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Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 7
Posted By: Arthur Wellesly<arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com>
Date: 23 August 2003, 1:53 PM
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1620 Hours, September 23, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Onboard Silent Night - Bridge
The sudden decompression in deck eight had spun the Silent Night like a toy in space, but since the blast doors had closed, the ship had become stable. Nevertheless, nearly two hundred men and women had been on deck eight when the incident occurred, and most were now dead. Luckily, as deck eight did connect to the engine room, the air tight checkpoints there had averted a total catastrophe.
On the bridge, however, it was still chaos.
The ship's communications officer, Kate Savage, who had been unusually inactive due to the nature of the mission, was now earning her pay. "I receiving dozens of injury reports due to sudden jolt, captain," she called to Young. "One hundred and eighty-nine men and women dead on deck eight, but the engine room is intact. All systems functioning normally."
The suddenness of this attack from an unknown enemy had caught Young momentarily off-guard, and she had no time to think. "Vulcan," she cried to the AI, "what do you suggest?"
"Our enemies, whoever they are, just cut through two and a half meters of titanium-A battle plating, so I would assume they can cut through a blast door. I would suggest depressurizing all of deck eight, to avoid any more accidents due to decompression."
Young nodded to Ford. "Do it," she ordered.
Out of the starboard side atmosphere leaked into vacuum, but it was done slowly and carefully, and its effects were barely felt. "Depressurization complete, captain," Ford said. As relatively new recruit, he had surprised himself by keeping a cool head in such dire circumstances.
"Ms. Savage, please open a channel with Colonel Neal for me, then advise the Marines on the surface of our situation," Young ordered. Kate acknowledged the request and Young had Neal on her personal COM station. "Colonel, I want you to take your Marines and all non-essential personnel to all the airtight checkpoints on decks seven and nine, and report whatever you see to me."
"Yes, ma'am," came her response.
Young quickly opened a ship-wide COM channel, which she could do herself at her station. "This is your captain speaking," she said slowly and calmly, wanting to reassure her crew that was no doubt in a panic. "I want all non-essential personnel to report to Colonel Neal and grab some weapons at the nearest armory. We have been boarded." Young turned her attention back to the bridge crew. "Mr. Ford, do we have any cameras functioning on deck eight?"
Ford, who had anticipated the question, had already accessed the cameras. "Yes ma'am," he said. "Would you like them on the main screen?"
"Yes, lieutenant."
"Aye, ma'am."
Pictures flickered to life on the main screen. There were four cameras, but the one on the top right was the telling picture. A perfectly formed square, three meters by three meters, had been cut in the Silent Night's two and a half meter thick hull. In through this gap came a swarm of some sort of robotic machines, hovering just above the ground. They were approximately one meter long, wide and tall. They were an elaborate design, with a complex network of metal plates and assorted tubes, and at its bottom, near the front, protruded a stubby metal rod with a red light on the front of it. It was constantly swiveling about, as if it were the machine's eye.
More and more of the robots entered the ship. Young was confused and mesmerized by there images, but she had no time to ponder them. "Colonel Neal," she said through her COM station, the link still open, "there appears to be a lot of robots entering through the gap on deck eight. I recommend using explosives."
There was short pause, and then a somewhat confused, "Yes ma'am," was heard.
There were two airlock checkpoints on both deck seven and nine, plus a single entrance into engineering. Knowing full well the significance of engineering, Colonel Neal, one of the few Marines left on the Silent Night took four Marines plus about fifty ill trained crewmen, who fumbled with their assault rifles and held them awkwardly. Neal just hoped it would be an easy victory, but she thought it most decidedly would not be.
After hearing Young's caution on something about robots and how explosives were recommended, she considered sending a crewman to bring more rocket launchers, but her motion sensors suddenly lit up with movement just beyond the door, so she decided she would have to make do with the explosives she had. She also realized that the robots would have had to have gotten past at least one checkpoint already to be here, so she gritted her teeth and warned the shivering crewman of their position.
"Here they come," she said, and at that moment the engine room door began to glow, and then a large middle section peeled back as if it were mere tinfoil.
Out of this hole came dozens of robots, hovering a meter or two above the ground. The Marines, although slightly taken aback by this, nevertheless immediately fought back without hesitation, but the crewman, who had only basic training in combat, didn't fire right away. Those who did gather the courage to open fire immediately saw the futility of firing 7.62mm bullets at flying chunks of metal. A few rockets took out one or two of these alien robots, but very soon the slaughter began. The machines formed a ragged line and sprayed the room with some sort of red plasma beam, cutting through the barricades and metal boxes like a hot knife through butter. The men and women were sliced apart by the precise beams, and the clatter of automatic weapons fire soon came to a halt in the face of such an onslaught. There was nothing left of Colonel Neal's squad left except gruesome body parts and charred flesh.
After their enemy was dealt with, the robots turned to the right wall of the engine room and once again opened fire.
Young had watched the first checkpoint dissolve with astonishing speed over the ship's cameras. She had then seen them quickly some down the hall to the engine room. She had considered telling Neal to run, but the robots had come so quickly, it would have been a pointless endeavor anyway. She had watched with some relish two of the robots fall to the Marines there, but they were all killed soon enough as well. Then she watched with some confusion as the robots began cutting a hole on engineering's right wall, but understood soon enough.
"Brace yourselves!" she cried to the bridge crew, and sure enough an immense shudder ran through the ship.
"Engine room decompressing, captain," Ford announced. "Blast doors closing."
Once the venting atmosphere cleared, a large hole, ten meters long and three meters high, had suddenly appeared in the engine room's hull. "They're slowly making the ship uninhabitable, starting with engineering," Vulcan mused thoughtfully, gazing intently at nothing, evidently accessing the camera system himself. He turned suddenly to Young, his "eyes" once again in focus. "Recent encounters have shown that our enemy is intelligent, well armed, and determined to destroy this ship. Without the help of the Marines, resistance has become pointless. We should abandon ship."
Young stared at him uncomprehendingly. She knew he was right. The best she could hope for was to slow down these machines at the cost of everyone aboard the Silent Night. But it had all happened too fast. She couldn't give her ship up without a fight. "I cannot leave, Vulcan. Not yet."
"Captain, the robots targeted engineering first, now they'll come here," Vulcan argued calmly, but nonetheless hurriedly. "We have to go now!"
"No, Vulcan, you misunderstand me," was all she said. She flipped up the mike on her station. "Crew of the Silent Night, this is your captain speaking. Abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship. Head to the nearest escape pod section onboard. The Marines on the ring will pick you up once you activate your distress signal. Take only what you must, grab some weapons if you're near an armory. If not, don't waste any time. That is all."
The bridge crew wasted no time, despite their astonishment. Lieutenant Savage contacted the Marines on the surface and told them to be ready for the crew that was about to land on the surface. First Mate Gary Brown prepared Vulcan for transport, taking out a small box with crystal lining, but just before the AI disappeared from his pedestal, he gave his captain a grim nod, understanding her sacrifice.
Then suddenly, the bridge was empty. Every instinct she had screamed at her to leave the bridge, but she stayed and activated the self-destruct sequence, setting the timer for two minutes - long enough for the escape pods to get away... she hoped. She couldn't risk setting it any higher than that.
She then ran to a cabinet near the back and retrieved a rocket launcher, sealing the door to the bridge while she was there. As she waited, she glanced at the camera pictures still on the main screen. One showed a brave group of crewman and a single Marine staying to give the others the time they needed to evacuate the Silent Night
It wasn't long before the door began to melt away, and Young destroyed the first robot to enter, giving her a few precious seconds. She glanced behind her - twenty seconds to go. They couldn't disable it now. She fired the second rocket and waited for the end.
The men and women aboard the escape pods saw their ship explode in a huge fiery ball, and only then realized their captain's sacrifice, as well as their hopeless position. The nuclear blast soon cooled to leave nothing but the blackness of space and the quiescence of vacuum.
Silent Night...
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