “I’m picking up new power readings. A lot of them.”
The color drained out of Ryceed’s face and she was at the officer’s side in an instant. “I thought you said none of the enemy warship followed us though the anomaly.”
“No sir, not Imperial,” the officer replied, indicating to a sensor display. “They’re not like anything I’ve ever seen before, and there’s nothing on file that matches up. The power sources definitely aren’t hypermatter fusion or solar ionization based.”
Leia drifted over now, as did Captain Picard. “One of your ships perhaps?” she suggested.
Picard looked at the figures and power ratings scrolling across the screen, then shook his head. “It doesn’t look familiar, and if I’m reading the energy scaling chart correctly, those kind of levels are far beyond any ship in Starfleet.”
“Sir, the long range imaging scanners just came online. We appear to be in the middle of a star system; four planets, one of them a gas giant, main-sequence star. I’m picking up a lot of activity around the second planet in the system. Dozens… no, hundreds of contacts. There’s also a lot of energy being thrown around out there, it looks like a battle.”
“Show me.”
The main holographic display morphed into the form of a tiny blue and green planet, wreathed in uncounted miniscule dots and flecks of color. Ryceed shot a sharp glance at the sensor officer, and he rushed to magnify the image. After a few moments, the glimmering display shifted again, and the planet increased in size one hundred fold. The tiny dots that encircled it also increased in clarity, taking the shape of tiny, brick-like structures and larger vessels that looked oddly like shelled sea creatures.
It was not these forms however, or the power readings that began to feed more clearly across the sensor screens and projections, that caught the Master Chief’s attention. From his place in on the lower level of the bridge, the Spartan stared up at the globe itself, his eyes absorbing the shape of its continents and the deep blue of its vast oceans. He could even make out cities, tiny splotches of gray along rivers and coasts; there were other splotches as well, swaths of brown and black that seemed to be spreading across the planet even as he watched. The Master Chief had seen this planet before, and he knew it well.
A planet named Reach.
Last edited by Noble Ire on 2006-01-04 06:34pm, edited 1 time in total.
ooh, will history be changed at the battle of Reach by the appearance of the Republica and it's trans-universal crew? Or wil the Covenant military machine crush these new heretics? Only the next chapter will tell!
The Holy Covenant was built upon hierarchy, and without uncompromising adherence to it, its vast empire would have collapsed long ago. As often was the case with systems built upon conquest and obedience, none of the Covenant’s power could have been won without the thankless servitude and sacrifice of countless trillions of lesser workers and soldiers; the Unngoy, Kig-yar, Drinol, and Yanme’e all had labored at the lowest levels of society for thousands of years, so long that most would not have it any other way. Above them, barely, came the Lekgolo, warriors of titanic strength and epic endurance, and the Huragok, the engineers who maintained the Covenant’s mighty fleets and kept the huge military state from collapsing under its own logistical weight. Then came the Jiralhanae, the newest client species of the Covenant and the rarest, who served as the personal servants of the highest level of the empire.
Finally, near the top of this interstellar societal pyramid, sat the Sangheili, a founding partner of the Covenant, and the motivators of the Covenant military, driven by an unparalleled sense of honor and devotion to whatever task they would set upon. Only one race, so mighty and divine in the eyes of those that they ruled that they were only known by their self-given title, was elevated beyond these great soldiers. The Prophets, as they were called, first partner in the foundation of the Covenant, were the force that united and inspired the entire unstoppable machine. They were the conduit for the will of the gods, the Forerunners, a species so ancient that only a few relics and cryptic glyphs scattered throughout the galaxy still remained of them. At the Covenant’s founding, the earliest Prophets told of a place beyond space and time where these mighty beings still resided, waiting to accept all those who worshiped them into eternal paradise, salvation from the cruel reality of existence.
The design of Covenant warships mirrored this strict hierarchy. Within elegantly curved hulls of meters-thick amethyst-hued metal, Unngoy and Kig-yar crewers toiled in cramped work areas, manning massive plasma turrets and operating unimportant substations. Further inward, Huragok maintained delicate power matrices and tended the slipspace drives that could push the starships beyond the limitations of light and realspace, a little closer to the gods perhaps, as the technology necessary for the devices had been reverently salvaged from ancient Forerunner wrecks.
Then, at the very heart of the vast vessels, was the overbridge, domain of the Sangheili and those Prophets who would choose to grace the ships with their presence. From this chamber, the Ship Master and his staff had enough power at their disposal to obliterate all life on the surface of a planet, or hunt a heretic across the galactic disk. The heart of one vessel in particular, one of the mightiest warships the Covenant had constructed since its conception, served the same function, but the one who occupied it elevated the space to a place of far greater importance.
Tall and imposing even for the giants that made up his race, Teno ‘Falanamee, stood in calm reflection to one side of the circular command platform that hovered on anti-gravity beams meters above the small communications pit and the basin-like floor surrounding it. Though his posture exuded control and intensity, his dress was not what one would expect of a Ship Master of his status. Rather than the customary golden armor others of his station flaunted while on duty, he wore simple, jet-black armor, similar to that worn by the most elite of the Sangheili Special Operations forces. When being observed by a Prophet, he would wear the normal uniform out of respect, but the simpler garb was always donned for battle.
This small deviation from the norm was indicative of ‘Falanamee’s personality and command style. While just as strict and aggressive as his fellow Ship Masters, he was far more willing to relate with and listen to his underlings, and avoided suicidal and unnecessarily costly tactics in battle whenever possible, reluctant to sacrifice even Unggoy, lowliest of all Covenant species. This unusual loyalty to his men had made ‘Falanamee very popular among his crew, and their efficiency rating in battle was markedly higher than any other in the entire Covenant starfleet. The Sangheili on the High Council, ruling body of the Covenant, had taken notice of his success in the field, and had given him command of Particular Justice, a large and prestigious group of warships lead by some of the best officers in the fleet. At his elevation ceremony, the High Prophet of Truth himself, greatest of all of the Hierarchs, had deemed him “One of our greatest instruments.”
Since even before his first command, Teno ‘Falanamee had fought, as most Sangheili had, in the Covenant’s newest great crusade, one in a long line of conquests the Prophets had decreed over the ages. Most of the client members of the Covenant had been assimilated by these crusades, as their typical purpose was to, “join the peoples of the galaxy together for their own salvation, so that we might all better prepare for the predestined great journey into cleansed bliss”, in the words of a High Prophet of millennia past.
This war, however, was different. Rather than subdue and indoctrinate the newly discovered species, the prophets had decreed upon first contact that the beings were a blight upon the galaxy, and would have to be cleansed for salvation ever to occur. Such was the will of the gods, they said, and could not be denied. The subjects of the Prophet’s ire, known as Humans, possessed technology vastly inferior to the Covenant’s, and most had predicted the slaughter would be brief. The slight, hairless mammals, however, had proved to be staunch and ingenious foes, hiding their worlds from the overwhelming Covenant fleet through a myriad of restrictive protocols and fighting fiercely when located. The war had raged on for eleven time units, thirty years by the human calendar, and doubt in the effectiveness and purpose of their quest had begun to grow among the Covenant’s ranks. Why are we slaughtering these humans who have proved themselves so worthy in battle, some Sangheili had begun to ask, and the doubt had grown from there. A slew of assassinations of lesser Prophets and their staunchest followers, and a spreading breakaway heretical movement had begun to question the validity of the Prophets, and undermined the hierarchy that had existed for uncounted generations. The slight improvement in human firepower over time and rumors of unstoppable warriors being integrated into their ranks had not helped ease tensions.
Thus, when a spy probe had at last located the world known as Reach, suspected center of all human military operations, the hierarchs had summoned a fleet of hundreds of capital ships to obliterate the world, a blow that would hopefully crush all remaining human resistance and stem the tide of descent within the hierarchy. ‘Falanamee, his reputation increased by several very successful campaigns during the long war, had been dispatched to command the Particular Justice in their role during the battle. The assault had been surprisingly costly, and a lucky strike by a small human attack cruiser had managed to destroy the Blessed Fire, flagship of the attack force. ‘Falanamee had assumed command of the massed fleet, but by that time most of the human fleet was shattered, and the remaining fighting was centered around a single human space station, which was suspected to hold data on the location of the human homeworld, and thus could not be destroyed, yet.
The towering Sangheili stared up into the glimmering hologram of the embattled world that filled the cavernous space above the command platform, noting the black patches beginning to spread across its surface. As was customary after human resistance around one of their worlds was quashed, the victorious fleet would turn its landmasses into sheets of glass and boil its oceans into nothingness from orbit. He was careful not to let the emotion become evident to any of his subordinates, but inwardly, he sighed. He believed in the Prophets, and would follow the word of the gods to his dying breath, but the needless slaughter of so many of these beings was beginning to wear upon him, and had been doing so for several years, since he had been ordered to bombard a heavily-populated human world completely devoid of any means of resistance. Such an action went against his personal warrior’s ethic, especially considering how valiantly the beings fought even against impossible odds. They would make fine additions to the Covenant, if circumstances were different.
Still, he would not think of openly defying the Prophet’s edict, and they had said this must be done. It might not make sense to him or any other warrior, but the motives of Forerunners and their instruments were surely beyond his comprehension.
Speaking of which…
He heard the quite clack of armored boots on the polished metal floor and turned, his eyes met by the prideful stare of a subordinate, Hiph ‘Netanimee. The younger Sangheili, of a more muscular build than the Ship Master, dipped his arched head in respect, allowing the soft light of the hologram above them to glint off of his white helm.
“Report.”
“Excellency, the Gentle Fate is beaming us a communications order. It is of the highest urgency.”
‘Falanamee nodded and waved the commander away with a four-fingered hand, turning to a smaller, dormant holographic generator that sat slightly off from the main one. ‘Netanimee quickly walked over to the edge of the floating disc and motioned to a Sangheili major standing at attention below, who in turn relayed the confirmation to the four Huragok who worked diligently in the communications pit. A moment later, the holographic generator sparked to life, swiftly drawing a figure out of pulses of light in the space above it. The Ship Master knelt.
A diminutive, long-necked creature with a triangular head came into view, huge, almost reptilian eyes not betraying any emotion as he looked through the projector. He was dressed in expansive, crimson robes and was seated in a high-backed hover chair, common for his kind, who were generally physically fragile. The voice that emerged from his thin, wrinkled lips was surprisingly deep.
“The battle goes well, Teno ‘Falanamee?”
“Yes, noble one. The human fleet should be utterly defeated in moments, and the bombardment of their world has begun.”
“Good, good.”
‘Falanamee could tell that the alien, who went by the title Prophet of Benefaction, was concerned about something. Despite the fact that the Prophet’s ship was observing the battle from well outside the planetary system (it wouldn’t do for one of the Hierarchs own lieutenants to be put in harms way unnecessarily), it sported a sensor system superior to even his flagship’s, and it would not surprise him if the Prophet had seen an element of the waning conflict he had not.
“My vessel has detected a lone human ship leaving the system. It seems to have slipped though your battle net, and is on the verge of escaping into the void.”
“You would have me pursue it?”
The Prophet raised a thin eyebrow at the question. “Of course. The cleansing of this place must be complete. No humans who fought here can be allowed to escape. Such is the will of the Hierarchs.”
“Then it shall be done, noble one.”
“The Council will hear of your actions on this day, Ship Master. You have done a great service for the Covenant, and your fidelity will not soon be forgotten.”
“I live and die for the Great Journey and its harbingers.”
The Prophet nodded in solidarity, and his image faded into nothingness. Rising from his position of supplication, ‘Falanamee glanced back at the battle map, which now registered no functioning human craft save one, its coordinates transmitted to the flagship along the same frequency as the Prophet’s command. It was a relatively small, ugly-looking vessel, even by human design standards, but it was moving unusually fast, streaking from the defeated world like a rider-less steed. The Ship Master’s immediate battle group was the closest unit to it of the massed fleet, made up of his warship and a small collection of support craft, including several squadrons of agile fighterships the humans called seraphs.
“‘Netanimee, alert our combat cluster. We are to engage that fleeing human vessel. Follow it into the void if necessary. Then inform the master of the Ark Crusade that he has taken command of the armada and to await further instruction from the noble Prophet when the immolation of that world is complete.”
“Shall I summon more ships?”
“They will not be needed. Humans may be clever prey, but even they cannot deny the power of this ship and its crew. Our hunt will be brief.”
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The millisecond Cortana had reviewed her analysis program’s results, she launched into action, not bothering to even take a cursory scan of the Republica’s new quardinants before beginning to bypass the firewalls and cut-offs that segmented the starship’s computer system. Her artificial mind processed and reprocessed the information she had deciphered as her consciousness flitted through subsystems and low-power connection circuits, trying to extrapolate outcomes and make links to other data she held in her formidable memory. One thing had been instantly clear however; she would have to act fast, or the Republica and everyone on it would be killed.
Finding herself at last in a more directly networked system, power distribution monitoring, she jumped into the processor of a maintenance terminal, and the branched out again, attempting to locate another system network, reactor output control. The firewalls here were far stiffer than they had been in the less vital systems she had traversed, but the infiltration software wired into her cortex allowed the AI to ward them off temporarily. She doubted she would be able to do so again, considering the adaptive nature of the ship’s programming, but there was no time to waste worrying about such an unlikely eventuality.
After a few moments of searching, Cortana located her target, a minor offshoot of the hypermatter reactor system, secondary flow regulation.
Yes, this is place. Now if I could only figure out what he did in here…
Unsurprisingly, the selected interface’s activity logs for the last few hours had been carefully erased, but Cortana had encountered that trick before, and swiftly began to scan files not directly related to the terminal’s primary function, but still shared its subsection of memory space. There were always footprints when files were erased, especially in a hasty manner, as the ones she was looking for had been. Nevertheless, there seemed to be no evidence of any imprinting on the adjacent software she was searching. Perhaps Alliance technology was efficient enough to disperse even those tiny bits of irrelevant code.
Running through all of the decoding procedures and hacking protocols she had at her disposal, Cortana attempted formulate another strategy, and all the while the nagging chronometer in the back of her mind counted on, the danger increasing with each passing digit. Focusing every byte of processing power on the problem, the AI ran through dozens of procedures in seconds, discarding each one as it dead-ended. The digital equivalent of a profanity began to cycle through her thought processes, growing more prominent and rapid as each operation failed.
Then, purely by accident, Cortana stumbled upon the answer, a small bit of encoding so unimportant and dissimilar in UNSC computer systems that she had overlooked it at first. Another thing that was different here.
I’m really starting to hate this ship.
Fully aware that there was no time to mope, she pressed forward, rapidly pouring over the recovered logs. Most were regular systems maintenance, pass code encryptions, things of that nature, but a few of the most recent logged commands did not deal with power flow systems at all, but rather with the reactor itself.
Cortana accessed one of the commands in particular, more involved than the rest, and suddenly found here attention dragged to a completely different terminal via some kind of hacked remote interface. Normally, the system, hypermatter injection control, would be heavily fire-walled, but the link-up seemed to have bypassed the security entirely. Alien design or not, Cortana immediately noticed something in the system was slightly out of place, and applied the information to her growing file on the subject.
The Chief is going to love this one.
--------------------------------------------------------
“A bomb?” Captain Ryceed stared into Cortana’s glimmering eyes, seemingly trying to decide whether or not the AI was joking, or simply being obnoxious. She had just lead her crew and ship away from certain destruction, and been one of the first beings of her galaxy to actually traverse a wormhole, accomplishments impressive even for a Alliance captain, and now this interloper in her computer was telling her that there was an infiltrator among her crew, and an explosive buried with the Republica’s innards. Imal would have truly thought it some cruel joke and ordered the AI at last extricated from her systems, but when the Master Chief had briefly informed the command staff that they had somehow stumbled upon his homeworld and galaxy, Cortana had barely even paused to inspect the holographic globe floating in the middle of the bridge. The being was serious.
It took a moment for the Captain to respond, and when she did, it was with her furrowed brow and most of her faced covered by a slightly trembling hand. The posture drew worried glances from the upper levels of her command crew; the woman was obviously exhausted and out of her element, a circumstance which made Ryceed notoriously unpredictable and irrational.
“Alright, I’m listening.”
Cortana nodded and her image morphed into a rough cross-section of one of the starship’s interior decks, very near the Republica’s large hypermatter annihilation reactor. “I believe that the device is somewhere in here, most likely planted on one of the coolant pylons that periodically pump super-cooled gas into the shell surrounding the reactant chamber.” A section of the deck beyond the crewed passageways, directly under the core sphere, lit up, glowing with special emphasis around three tube-like structures that jutted up into the reactor several decks above. “If I’m right, the next time one of these injector pumps locks into place to deliver its payload, in eleven minutes, the device will detonate. The damage would be catastrophic.”
“We should deactivate the system immediately,” Gavplek warned, checking the chronometer inlaid in a nearby terminal anxiously.
Ryceed nodded in agreement, but she looked concerned. “Commander Hessun, what effect would shutting down those injectors have on our operational status?” The officer in question, chief of the ship’s maintenance corps moved over quickly to assess the data Cortana was displaying.
“We’d have to send the reactor into low-level stasis cycle while those pylons are offline, sir. The risk of overloading the regulation systems without a steady supply of that coolant is too great. In any event, there’s too much static charge in the injector chamber to perform a search when the reactor is at full strength, even for droids.” The abnormally pale Mon Calamari’s skin tone and raspy voice served to enhance his aura of anxiety. “Switching over to the reserve generators, life support and the deflectors could stay online, but we’d lose the weapons and most of our maneuvering power.”
Ryceed continued to scrutinize the projection for a while longer, and then looked up at the globe that was the newly discovered planet, wreathed in brightly-indicated starships of unknown design, its landmasses now gaining a distinctly unnatural, blackened appearance.
“Captain,” Cortana’s voice urged.
“Are those starships hostile?”
“Very.” The Chief’s resonate voice garnered the attention of all those near him, as it always did. “As we speak, the Covenant are killing billions of defenseless civilians trapped on that planet.”
Cortana reappeared, shooting the Spartan a sour look, but her annoyance at his lack of diplomatic skill was blunted somewhat by the bombardment of Reach unfolding before her eyes, again. No, there’s nothing we can do for them. Especially not now. “Captain, were running out of time. I do not believe that the Covenant fleet has detected our presence, and if we wait here too much longer, all they’ll ever find is a cloud of gaseous debris.”
Glanced from one hologram to the other, and shook her head sighing. “Alright, do it. Commander, how long will it take to get back main power when the system can be reactivated?”
The pale Mon Calamari, who was already reaching for a wall comm to relay the order, diverted to a nearby operations computer. “Two minutes and twenty seconds, sir.”
Ryceed acknowledged the data and Hessun rushed to contact the core. “Cortana, before we dispatch anyone to the suspect system, I want to know just how you came across this information.”
Cortana did not pause before responding. “I analyzed a visual recording given to me by the Arbiter a few minutes ago.” Standing back from the main group of officers and ambassadors, but listening no less intently, Major Truul’s eyebrows rose in alarm. “It shows one of your officers, one Lieutenant Flitch, planting an explosive device in a computer room onboard the Alliance supply station. I simply followed up my suspicion that he would likely attempt something similar here by searching recent computer activity near…”
“Wait, what’s all this now?” Major Truul was now standing in the midst of the group, glaring at Cortana sharply. “Flitch is no Imperial. There’s no way. If that’s what your source is saying, I wouldn’t trust it.”
“I’m afraid it’s true, unless you can explain why he hacked into the core power regulation computer using stolen access codes, or what he was doing here.” She disappeared again, replaced by a two-dimensional image, somewhat blurry and jerky, but viewable nonetheless. On it, a young man in an Alliance uniform walked quickly down a narrow hallway and slipped into a side door. The image followed him quickly, its bearer slipping in through the door before it had time to close. Now illuminated only by the soft light of computer display, the officer quickly crossed the empty, dark room, and placed a case on top of a data file storage cabinet. The figure worked quickly, loosening a wall panel with a powered lever, then inserting a largish, square object into the hole. He tapped it a few times, and a series of digits appeared on its side surface, almost obscured by the man’s body. He tapped a few more commands, and then covered the digits with a lid, sealing the entire thing into the wall. He quickly slipped his prying implement back into the case, and turned, at which point the projection halted. There, even in the relative darkness, the lieutenant’s soft features were very clear, although this time, they had a distinctly hard edge about them.
“I can only guess at how the Arbiter obtained this, or why he waited so long to show it to us, but the recording is authentic and unmodified.” Cortana’s voice was urgent. “Now please, we must act quickly.”
Truul’s lips tightened into a skull-like grimace, and he unclipped the communicator from his belt, his eyes still fixed on the projected face. “Security control, this is Major Truul. Alert all armed personnel that Lieutenant Flitch, of my staff, is to be detained by any means necessary. Warn them that he’s likely armed.” The man paused, his face a mask. “If he resists, give them authorization to use lethal force. Flitch is not to get off this ship, under any circumstances.”
Last edited by Noble Ire on 2005-11-08 10:51pm, edited 1 time in total.
Just thought I'd do a little me-tooing and let you know that I have been following and enjoying your fic from the first chapter. I tend to be a grammar Nazi, but the excellent characterizations and events have helped distract me from any...minor technicalities in your writing. Looking forward to the next installment.
DesertFly wrote:Just thought I'd do a little me-tooing and let you know that I have been following and enjoying your fic from the first chapter. I tend to be a grammar Nazi, but the excellent characterizations and events have helped distract me from any...minor technicalities in your writing. Looking forward to the next installment.
Thanks.
I have started to notice that there are an abnormally large number of gramatical errors in my fic (including instances where I forget to type words entirely.) I plan to correct as many as can be found in the second edition of The Rift, which will also feature minor modification to the first few chapters (mostly changing Chapter start/end points) and some facutal corrections, forthcoming soon-ish. Meanwhile, I will endevor to run each chapter by my proof-reader before I post them here.
Flitch repeated these words of wisdom from his training over and over again in his mind in an attempt to keep focused. The long hallways of the Rebel starship now felt uncomfortably narrow; almost closing in on him. Some of the crewmen he passed eyed him surreptitiously, more out of casual curiosity than suspicion, but the distinction meant nothing to the infiltrator right now; any inquiry could mean the death of him. He hugged the case in the crook of his arm closer, making sure that its access flap was unbound.
As far as Flitch knew, he had not yet been discovered, despite the brutish alien’s assault, but as he made his way towards the main hangar deck, the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle with anxiety. Certainly, it was a natural reaction for a man in his situation, especially for one largely inexperienced with this kind of operation, but he knew intuitively that it was more than that. The Ubiqtorate taught its operatives to trust their instincts, even when logic indicated otherwise. Of course, imperial training was generally focused enough to make the two one and the same.
Footsteps.
Barely thinking, Flitch turned into a side hall, walking a few meters more before ducking behind a pillar of protruding conduit housing. His left hand reached out for the access flap of his container, and he waited, listening intently. After a few moments, the footfalls became louder, and for a brief second, Flitch caught a snippet of a hushed conversation. The man speaking sounded concerned about something, but the operative couldn’t pick out enough of the words to derive any meaning from them. Determined to confirm his suspicions, Flitch moved from his hiding spot as soon as the pedestrians had passed, catching a glimpse of their backs before they disappeared beyond a turbolift door. Two Rebel marines, their holsters empty and backs squared with purpose.
Withdrawing again from the main hall, Flitch gritted his teeth, considering options. They were on to him now, that was almost certain, but it was unlikely they knew where he was, or he would be in custody already. Avoiding monitored portions of the ship and sticking to service access ways might shake them for a time, but he would have to move quickly before the hangar was locked down and his only method of escape was removed from him. Not to mention the explosive that would be detonating in a scant few minutes. Still, Flitch had made sure he had an Idiot’s Array up his sleeve before implementing the final stage of his mission. Now all he had to do was hurry.
Glancing around to make sure he was still unobserved, Flitch groped around in a side panel of his case and removed a small rectangle of plastoid, adorned with several unremarkable buttons.
“Ignition one,” he whispered, and depressed the first control.
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Despite the size of the Republica, the tremors caused by the explosion were quite noticeable on the bridge, nearly causing several of those still standing around the holographic projector to fall to the deck plate.
“Report.”
Captain Ryceed leapt from her seat when the blast reverberated through her bridge, but she nevertheless tried to keep her voice and composure calm. A flurry of comm signals and internal sensor scans later, an Operations officer turned to report.
“There was an explosion on deck thirty, section D two. Several casualties, no fatalities reported so far. Security is clearing the area.”
“What happened?” Gavplek asked.
“The traitor,” Worf growled from his place by Captain Picard.
The operations officer paused to listen to another update over his comm line, and then nodded. “Yes, it looks like an explosive went off near the armory on that deck. However, it seems like the device didn’t have the desired effect. None of the munitions went off, and there were no hull breaches, just some structural damage to the hallway on deck thirty one, directly below.”
“He messed up,” Ryceed noted, turning to Major Truul, who was listening to the report with the same stony-faced expression he had used to order his subordinate’s capture. “We have to find him before he can set off anymore of these things. Get a scanning team up here too search my bridge for any of these bombs.”
Truul saluted stiffly. “ Yes, Ma’am.” He paused a moment. “Sir, permission to leave the bridge and lead the search of the ship for Flitch. It’s my fault he’s here right now, and I’m not going to let my mistake endanger this mission.”
The captain nodded in consent, and Truul made for the turbolift bank, almost at a run.
“Perhaps we should go with him,” Riker suggested to Picard as they watched the man step into the lift. “It’s our duty to help these people now. Besides, I don’t like just standing here, doing nothing.” The commander had considered asking to do this before, when the Master Chief, at Cortana’s request, had left with the Mon Calamari engineer to investigate the reactor bomb, and now the situation seemed all the more urgent.
“No, we mustn’t interfere without their requesting it.” Picard looked unhappy with his own words, but he remained firm. “The Republica has its own security force. We would simply be an impediment to their efforts.”
“I wouldn’t recommend leaving the bridge right now for any reason,” Leia Organa warned, looking away from the tense duty stations. “This is probably the safest place on the Republica at the moment, assuming of course they don’t find anything.” She eyed the small crew of humanoids and droids who had just entered the chamber, hauling a variety of portable scanners and monitoring devices.
“Oh dear,” the princess’s golden protocol droid intoned quietly, nudging closer to his master.
Picard seemed similarly agitated, but Leia sensed it was for a different reason. “I’m sure the others of your group are perfectly safe. Crew quarters wouldn’t be very high on the target list of a fleeing saboteur.”
Picard cocked an eyebrow and smiled slightly. “I hope your right, Councilor Organa. If I may say, you have quite the knack for empathy. I try not to let my worries show in situations like this. I had thought I was somewhat good at it.”
The young woman blushed slightly. “I’m sorry, that was presumptuous of me. I’ve just had a lot of time to gauge people’s emotions in my service of the Alliance, and it comes in handy in my line of work. Oh, and you can call me Leia if you wish. I never liked the title much. The same with princess really.” The last thought was accompanied by a bemused smile that the woman gave to no one in particular, at least not anyone present at the moment.
Before Picard could reply, one of the nearby crewers shouted out a warning. “Captain, we have a problem.”
Ryceed was behind the woman in a flash, looking over her shoulder. “Another explosion?”
“No, sir. One of the unidentified starships around that planet has broken high orbit and is on a rough intercept course for our position. Estimated ETA, nine minutes.”
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“Excellency, the Maintainer has detected something worthy of your notice.”
Teno ‘Falanamee tore his eyes from the projection of the human ship that was flowering from a secondary holographic device and turned to Hiph ‘Netanimee, who stood at sharp attention, as always.
“Indeed?”
Though he did not allow his voice to show it, the Ship Master was curious as to what news the Maintainer had deemed important enough to convey. The artificial mind, a meticulously duplicated copy of a computer program the Huragok had designed under special sanction of the Prophets several thousand years ago, the Maintainer dwelt within the hulls of most Covenant warships. They were generally tasked with regulating automatic systems and tending passive scanning arrays, and it was rare for one to actually volunteer information of any relevance, especially during combat. The mind inhabiting ‘Falanamee’s flagship was especially quiet; he could only recall ever actually speaking with it a handful of times. The Ship Master had always suspected that there might have been a replication defect in the holy program, but he had never had good reason to risk bring the problem up with a Prophet. To question such an old technology without a blatantly obvious reason verged on heresy.
“The holy mind has discovered an anomaly in the space between the human’s world and this system’s gas giant. It is emitting an energy signature unlike anything the mind has ever witnessed.”
“Unlike anything it has ever witnessed?” ‘Falanamee asked curiously. That was most unusual. From what the Ship Master understood of them, the artificial minds spent most of their sleepless existences analyzing and reanalyzing every bit of information in their consciousness. Though not as comprehensive as Huragok implementation repositories or the Hierarchs’ personal archives, Maintainers held virtually every scrap of navigational and technical information the Covenant had ever accumulated. If something truly new had been discovered, it would most certainly be deserving of notice.
“Show it to me.”
Its control display lightly nudged by the Sangheili commander, another holographic projector sprang to life, this one slowly filling the air with a glimmering outline. It was long, almost tubular, but with gracefully rounded edges. As the image increased in definition, the Ship Master noted that the object looked a great deal like some of the smaller vessels in the Covenant armada.
“The Maintainer is positive that it is not a human starship; its design is quite unlike their hideous constructs,” ‘Netanimee continued.
“Is it positive?” the Ship Master asked as the silhouette began to fill in, revealing large ovoid bulges and dark scars dotting its hull. “The humans have exhibited quite a talent for stealing our designs and technology. Could this not be another such aberration?”
The commander paused, his mandibles contorting into an uncomfortable frown. “Excellency, there is more. That object is emitting power levels beyond any warship in our armada, even this one. It appears to have just lowered its output for some unknown reason, but it is quite beyond the capability of any of our vessels that small.”
Now ‘Falanamee was intrigued. He had never personally encountered such an occurrence, and could not think of any protocol in his training relating to the encountering a non-Covenant vessel more powerful than his own. Such a thing was unheard of, and had been so since before the current age.
“Has the object made any hostile move or attempted to communicate?”
The commander glanced over at the two other intendant Sangheili officers permitted on the command dais with the Ship Master, who returned the look with a negative gesture. “No, Excellency.”
Pausing only a moment longer to inspect the unknown construct, which was now quite clearly defined, ‘Falanamee turned his attention back to the human vessel, still surging towards the boundaries of the conquered star system. “Instruct the Angelic Fury and Ankh Reaver to investigate. We have a more pressing duty to attend to. Transmit the object’s coordinates to the holy Prophet’s vessel as well. I’m sure he will take great interest in this discovery.”
‘Netanimee saluted and turned away, but before he could carry out his orders, one of the other intendants accosted him and quietly delievered a new message. Frowning, the commander turned back to his master, who was still watching him carefully.
“Excellency, the Prophet of Benefaction is demanding your audience once more. It would seem he already is aware of the Maintainer’s discovery.”
The Ship Master allowed himself to close both eyes at once, the greatest display of exasperation he would allow himself in public view, and then nodded stoically.
“I take it your sensors have discovered what mine have, Ship Master.” When the Prophet appeared before a supplicant ‘Falanamee moments later, he looked considerably more alert than he had when they had last spoken.
“Yes, noble one. I have dispatched two of my finest warships to investigate the object. I had intended on alerting you as well, but your attentiveness has made that unnecessary.”
The Prophet crocked a large eyebrow and leaned forward slightly, bringing his features into sharper definition. “Very good. However, more of a reception is required. I would have you break off your pursuit and rendezvous with my vessel at the artifact’s position.”
‘Falanamee looked up, startled. “Break off the pursuit, high one? You would allow these humans to escape divine justice?”
“You question my orders, Ship Master?”
The Sangheili chose his next words carefully. “I would never dream of such insolence, noble one. I simply do not see why my vessel’s presence at the investigation of that object is necessary, especially if such a course correction allows these fugitives to escape.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the air, the two leaders staring at each other through the void of space. Behind ‘Falanamee, one of his officers shifted uncomfortably. At last, the Prophet leaned back in his hover throne, a thin smile creasing his lips.
“Your question is a prudent one, Ship Master. What I would expect from one of your esteemed rank. However, my order stands. It is my belief that the artifact we have discovered is of Forerunner construction. What is more, it appears to be in very good repair. Perhaps even… inhabitable.”
Now the Ship Master was genuinely astonished. To find an intact Forerunner artifact was a momentous occasion, but not one without precedent. But to even suggest one was found with living beings inside it… Was the Prophet suggesting that the gods had returned to the mortal plane?
With a wave of his slender hand, the Prophet warded off any further inquiry. “I cannot relay why I suspect such an event has occurred, not until I am certain. However, your presence is required when contact is established. We must show proper respect.”
“Of course, noble one.”
When hologram faded, ‘Falanamee shook his head slowly, looking from the new artifact to the fleeing human vessel and back again. Something about this change in plans raged against his warrior’s intuition, and he certainly did not think that the Prophet’s suspicions were justified, but he was committed. Letting the human ship go would do no great harm, and deep down, he did not loathe the failure. Eradicating the sentients was his duty, and one he would carry out loyally, but it gave him no pleasure.
“Change course to rendezvous with that construct. Reduce power to the plasma installations. Gods’ gift, we will not need them.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five minutes left.
Flitch looked both ways down the hallway, and seeing only a few turned backs, dove across into the open door across the way. He immediately sealed the door and crossed the small service junction, prying loose a panel from the metal floor. This revealed a long, dark tube, descending down at least ten meters, lit only by a few dim wall mounts. The infiltrator smiled with satisfaction; this vertical access way, designed for use if the turbolift grid was offline, would bring him directly under where he needed to be. Hooking his case onto a flap of hi uniform, he slid into the hole, grabbing the protruding rungs that jutted out below.
After a few cramped, dark moments, he was at the bottom; his feet perched directly above a sealed blast door. Locating the corresponding access panel, he tapped a prominent command key, and the barrier slid away, revealing the rest of the ladder rungs, and the deck plate beneath. However, there was another, unexpected, object in his narrow field of vision below. The domed, orange head of a Mon Calamari almost completely filled the opening, bobbing slightly as the crewman repaired an electrical junction set between two of the lower rungs. Apparently, he had not heard the plug unseal itself a mere meter above him.
Flitch considered his options quickly. He couldn’t go back, there was no guarantee there would be another way to the hangar he could use, and time was short anyway. There was nothing for it but to continue on. Hopefully the oblivious alien wouldn’t prove too much of a challenge.
Hooking his case on one of the hand rungs, the human braced himself, and then dropped directly onto the Alliance crewer. Flitch felt his right foot impact the amphibian’s skull, but rather than deliver a debilitating concussion as he had hoped, the blow slid of the alien’s smooth head and both sentients tumbled to the floor. Hard.
Flitch was the first to try to rise, but the Mon Cal began to flail immediately, obviously disoriented, but still dangerous. The Imperial agent fell upon him again, slamming the alien back to the deck and smothering his lipless mouth. His large, finned arms began to pound on the assailant’s sides, but Flitch gritted his teeth and drove his elbows down, pinning the crewer more tightly to the cold deck. The Mon Calamari did not relent, thrashing and kicking as its huge eyes bulged out even larger, desperately searching the room for something that could help him. Feeling the larger being beginning to overcome the shock of its assault, Flitch again threw himself down upon the alien, lunging forward to grab its scaly neck. With a quick motion, he jerked sideways, and with a raspy gasp, the alien stopped moving.
Breathing heavily, he rolled off the crewer and scrabbled to his feet, quickly scanning his new surroundings. The room he was in, identical to the one above, was empty save for himself and the defeated Rebel. Flitch glanced back down at the immobile form and nudged it with his foot. The Mon Calamari was dead. The Imperial exhaled a long sigh, and then stepped over the body, plucking his case from where he had deposited it. Remorse was one of the first things that had been trained out of him.
Not bothering to make any effort to hide the corpse, Flitch deactivated the small chamber’s light panel, and listening at the door to make sure the way was clear, slipped out. The narrow hallway, a service passage, was vacant, obstructed only by a single deactivated astromech that was propped up to one side of the walkway. Pausing a moment to regain his bearings, the infiltrator set off again, careful to avoid the passages around him he knew to be constantly monitored. Though his stealthy route was unimpeded and devoid of unexpected complications, Flitch could tell time was running out, and he was beginning to fall behind.
At last he came to a doorway he clearly recognized, one that lead to the main inhabited area on the deck below level one he needed to reach. That meant that his tedious escape was almost at an end, although one of the most difficult parts still lay ahead. He would have to cross through several main, inhabited corridors to reach the vertical crawlway that would bring him to the flight deck. Once there, he could slip behind whatever guards the Alliance had posted there, detonate the last of his devices, which would ensure an unimpeded departure, and coast away. After a brief display of pyrotechnics, it would be a simple matter to relay a pickup code to the nearest Imperial base. Flitch wasn’t entirely sure where the Republica was at the moment, he had been absorbed in preparations for since departure, but he was sure that the data on Rebel and sympathizer activities he had accumulated would prove him worthy of a speedy retrieval, no matter where he was. His instructors had always noted his single-minded focus on a mission as a potential weakness, but it seemed to have worked in his favor this time; what did it matter where the Rebel vessel was going? It would be wreckage in a few minutes anyways.
Sure that his case was firmly secured at his side, Flitch removed a blank datapad from his pocket, positioned it before him in manner that indicated enthrallment, and allowed the automatic door to open.
There was surprisingly little foot traffic in the hallway, one that ran severed as a junction for several major duty stations, and a junior officer barracks. As he walked along, seemingly absorbed with the nonexistent data the pad possessed, Flitch theorized that it was likely due to him. Though he had heard no ship-wide alert, the recent explosion and increased presence of armed marines was likely to raise suspicions amongst the crew, and if confronted, Flitch suspected the soldiers had been instructed to warn crewers of the threat. Walking out in the open in such an environment was extremely risky, but Flitch hoped that his face was not particularly well known to most of the cruiser’s crew, and he had taken the time to swap his uniform for that of a low-level technician. Who would suspect an oblivious-looking tech wandering through a heavily traveled area, absorbed with some unimportant scrap of data?
A minute and several turns later, Flitch was still, at least seemingly, unnoticed. He suspected the surveillance cameras he had passed would identify him if given a few more moments, but by the time they did, he would be well away from the supernova that would engulf them. Still closely inspecting the blank pad, Flitch made one final turn, to the side passage that would bring him to the appropriate access way.
Smoothly, without even showing that he had looked up at all, the infiltrator ducked behind an extruding computer bank. Though he had only caught sight of them in his peripheral vision as he turned the corner, he had instantly recognized the uniform and weapon of the Rebel marine. His heart pounded and he stuck his right hand into the case at his side, preparing himself for the attack. It never came.
The marine he had seen, accompanied by a pair of nervously chattering techs, turned the corner, apparently not noticing the pedestrian who they had been behind was no longer in evidence, and continued on, pausing just beyond Flitch’s range of vision. They began to talk, and the infiltrator shrunk into the shadows as much as he could, wedging himself behind an exposed bit of power casing.
“This is the place.”
“Why would he plant one here? It’s just a computer junction.”
“Yes, a computer junction that networks fire control commands for most of the turbolaser banks on this side of the ship. If there was a detonation near this thing, it would take half an hour to reroute all of the weapons emplacements.”
“Here, help me get this open.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense. Still, if he intended on blowing up the ship anyways, why would he bother with some fire control computer?”
“Backup plan maybe, who knows? All that matters is that it’s a potential target. You know the Major’s orders.”
“Well, even if we find one here. I’d rather be taking care of it up here than down under the core. I had third shift down there a few weeks ago. Kind of creepy.”
“Whatever. I’m just glad they found the one down there so quickly. I’ve got a score to settle with those Imperial bastards before they send me to the Seven Hells.”
At this point, Flitch stopped listening. It was all he could do to stop himself from screaming out loud in frustration. The culmination of his operation was ruined! He couldn’t comprehend how the Rebels had located the core device, there was no beacon or activation transmitter on it; he had made sure of that. And they couldn’t have retraced his steps from the regulation computer so quickly, not even Imperial descrambler droids could break down the barriers he had put up so quickly.
No, there was no time to mull the failure. He still had to get off the ship; the information he had stolen still had value. There was still a way for him off the cruiser, assuming of course the diversions he had put in place did their jobs.
From the sound of it, the trio of Rebels had moved to the other side of the terminal, and taking advantage of their diverted attentions, Flitch stepped back out into the hallway, trying to look as inconspicuous as before. He passed the crewers without incident, and focused himself intently on the doorway beyond which the service ladder lay.
“Excuse me.”
Flitch froze, ready to break into a fighting run.
“I’m quite sorry, but I think I’m lost. Its kind of embarrassing actually, I have been onboard this ship for a week, but… well…”
The infiltrator’s heart began to slow again; he knew that voice. Sure enough, standing awkwardly behind him, was Reginald Barclay, the fidgety man he had helped rescue from the Torrent as part of his cover operation. A small smile creased Flitch’s stress-drained lips.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. Where do you need to go?”
Barclay returned the smile uneasily. “Oh, thanks. I’ve been trying to find the diplomatic quarters. Captain’s orders.”
Flitch nodded, and pointed down the hall, away from where the scanning team still worked. “There’s a turbolift bank that way. It can get you to deck twelve. I can show you if you like.”
“That would be… um, appreciated. I haven’t quite gotten my head around your numbers.” He blushed a bit. “You know, you look very familiar. Lieutenant, I think?”
“No, just an ensign. Unfortunately.”
“Ah, sorry. You just looked familiar.”
“No problem. I’m sure I ‘d have remembered someone like you if we’d met before.”
I hope that the Master Chief won't forget to warn the Rebels that the Covenant doesn't look too kindly on humans. Even though I have little doubt that the combined firepower of the Covenant armada at Reach would not even be able to scratch the shields of the Republica, it would be a hoot if the Covies allied with the Mon Calamari...
Actually a shot that rips through a Coveanant Ship (Super mac) is roughly 585 GIGA tons, Coveanat ships are'nt up to SW standards but they can pump out asteroid vaporizing firepower (First strike- vaporizing an asteroid the size of the base)
Photography Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Well, maybe they're a little more of a problem than I thought, but considering that Cortana was able (in First Strike) to keep a single captured Covenant ship alive against the whole armada, and take a few with her, I don't see the Republica having any trouble, especially since Cortana's with them.
Commander Hessun’s huge, dark eyes twitched and swirled as he peered through the dim light at some lettering stenciled on the cold, durasteel wall. “Here we are. The injector hub should be just beyond this bulkhead.”
The Mon Calamari gestured to a smallish hatch set against the gray wall, studded with a variety of clamps and locking mechanisms.
“I’m surprised anyone could even get in there. The static fields that keep the injectors in there running are pretty self-sufficient, and I’ve never had to do maintenance on any of the system. I didn’t think anyone had been down here since the Republica had its last refit.”
“I’m positive the activation code was beamed into that chamber,” Cortana replied, sharing the Chief’s eyes as he looked down at the pale engineer. “It is certainly a good hiding place though; the ship’s internal sensors don’t seem to be able to take any clear readings of any of the systems in there.”
Hessun nodded his bulbous head. “It’s those generators I mentioned. They boost durability of the injector pistons nearly eighty percent, but picking up on any problems to do develop can be tricky. My crews have been having problems with the static field that replaced the one in the primary tractor grid when we last hit space dock. Lower intensity, but its still gumming up diagnostics all over the deck. The field messes with the neural programs of most of our tech droids too. Whatever we have to do on the other side of this blast door were going to have to do by hand.”
Webbed fingers punched a few commands into a small wall panel, and the claps lining the hatch’s perimeter popped up, revealing hand grips. “Mind helping me with this?”
Hessun braced himself against the wall and reached to grab the grips on one side of the plug, but he stepped away in mild surprise as the Master Chief, his dull armor blotting out the dim emergency lights set above them, clapped his gauntleted hands on both sides of the door and pulled. The entire hunk of five inch thick metal came free in a single, smooth motion, and was deposited lightly onto the deck like an empty knapsack.
“Heavy.” The Chief glanced down at is handiwork. “Looks like battle-grade plating.”
One eye fixed on the armored humanoid and the other goggling at the solid hunk of durasteel that would have drained him to move only a few inches, even with the support of the pressurized hinges set at its base, the Mon Calamari was an unintentionally comedic sight. “Um… yes, quite heavy. That blast door is designed to withstand a catastrophic plasma detonation of several kilotons.”
The chamber beyond the plug was almost pitch-black, lit only by a faint shroud of phosphorescence from above. A low, rhythmic pounding, one that the pair could hear faintly since they arrived on the deck, was now very clear, and the syncopated vibration was beginning to make the Spartan’s teeth chatter. He tapped a control on his helm, and a beam of light pierced the blackness. The way lit by the Chief’s spotlight, the Alliance officer ducked through the entry point, quickly followed by the human himself, who easily slipped through opening despite his bulkier gear.
The room was circular, perhaps one hundred and twenty five feet from one side to the other, with a ceiling that bulged down into the center, thirty feet from the polished floor at its lowest point. Both the odd glow and vibration seemed to be emanating from the bowled ceiling, which sported several slits along its sides, each lit by a soft, white aura. The chamber itself was largely empty, save for a dozen thick tubes, which emerged from the floor at evenly-spaced intervals in a circle around the room’s center and lanced diagonally into the gunmetal ceiling.
As the Chief was taking this all in, he noted an odd sound, like static, building up in his ears. The Mon Calamari, who was inspecting a metal band that ran around the closest of the pylons, seemed unaffected. “Cortana?”
There was silence for a moment, and then the static grew louder. “Sorry Chief. The fi… …erator seems to be inte…ng our link. I’ll try to cut d… on the static, but I …n’t be able to communicate until you leave this are… The Comm…r should be ab… to help you locate the bomb. It should be… one of the pylons. I’m shunting into the b..idge system now. Good luck.”
An icy sensation bloomed at the base of the Chief’s skull, and he felt Cortana’s consciousness leave him. The hole she left was a bit uncomfortable, but he was used to her comings and goings by now, and shrugged it off.
The static was largely gone now, and the Spartan could think more clearly. He noticed the engineer was waving him over.
“When the injectors are online, these pistons pump up and down from the coolant tanks to the main reactor, directly above,” Hessun said, patting the metallic band he had been inspecting. “Even though any detonation in this room could disastrous, the most damaging place would be up right on the core’s outer casing, where the injector passes through. Place an active detpack at the point where the external piston meets the shell casing, and you could easily activate the charge with the force of the injector itself. I’m guessing what were looking for is up there, somewhere.” The Mon Calamari pointed up at the tops of the thick pylons, where they intersected with the side of the bowl, some fifty feet straight up.
The Master Chief followed the engineer’s finger, and then appraised the dormant piping, smooth save for a few protruding patches of added casing. Sloped at nearly ninety degrees, the pylons would not make for an easy assent.
In less than a second, Cortana was back in the Alliance vessel’s main computer, absorbing every byte of sensor data the ship had accumulated since she diverted her attention to the search for Flitch’s explosive. What she discovered was not reassuring. Finding the projector she had been using previously engaged with some other program, she flitted over to a secondary holographic tub and booted up her image, almost forgetting to reestablish an audio linkup in her haste.
“What’s your plan, captain? How do we proceed?”
Ryceed, who was hunched forward in her command seat, brow creased in thought, didn’t bother looking up at the shimmering figure.
“There isn’t much we can do at the moment, I’m sure you realize that. Until the bomb is neutralized and the core back up to full power, were stuck here. I suppose it’s too much too hope for that your friend was exaggerating when he gave me the threat analysis of our visitors out there.” The Republica’s medium range Com-Scan had locked onto a pair of very large, shell-hulled starships, approaching their position at a prodigious rate.
Cortana sighed. “Unfortunately, he was correct. The Covenant consists entirely of brutal, genocidal zealots, bent on the eradication of the human race, for a reason none of us can fathom. I doubt the fact that you and your people are not from this galaxy will make much difference to them when they come knocking. Hopefully the Republica will prove more resistant to their weaponry than the typical UNSC starship, but I can’t guarantee anything, not without seeing the effect of their plasma against your deflectors.”
“You may get your wish, very soon.” Ryceed blew out a long breath, rubbed the spider webs brought on by a week without restful sleep from her eyes and rose wearily, then glanced at her first officer. “Do we have anymore data on those ships?”
Commander Gavplek finished relaying an order to a pair of ensigns who were working the primary sensors, and then turned, frowning. “Some, sir. The vessels are obviously warships, each sporting at least a dozen probable weapons emplacements of unknown design.”
“Highly energetic plasma ejectors, employing a mobile electromagnetic sheath to encase and guide the projectile clouds they fire,” the AI interjected.
“The larger of the vessels, three point three kilometers long, has some sort of deflector field encasing its hull,” the commander continued. “The field is making it difficult for our sensors to get any clear reading on the ship’s power output or internal systems. The smaller ship, at one and a half kilometers, lacks the field, although I suspect it is capable of generating one as well. Scanners have been able to penetrate its hull, but its systems are too alien to easily identify. Both vessels appear to be using some sort of ion drive, but seem to lack hyperdrive networks.”
“Covenant vessels use an advanced variation of UNSC Shaw Fujikawa Slipspace Drive. It’s substantially slower than your FTL technology, but more precise.”
Ryceed had turned her attention back towards one of the holographic displays around her, which sported a three dimension representation of the larger of the two craft. “Have you been able to determine if their weapons are primed for firing?”
“Not yet, captain. We can’t do that until we at least know how their power systems work.”
The image of Cortana flickered as she interfaced with main scanner control, where the two ensigns were still attempting to analyze and penetrate the sensory shell around the cores of both ships. A moment later, the flickering stopped.
“Odd.” Cortana looked perplexed. “Neither ship has its plasma generators primed. Reigning Covenant tactics always seem to involve obliterating a target as soon as possible. Why would they be approaching us like this? Were almost in firing range as it is.”
The ensigns looked down at their interfaces, fruitlessly trying to see what the AI had amidst their confused and undecipherable readings.
As the Alliance command staff and the AI ponder the question, Captain Picard, who had been listening to the conversation with great interest, suddenly stepped forward, inspecting the Covenant warships more closely. “Cortana, do UNSC starships share any design elements with the Republica? Even just superficially?”
Not knowing what the human was getting at, Cortana thought for a moment. “Not really. Mon Calamari design is far smoother and more organic-looking than any Earth-made vessel, even civilian ones. Actually, this ship has more in common, at least superficially, with a Covenant capital ship than a…” She paused.
Ryceed looked up at her, irritated. “Than what? What else has gone wrong?”
“Nothing. Its just that… maybe… No, it couldn’t be.”
“What?”
The AI looked over the inquisitive faces of the ship’s crew and passengers absently, her artificial mind tackling a new, and unexpected, idea. “Well, I don’t know too much about Covenant theology, no one does, but they do worship a highly advanced race of aliens that disappeared from our galaxy hundreds of thousands of years ago. They’re called the Forerunners, and all Covenant technology is based upon artifacts and designs salvaged from their abandoned installations, strewn across the galaxy.”
“Now, this galaxy isn’t as diverse as your own, probably due to Covenant’s dominion over most of it, and locating a starship that is not readily identifiable as either human or Covenant is virtually unheard of. As I said, Covenant technology, and thus ship design, is at least vaguely similar to ancient Forerunner starships. The Republica not only looks like one of their own vessels, but its power capacity also far exceeds that of any CCS-class cruiser. I don’t believe I’m actually even thinking about this, but…”
“Cortana,” Commander Riker too stepped forward, his mouth slightly agape. “Are you saying that the inhabitants of those ships think we are their gods?”
There was a lengthy pause, the eyes of all those in earshot fixed squarely on the projection. At last, Cortana grinned.
“You know what, Commander? That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Ryceed’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly are you planning now? My ship is in no state to be used as the centerpiece of some sort of gambit, especially not one based on the completely unsupported theory that these sapients think that we are their gods.”
“From the looks of things, Captain, we don’t have much of a choice. As you say, the Republica is in no state to fight, and even if your deflectors can hold them off for awhile, I don’t want to risk seeing what will happen when they call for reinforcements. At the very least, I can buy some time for the Chief to dispose of the bomb so we can reactivate the drives and get out of here.”
She turned to Data and La’Forge, who were both still seated at the make-shift wormhole control nexus. “Have you been able to figure out why we ended up here instead of your dimensional plane?”
“Lt. Commander La’Forge and I are still analyzing the data you dumped into the core on your experience guiding the ship. However, I believe we have made significant inroads, and I am preparing a new control program for your use, should the Republica attempt to reenter the wormhole. It should be ready in approximately ten minutes.”
“I’m not sure if I can stall them for that long, but I will try.” Cortana turned back to Ryceed, who was looking increasingly irate. “Captain, I’ll need complete access to your communications and hyperwave system, as well as main ion control.”
The woman gritted her teeth. “This is my ship, Cortana. You may have more knowledge of our circumstances than the rest of us, and you may still have access to the ship’s computer systems, but that does not mean that I will allow you to pursue any fantastical plan you dream up, regardless of the risk it poses to the two thousand Alliance soldiers! I demand that you at least detail your plan adequately to me.”
Cortana shook her head, and gestured to the main viewscreen, on which both ships were clearly visible, and still approaching. “There isn’t any time, captain. We cannot fight, and we cannot simply sit here and let them pick us apart. It my may not be the best of alternatives or assured to work, but my plan is all we have.”
“I will not accept this. You cannot…”
“Captain.” The voice that rang out from behind them was not particularly loud or impassioned, but it was clear, and undeniable. Leia Organa walked up to Ryceed and placed a hand on her shoulder, her posture stern, and at the same time understanding. Their eyes met. “We have to trust her. There is no time. Please.”
Ryceed stared at the councilor, trying to reassert her authority to the woman, but something in those eyes struck a cord, and she began to reconsider. Whether she liked it or not, Cortana was right; there weren’t any other options. Certainly, she had gotten them into this situation, but the AI had also guided the Republica away from destruction at the hands of the Imperial task force.
The woman sighed resignedly. “Very well. You may do what you think is needed to keep this ship and its crew intact.” Before Cortana could reply though, Ryceed’s posture stiffened again. “Remember though, this is still my ship. If I find that you’re doing anything more than what is necessary to safeguard the mission and the crew, or if you cause undue harm to them, I will purge you from the Republica’s systems myself.”
“Believe me, captain. If I fail or overstep my bounds now, the Covenant will be perfectly happy to fulfill your promise for you.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
The two majestic capital ships, now side by side, at last came to a stop, using the hundreds of retro thrusters dotting their hulls to eliminate their forward velocity. Their target, far smaller and less impressive than either ship, made no move in response, its weapons systems and com-lines silent. The cloud of fighters and gunships surrounding the largest vessel bunched up in tight formations around their carrier, silently awaiting orders.
From his command platform, Teno ‘Falanamee too awaited orders, arms folded tightly behind his arched back. It was only proper to allow the Prophet to make first contact as he saw fit, especially if his suspicions about the immobile starship’s origins were true.
“Lower the defensive screens. We must make our intent clear.”
The order was swiftly carried out, and a faint shimmering ran across the hull of his might ship, visible crest of the dissipating energy field.
If the whitish, carbon-scored vessel did indeed contain who the Prophet had theorized it would, the ship master mused, this would truly be a momentous day in the history of the Covenant. The day, in fact, that the Covenant’s entire existence had lead up to. If the Forerunner’s, or their servants were indeed suspended before them, and they chose to reveal themselves to the Covenant’s impromptu emissaries, salvation would truly be at hand. There would be no more need for the endless war, no more need for civil unrest, and the species of the holy union would transcend the known plane into paradise. ‘Falanamee was not nearly as religious as some of his brethren, but the prospect appealed to even him greatly.
However, there was something about the situation that kept him from being overly elated. Part of him simply couldn’t believe that a part of dogma had become, or could become, reality. The Great Journey, and even the Forerunners, had always seemed beyond mortal comprehension, a driving force and motivation, rather than a reachable goal. Of course, such thoughts were heresy.
Whatever the source of his unease, he did not have long to ponder, as he was soon alerted to an incoming communiqué from the Prophet of Benefaction’s cruiser.
“The artifact has sent you no sign or message, I assume?”
“No, noble one.”
The vaguely serpentine creature displayed in the projection nodded sagely. “Very well. We have presented ourselves to them, and they have made no objection. You have noted the probe?”
‘Falanamee glanced at his second, who nodded in confirmation.
“Indeed. The object has scanned our vessel. The technique was quite unlike any our Maintainer has every recorded.”
The Prophet allowed his thin lips to retract into a smile. “As I suspected, they truly are beyond us. Now, I believe it is my duty to offer some humble inquisition. The artifact and its inhabitants have made no move; their intention for us is clear.”
So that’s it, the ship master thought, he wants to be the one to make first contact. Surely, such a role would earn him great honor and personal validation, but it really is the ordained role of the Hierarchs.
“Noble one, perhaps we should inform High Charity of this occurrence before continuing further. Surely the high ones would wish to know immediately.”
The Prophet crooked a thin eyebrow and sank back into his throne, his smile fading. “Nonsense. Those aboard the artifact may wait for us now, but if we wait for the Hierach’s arrival, they may take offense at our lack of attention. No, we must make contact now. I assure you, soon, the whole Covenant shall know of what has happened here.”
The projection pivoted, now facing the motionless starship. “I will ply, but it would be proper to send your image as well. What could be better, representatives of the two great races united in welcoming our gods.”
‘Falanamee made no objection, and motioned to ‘Netanimee to link his own holo signal with the Prophet’s transmitter. He was becoming more and more weary as the situation lengthened, but there was little he could do to defy the word of the Prophets, even a mere functionary like Benefaction.
The ship master prepared to kneel, as was customary upon meeting a superior in such a communication, but before he could do so, the Prophet became distracted, momentarily disappearing from the Sangheili’s bridge. Upon his return a moment later, the sickly grin had returned. “It seems the artifact and its inhabitants have seen fit to bring their word to us after all. It seems we are adequate recipients of the honor.”
“Excellency, we are receiving a transmission as well. The Huragok are attempting to translate it into a form our displays we can process as I speak.”
‘Falanamee offered a small nod to his subordinate, and positioned himself to face the main projector array, which was flickering with bands of static as the technicians hurriedly filtered it into the system. As the display began to solidify, he knelt in respectful prostration, and the other three Sangheili on the command platform followed suit. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that the Prophet was doubled over on his floating platform; a position usually reserved for the audience of the Hierarchs. So he truly believes…
At last, the static cleared, leaving it its place a flat, glowing white disc. On its surface was lightly imprinted a graceful, simple form, like that of an avian with wings outstretched. Slowly, it began to spin, and with each revolution, flecks of black and gray appeared on its surface. Soon, two thin bands of darkness encircled the disc, parallel and vertical. They began to rotate the object in concert with each other, but the disc itself became motionless.
For a while, it simply floated there, slowly circled by its two bands. Finally, a thin, awed voice broke the silence, that of the Prophet. “Your attention honors us, radiant one. Tell us, are you of the gods? The Forerunners?”
‘Falanamee heard the sharp intake of breath from a member of his staff; all were undoubtedly enraptured by what they were witnessing. The ship master, however, remained unimpressed. He knew that he should feel awed and joyful, but something was still nagging him. This felt… wrong.
The object did not break its silence, and the Prophet seemed to suddenly be growing uncomfortable. Why did it not respond? Then the voice came.
It was soft, yet so deep and powerful that it resonated throughout the entire overbridge dome. “That name is not familiar. Gods? Perhaps. What are you?”
The Prophet seemed under whelmed by the response, but pushed on nonetheless. “We are of the Holy Covenant. We live by the word of the gods, those who left this plane so long ago.”
Again, the object paused, although the silence was shorter this time. “This place? Yes, we were once of this place. You are those we left behind?”
“You are the gods!” The Prophet had raised himself from his prostrate position, forgetting decorum in the face of his elation. “Our empire exists to please and serve you. What is your whim? What may we do to prove our worthiness to accompany you into paradise?”
“Paradise?”
“Yes, the existence beyond the Great Journey. Your living conduits, the Hierarchs, they have told us of how you will reward all of the true believers.”
There was a pause. “These… Hierarchs. What do they say of us?”
The Prophet of Benefaction at once launched into a version of holy Covenant dogma, but ‘Falanamee was no longer listening. Something about the last statement seemed odd to him. Not the content, although it was unusual that the Forerunners would not know of their greatest servants, but more than that, there had been some kind of distortion in the voice. None of the others assembled seem to have noticed, but there was crackle behind the words, familiar somehow.
When the Prophet had finished his explanation, there was another pause, this one longer than the first. The emptiness persisted, and at last, the Prophet was forced to speak up, sounding confused. “Have I displeased you, great ones?”
“No. You have spoken adequately. We are intrigued by this Covenant. Speak of it more.”
Again, the Prophet launched into a lengthy, prideful speech, unfazed by the question. ‘Falanamee, however, ignored him, lost in thought. Where had he heard the sound before? It was quite distinctive, quite alien. It had been a long while ago, on the battlefield perhaps. It was static; another transmission perhaps? Images flitted through his brain, intangible and unreadable.
The work station of one of the intendant Sangheili, abandoned by its enraptured controller, began to light up, alert forms scrawling across its elevated surface. A two dimensional energy display flickered into reality, and began to rise prodigiously. Though command was occupied by the transmission, the Huragok below still faithfully received new data from the sensor array and transmitted it upwards, even if no one was disposed to pay it any heed. There was something out there, beyond the god’s starship. Something that had not been there a moment before.
Last edited by Noble Ire on 2005-12-06 12:48am, edited 1 time in total.
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