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Relics and Reclimation by aussie_spartan
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Relic 1
Date: 26 March 2009, 12:51 pm
First story in a while. Little over 5000 words (I was pleased with myself) so hopefully this should take a few minutes to read through. This was just supposed to be a warm up story to get me back into the swing of things but I liked it so much I'm going to continue it (God only knows if I'll ever finish one of these story arcs). Additionally this doesn't really fit into the actual storyline anywhere, the date was only meant to give the story some background and meaning. I am also aware that some things in the story don't make sense so if you need that sort of stuff to enjoy a story you may want to leave now (like how can a Prowler travel so fast). My only explination is that I couldn't be arsed correcting myself so far in. For the rest of you, suspend disbelief... now!
0200 Hours, February 17th, 2544 (Military Calendar) / LOCATION CLASSIFIED (ONI Directive X-Ray Gambit OMEGA) Aboard UNSC Prowler Unquestionable Acts
White halls. Nothing but white halls with only the occasional flash of even whiter light to mark their passing. A pain seeping though the limbs. Starting at the base of the neck and moving down and out to the tips of the fingers and toes. The pain is a brilliant burning sensation, not quite sharp, not quite throbbing but always persistent. For a distance the squeaking of the one wheel on a trolley that refused to move properly. Was this death? Was this heaven? Hell? Purgatory? The senses are giving mixed messages, the pain screams Hell, and the white betokens the opposite.
Experimentally you try to raise an arm just to see what happens but you don't have the strength to lift it more than a few inches and the harder you try the more intense the pain becomes. Suddenly you stop moving, you can't see it but you can feel it. The slight inertia as you come to a gentle stop. You can hear the distant sounds of people talking, their voices are hard to make out or understand but they seem worried. Every now and then one of them blocks out the white walls but they are too blurry to see properly.
Intermingled with the burning pain of you limbs comes another, separate pain this one minute by comparison but still noticeable. You are feeling more and drowsier, the haze obscuring your vision becomes more absolute and slowly darkness settles in.
Captain David Falk groaned as he extricated himself from his bed. This was no easy task considering how wrapped up he was in his sheets but once he had both feet on the floor Falk stretched his limbs, only to scream out in pain. Doubling over Falk reminded himself that he could no longer do those sorts of things without causing himself considerable distress. This was not the first time he had made this mistake; in fact this was the fifth time in as many weeks he had found himself on the rubberized floor of his room with a burning pain in this back.
With a gentle whooshing sound the door to his quarters opened and a junior office rushed in looking frightened. "Are you ok?" he asked nervously.
"Do I look alright?" snarled Falk from the floor. "Do I look like everything is fine and dandy? Get one of the medical staff damnit!"
It took only a second for the officer's face to change from frightened to embarrassed. "Right... sorry sir... I'll just, get that... um... doctor for you." And he left without another word.
Getting up off the floor Falk was silently fuming both with the junior officer's ineptitude and his own weakness. Falk removed his shirt (not without discomfort) and moved to the mirror situated near his dresser to inspect his upper back. A large angry red scar was etched into his skin as a reminder of the plasma blast that had nearly killed him. That and his own mortality. His anger directed at the officer was more frustration with himself for coming so close to death... not that he'd ever admit that to another living soul.
"Pain in your back again then Captain?" asked the voice of Doc Fitts.
"It's getting worse. Don't you have anything stronger to dull the pain?"
"All I can give you is vicodin to take the edge off, anything stronger and we risk your capacity to make decisions."
"Fuck my decisions; they haven't been great so far." Falk snapped back while gesturing to his back.
"What you did was stupid and you payed the price for it. Don't make anyone else suffer."
Falk was about to reply but he heard footsteps and he knew that Fitts had left him to his pain. Letting out an irritated sigh Falk carefully dressed himself in his uniform and made himself ready to take command of the bridge again. The Prowler Unquestionable Actshad arrived at their destination: a small listening post on the edge of some backwater system which was also on the edge of UNSC space, or what little space they still controlled. For some reason the UNSC felt it necessary to continue operations in this sector by at least monitoring slipspace movements and communiqués of the Covenant. Not that they had had much luck doing so thus far. In fact the message they got two days ago was the stations first ever report of activity. They reported that the Covenant had arrived in system, at first it was nothing but a search party probably looking for human worlds to burn but before long an entire Covenant battle fleet materialized in system.
Luckily the listening post was able to engage its stealth technologies before it was discovered and continued to monitor the suspicious Covenant activity. Covenant chatter was excited; they had found something in system. Something big.
Covenant Cruiser Magnificent Advocate , Three Days Earlier
Fleet Master Gurra Cutmee surveyed his bridge with the same pride he believed the gods felt when looking upon their great works. He was lord of all he saw able to do and say what he will without fear or a reprimand from the Prophets. Although he knew such thoughts were heresy Cutmee was nonetheless pleased at how everything had turned out. They had arrived in system hoping to find the human scum but instead had found more of the great relics the Forerunners had left behind to those destined to follow The Path.
"Take us into a spiralling orbit around the planet and initiate atmosphere entry protocols. Make ready the dropships to take us in after we have arrived in atmosphere." Barked Cutmee.
Cutmee smiled to himself as he watched the insects beneath him scuttling about to follow his orders. Taking one more moment to revel in his position over them Cutmee then turned to face the reports coming from the planet's surface. The overly high oxygen levels on the planet's surface made the place completely unable to support any form of life. Once upon a time though this must have been different because visual scans made of the surface clearly show what could only be the remains of ancient Forerunner ruins.
"Fleet Master, we have entered the atmosphere of the planet and are now approximately six cycles from being ready to leave." Said a subcommander on the bridge.
"You have the amount of time it takes me to get into my dropship to get us into position Subcommander." Warned Cutmee as he stood up and left the bridge for the troop bays.
It took only four cycles to get to the troop bays and just as Cutmee was about to ask why they weren't ready yet the, now very flustered, subcommander contacted him via comm link "Fleet Master, we are in position and ready for dissent."
Smiling to himself Cutmee made a mental note to learn the name of this subcommander, something he didn't do very often, in order to make ensure that he was given a more active role in the events to come. Such excellent timeliness was a very good thing from a bridge officer. Cutmee climbed the ramp to his Spirit dropship and took the controls next to the co-pilot. It was his opinion that any Fleet or Ship Master not willing to also take control of a lowly dropship was not fit for command. You needed to know the ins and outs of all vehicles and weapons like the back of your hand and the best way to know something was to do it.
"Ready for launch Fleet Master, removing the bay energy shields." Came a voice from inside his helmet earpiece. "You are ok to go."
Cutmee push the controls of the Spirit forward causing it to leap out of the bay and into the bright sunlight of the planet. Although the lower levels of the planet were overly rich in oxygen the upper levels were overly rich in methane so the blue sky seemed bluer and the bright sun seemed brighter. Not the best conditions for flying but so long as they didn't run into any dogfights they would be fine and at any rate, Cutmee admitted to himself, a Spirit was no aircraft to engage in dogfights with. In the short time it took them to reach the surface Cutmee busied himself with not only flying the dropship but also pouring over more reports being made from low orbit sweeps of the relic structure. According to scans it was dish like in appearance and over five hundred units in circumference making the relic look more like a valley than any Forerunner made structure. Though its size was not the reason it was so easy to pick up. The relic emitted a faint but insistent signal in the ancient language; this was what had originally keyed them onto it.
"Fleet Master," interrupted an Unggoy from the observational Frigate Unbiased Faith "We have compared the signal emanating from the relic to our Luminary and now believe we have the full translation."
"Then speak!" Cutmee growled "Don't waste my time with useless prattle."
The Unggoy squeaked and replied "We believe the relic was built to make contact with the Sacred Rings and report in on their present locations!"
There was a moment of stunned silence in which the implications of what had just been said fully sunk into Cutmee and all the others who were listening. Swelling up with pride Cutmee wondered what prize he would be given by the Prophets for such a rare discovery. [I]He[/I], Gurra Cutmee, had found the most cherished of all objects to the Covenant those sacred rings whose flame would burn a path to the great beyond. Cutmee pushed the Spirit to its top speed, nothing could ruin this victory for him now.
Sacred Relic, Unknown Planet, 'After the Detonation'
Hunger. All it knew was hunger. It was so long since it last fed, so long since it knew the touch of warm, living beings upon which it loved to feast. For so long it had waited for this moment. Now the moment had come. More delicious food was coming to be devoured. It could sense it.
The doors sealing it in its ancient crypt opened and the food walked in. So ready and willing to be eaten. It curled up and waited, ready to attack. Ready to feast.
Cutmee removed his oxygen mask and gazed in awe at the interior of the relic. The massive centre of the dish had a still working elevator which they had used to ferry themselves down from the surface into, what appeared to be, the main atrium of the relic. Glittering walls stretched up above them, curving and forming a bowl. At the other end of the atrium there were stairs leading up to the second level of the atrium which was where Cutmee and his search/recovery party were heading.
Cutmee had been the first on the elevator and the last to leave it just as he demanded of the occupants of the other Spirit dropships making their way to the surface. For a brief period some Kig-yar from another Spirit had insisted that, at the very least, they be allowed to be the first in along with him. After threatening to have them blown out of the sky they had backed down quickly. No one would be allowed to share his prize with him, especially not inferior species such as the Kig-Yar.
"Fleet Master," said one of Cutmee's subcommanders "How shall we know what we are looking for? This computer could look like anything, be anywhere and this relic looks as if it could take years to search."
"Have patience subcommander," Cutmee replied. "The Forerunners were grand in their designs. We shall know what we are looking for the moment we see it and as for finding it. I'm hoping there is some sort of map here somewhere."
IT COULD SMELL THEM. Food, was near. Hunger. It willed them closer. Closer so that it may rip. Closer so that it may tear. Closer into its waiting maw.
"Fleet Master, I think this may be it!" An eager subordinate shouted from across the room. "I think I found the map to the communications station!"
Cutmee pushed several Unggoy out of his path in his single-minded need to be the first in front of the console; one even fell off the balcony onto the lower level. Cutmee was oblivious to the Unggoy's plight and continued as if nothing had happened. Once he was in front of the console Cutmee gazed into the screen's depths, its light illuminating his face. In the light the console cast upon his face he looked crazed. Seeing this those around him backed away slightly in fear but Cutmee didn't care, in fact he preferred it. The fewer people he had to share the limelight with the better as far as he was concerned, this discovery was his and his alone. The Prophets would honour him as none before.
Cutmee keyed his earphone and contacted the Unggoy back on the Magnificent Advocate "Are you recording this?"
There was a squeak of fear on the other end and then "Yes, Fleet Master. We are... now."
Cutmee growled in anger at the incompetence of those under his command. Then he made a mental note that when he returned with the location of the Sacred Rings, one of the requests he would make would be for a better crew. However, for now he would have to make do with the dudgeons that the Prophets had seen fit to give him thus far. Cutmee mentally shook himself, he was stalling and time wasting was not something he should be doing right now.
Turning to those around him Cutmee addressed them in the most important sounding voice he could muster "Mark this day in history and in your family poems for we are about to light the way to our triumph! The bards will sing of this event, this moment for millennia to come. For we were sent here for human scum but we shall return with salvation!"
A chorus of thrilled roars met this statement, they echoed through the atrium magnifying their intensity a thousandfold.
The harsh screaming of its food did nothing to impede its hunger. Although for now the food was only screaming in delight soon it would be screaming in horror. They always did. It was so hungry but it must be patient for if it struck too soon or too late food might get away and then who knew how much longer it would have to wait for more food to come? Crawling, sliding, slipping and oozing over the floor it made its way slowly towards its food. It was only a matter of time now and it was so good at waiting...
Cutmee scanned the ancient symbols scrolling across the screen, trying to understand their full meaning but it was hard. The symbols that he had grown up with and been taught as a child were much more stylized than the ones now moving before him. Even the symbols in Covenant ships and vehicles used these stylized symbols so it was hard to read the original versions. Why the Prophets had modified the symbols from their origins was beyond Cutmee, as far as he was taught to alter things left behind from the Forerunners like this was on the verge of heresy but such was the way of the Prophets.
"Fleet Master, we a receiving some strange signals on the scanners," reported Unbiased Faith from orbit "I think there might be something else down here."
Cutmee paused. What did this mean? Was it possible that some Forerunners had been left behind to guide those who wished to partake of the Great Journey? There were no visual representations of Forerunners in any school he had gone to and although the Prophets may have such recourses hidden inside High Charity but he had never seen them.
Cutmee keyed his mic "How close are they to our current position?"
Whatever answer that Unbiased Faith gave was drowned out in a sudden scream.
Yeeeeeeeeesssssss... FOOD.
Cutmee tried to turn but before he could something hit him on the back. Intense, liquid pain seeped into him making Cutmee scream as he had never before. Pain beyond anything he had ever experienced tore though his system at the speed of light reaching every part of him. Then, nothing.
0250 Hours, February 17th, 2544 (Military Calendar) / LOCATION CLASSIFIED (ONI Directive X-Ray Gambit OMEGA) Aboard UNSC Prowler [I] Unquestionable Acts [/I]
The elevator doors to the bridge opened and Captain Falk stepped onto the bridge dressed shabbily in his Navy greys with his left arm in a sling. Putting the arm in a sling sometimes helped alleviate the pain and lately Falk had a lot of pain to alleviate.
"What's our position lieutenant?" Falk asked the navigations officer.
Lieutenant Smitt looked up from his console and replied in a weary voice "We passed the station ten minutes ago. We tried to hail them but they've activated a communications blackout as part of their stealth protocols. We won't have any idea where the Covenant are until we are clear of the moon."
"When we first came in they sent a brief update. They report that the Covenant arrived in system, landed on the planet and then started blowing each other out of the sky." added Ensign Brigid Ross from communications.
This particular piece of news caught Falk by surprise "They attacked themselves? Why?"
"I don't know sir," replied Ross. "I'm trying to work that out now. They're not making it easy. Covenant chatter is chaotic. Most of them have no idea what's going on and keep requesting for confirmation from some 'Fleet Master' but whoever he or she is they aren't responding. Everything has gone to hell out there."
Perfect, Falk thought, maybe just maybe they could call in the cavalry and catch these bastards with their pants down. Normally a prowler such as the Unquestionable Acts was only ever dispatched as part of a larger fleet but the UNSC had only seen it fit to send a scouting team to simply check what the Covenant were doing in the area.
"Lieutenant, prep the reactors for a slipspace jump. I want to be ready to leave in a moment's notice. If one of them so much as glances in our direction, don't even wait for my signal. Fire those damn engines and get us out of here."
Lieutenant Smitt nodded in determination. "Roger that sir."
It wasn't very long before they had cleared the moon obscuring their view of the planet and of the Covenant armada. It was easy to see that the entire armada had fallen into disarray. Frigates, cruisers, carriers and destroyers were all strewn across the upper atmosphere of the planet with angry crisscrossing lines of plasma between them, marking the battle currently underway. As they watched, two behemoth sized destroyers were both unloading copious amounts of plasma into a single frigate turning into nothing more than a molten blob of metal.
"My God," exclaimed Ross "What the hell are they doing?"
"I suppose," replied Falk "Our reason here is to find out why isn't it?"
Ross blushed then mumbled something unintelligible while turning back to her console.
After a short uncomfortable silence Lieutenant Witt finally spoke up "Sir, I don't quite know what I'm looking at but you might want to have a look at this as well."
Falk sighed. This was just what he needed: more bad news, another unknown variable that he would have to figure out before he could leave or request for help. "Put it on the main screen lieutenant."
The image on the main screen went blank for a moment then resolved into an extremely zoomed image of the Covenant fratricide in progress, specifically of two Covenant frigates closing in on each other. As the two got closer one attempted to turn itself away from their imminent collision course but the other turned into the collision causing the two frigates to smash together. This drained both their shields and damaging their hulls. Now Witt zoomed in even closer and showed them thousands of tiny objects crossing over from one frigate to the other. There were millions of them worming their way through the cracks in the hull and into the ship itself.
Falk shuddered "What are those things Witt?" he asked.
Witt shook his head and replied "I have no idea sir. They don't look like anything I've ever seen before but I just can't get a good look at them, they're too small."
Falk didn't like this. What the hell was going on here? "Bring us in a little closer but only use the manoeuvring thrusters not the engines. They look too busy to notice us but I don't want to take any chances."
Witt did as he was told and they slowly started moving towards the enemy combatants. Silent and unseen like a shadow sliding across black. Every now and then they would see the black space lit up with the explosion of another Covenant ship or see two ships collide with one another. Every time they did this those little things would exit one ship and enter the other. By now they had gotten a better view of what these things were. At first they thought them to be a, previously unknown Covenant species but every time two ships collided and they moved from one ship to another, that ship would also be targeted by the Covenant destroyers.
"Are you finished compiling the picture?" asked Falk.
"Yes sir, putting it up on screen now." Replied Ross.
From all the footage they had collected on the new alien they had created a three dimensional representation of what the creature looked like. Falk recoiled at the image of the ugly creature; it was made up of a single bulbous body with several tentacle-like protrusions extending from its lower body. Using the bio-analysis suite they had onboard they were able to approximate some details about the creature, unfortunately the report was woefully short and mostly unsubstantiated but, at the very least, they were pretty sure this was some sort of parasitic creature. This explained the Covenant's sudden change of targets from humanity to themselves as an attempt to keep the parasite from spreading any further than here. However, to be really sure about anything they would need to capture one of these creatures if possible.
"Witt, fire the thrusters one more time to take us in but let us drift past them on the edge of the battle, I want to get one pass by before we jump out of here. Also engage the active scanners and look for another of those new aliens drifting dead in space."
Witt looked nervous as he typed the commands in "Are you sure about this Captain? We're cutting it awful close to drift past the battle like this. If we're destroyed no one will be able to send the information we gathered back to Earth."
"The listening post will do it lieutenant and if you question orders once more on this bridge or anywhere on this prowler for that matter I won't even bother with a court-martial, I'll space you right then and there."
Whatever Witt did in response to this was completely ignored by Falk who, due to a spike in pain from his back, was now effectively oblivious to the world around him. Reflexively he lifted his right arm to rub his aching back but that only increase his pain so he stopped doing that. Then he reached for the pills that Doc Fitts had given him but remembered that he was out so instead he ground his teeth and prepared to give the next person who did something stupid in front of them absolute hell.
"Incoming transmission from the listening post sir." said Ross. "They're broadcasting on the FleetCom 7."
"Those idiots!" shouted Witt "Don't they know that'll expose both them and us!"
Ross went pale "Sir, you really should hear this."
"Put it over the main speakers then." Replied Falk "Let's hear what they have to say."
White noise dominated the message for the first few seconds then a panicking voice broke through "In desperate need of assistance! Something's in the base! I don't know if it's Covenant but, oh God they're everywhere! Pus h them back, push them back! Godamnit! Fire! They're crawling out of everywhere!"
Falk was tempted to try to raise them on the com link but he knew the moment he tried the Unquestionable Acts would be lit up like a Christmas tree. In fact, a destroyer had just turned from the battle in progress and was making its way towards the listening post.
Ross stood up "We have to save them! That destroyer will turn them into molten lead!"
Falk shook his head "They're already dead. If we try to help them then we will be as well. It's bad enough that the Covenant now know that someone else is here as well. In any case, we're too close to them to change direction and if we fire up the thrusters now we risk them finding us. Our greatest asset right now is secrecy."
Ross looked like she might disagree but Falk wasn't interested in what she had to say. He turned to Watt "Are those engines still ready? I want to be out of here the moment we pass this battle."
"Of course sir." Replied Watt "We are ready to jump on your command."
"Good, then calculate the necessary number of random jumps we need to make before we can reach Earth again."
"Already done sir, we are ready to jump now."
"Keen to be gone Watt?"Ross asked with venom in her voice "Ready to leave those men and women to death?"
The combination of pain, rising voices on the bridge and their current plight was simple too much for Falk. He felt like his head was going to split in two. He had simply had enough of this entire thing.
"Whatever shit is between you right now I'd like it if you could put it on hold until we are away from the homicidal alien freaks trying to kill us." Falk threatened in as even a tone as he could manage.
Getting the hint Ross and Witt stopped their argument but continued to stare daggers at each other from across the bridge while they went about their work. Their journey past the Covenant battle was long and arduous, seconds turning into hours and every plasma torpedo seemed as if it was coming for them. Finally they were far enough away from the fray that they could initiate a slipspace jump without arousing suspicion or notice from the Covenant battle fleet.
"Sir, we are far enough now. We can initiate a jump if you're ready." Said Watt.
Ross glared at him but Falk ignored it "Then do it, get us out of here Watt."
The Covenant were too busy with their own troubles to notice the slight rupture in time-space that the Unquestionable Acts used to escape the system and head back for Earth. Not only had the parasite gained significant ground on them and taken some of their fleet for its own they had also found some human outpost near the planets moon. Apparently they had been listening to everything going on and reporting it back to their scum masters for all the good it would do for them. The outpost had also been targeted by the parasite. Somehow, someway the parasite had scented the humans out and attacked their puny platform. By the time the Covenant destroyer arrived the majority of the populace had been infected by the parasite necessitating that they turn the installation into a molten slag, which they would have done even if it hadn't been infected with the parasite. The only problem was that the humans had broadcast a message before they were found meaning that there were probably more humans in the area. These humans would have to be found and disposed of like the rest of their kind.
Hunger. It had fed but still it hungered. The pathetic morsels available to it now did nothing to abate its hunger. It longed for more. For fooooooooooood. It had learnt much from the food. Much had changed since what it called the detonation. I didn't know how long ago the detonation was. Time held no meaning for it. All that it knew was hunger.
From the many-species-large-navy food it had learnt of many planets with many food. From the enemy-of-the-large-navy food it had learnt 'Earth'. Earth was intriguing. So many food in so little space.
Using the space-flying-ships it had stolen from the many-species-large-navy food it would go to these places. It would feed.
0510 Hours, February 17th, 2544 (Military Calendar) / LOCATION CLASSIFIED (ONI Directive X-Ray Gambit OMEGA) Aboard UNSC Prowler Unquestionable Acts
The Unquestionable Acts re-entered normal space after its second jump. Falk jolted in his seat. It was not a smooth ride meaning that something was wrong with their Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. This would have to be fixed when they got back to Earth as they didn't have the expertises or resources necessary right now to fix it.
"How much longer before we arrive at Earth?" Falk asked Witt, he was fast losing patience with this entire ordeal. He simply wanted to get back so he could finally have some R&R.
"Shouldn't be much longer sir." Replied Witt "We only have a few more jumps before we can head back to Earth. I've prepared a full report on what we saw, if you wanted to review it-"
"That won't be necessary Witt." Replied Falk "I'm sure it's all they'll need to know to assemble a battle group."
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