“And where is Viper 4?”
“Here, sir,” pointing at the crude map before them. It wasn't the first time ODSTs were dropped into an area without any intel; they were all trained to work far behind enemy lines, ready for any scenario. But this was Earth. Double-checking his notes, making sure he wrote down the right grid for the right teams.
Major Rodriguez wasn’t really happy when he found out that even the GPS wasn’t working. They had to resort to using age-old tactics, measuring distances using radio signals. Without any structures to use as landmarks, all their existing maps became useless.
Three teams already called in saying they made contact with 'something'. It was quite vague, and Victor didn’t like it. One even requested reinforcements for his team, saying he needed to ‘see’ something. Nevertheless, the call for assistance with wounded civilians made him ignore his curiosities for now. Surely his men wouldn’t hide something from a superior officer without reason. “Has Echo squad been in position with the relay yet?”
“One moment, sir,” as a radio team tried to raise the separated squad with their transmitter. After exchanging some challenge and passcodes to authenticate the channel, “They are in position, sir. They are, however, at the edge of signal range; the signal is not that great,” trying to clean it up, adjusting some knobs on his radio.
“Viper 1-Echo, this is Viper 1-Actual. Have you made contact with TOC? (Tactical Operations Center) Over.”
“Viper 1-Actual, this is Viper 1-Echo. Negative on the TOC. However, we made contact with Firebase Alpha; TOC is currently unavailable at this time. Over.”
It seemed Colonel Vega’s perimeter bases were now up and running, but the Prometheus was clearly still having problems. “Viper 1-Echo, contact Firebase-OIC. Viper Teams made contact; wounded civvies require immediate EVAC. Get me as many transports as they can spare. Over.”
“Viper 1-Echo copies all. Over and out.”
Two seconds. Apollo was quite proud of that. The FTL drive typically required several minutes to properly spool up, but to ensure he didn’t brick the drive into uselessness, he began doing a full scan of it. There wasn’t much to do, after all; for the last couple of hours, he had nothing to do but watch the same old system analysis of the core. With mere milliseconds already a lifetime for an AI, he was getting bored.
When the EMP began encroaching around the vessel, Apollo had to break up the network into segments, preventing a system-wide cascade… But that resulted in him being trapped in the computer core. While he was browsing around his very small network, he soon found the logs from the previous jump. The calculations for it were several miles long if printed on paper. He didn’t have time to double-check them before and simply took a leap of faith out of desperation, but now at least he had something to look at.
Thankfully, the jump drive appeared to be relatively intact, but the logs of the previous jump were not what the AI was expecting. Checking them line by line out of boredom at first. But then there was... something. “That’s not right.” He redid the calculation on his neural matrix and came up with a different answer. “Then why did it fire? If the calculations were wrong, why did the jump drive turn on to begin with?”
He spent the next couple of hours redoing the calculations again and again, wondering how in god’s green earth the drive would work at all. “That’s impossible.” The network became connected; the AI nearly missed it, too dumbstruck to realize it, but the engineers got the system working again. Apollo exited the FTL’s computer core and found himself back in the bridge. His holotank was nonfunctional, however. “Where’s the Captain?” he asked himself as he panned the security cameras around to check, watching the two officers converse with one another.
His attention was soon diverted to the exterior cameras pointed at the night sky and quickly realized something had gone horribly wrong. Apollo switched on all interior sensors he could get his hands on, putting a lot of stress on the newly repaired power grid. Scanning the vessel for the Captain’s neural chip, he soon found him in the medbay. Apollo raised him on the intercom, “Cap-!” then all power went out.
A corpsman was doing the finishing touches on his waist when the intercom made a noise. Samuel didn’t really understand what it was, adding to the confusion when all lights suddenly shut down. Dull orange emergency lights soon came on in response. Iron groaned as he stood, thanking the medic for patching him up. He was offered medication, but the captain refused as drugs dulled his mind.
He watched through a window as he put on his coat, warthogs and pelicans leaving camp. Without any power, he couldn’t really get updates on his base. He needed to get back to the bridge soon. Walking through the halls of the ship, Irons noticed that the ground felt crooked. “Am I hallucinating? Maybe I should’ve accepted the meds offered,” he told himself. As there was no up and down in space, artificial gravity typically fixed this issue.
Back on the bridge, officers present stood firm and saluted. “Captain on the Bridge!” “As you were,” he replied before saluting back. “Commander, report.”
“Captain, the engineers were able to repair the Long Range array, but we failed to establish communications with anyone using known UNSC frequencies. We tried to investigate why, but the power went out, sir,” explained Ethan.
“Have any of you contacted the Master Sergeant yet?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Nathan. “It would appear that the AI Apollo was loose a few seconds before the last power surge. Chief Donovan said he was able to isolate the problem and get power back online in a few minutes.”
“So that’s why I thought I heard his voice.” Samuel wasn’t sure earlier, but that confirms it, though he isn’t sure why Apollo went to that much trouble, straining their power grid in the process. Changing the topic, “I saw some movement earlier. Warthogs, Pelicans.”
“Colonel Vega has authorized an EVAC mission, Captain. It would seem Viper teams came into contact with civilians and are in need of transport, sir.”
Sam was rubbing the stubble of beard on his chin when lights slowly came back to life. Monitors turned on one after another, still showing shots of the night sky. The holotank flickered several times before a nearby tech crew worked their magic on it. Sam walked around the bridge, watching the stars in the night sky, finding the lack of space debris alarming. “What in the world is going on?” he muttered as he touched a nearby console, pressing a few keys and switching from one camera to the next.
“Captain, if I may suggest something,” Sam turned to look at Ethan, nodding at him to continue. “The Covenant has so far not spotted us, even after we have completed our base, let alone has begun sending out scouting parties and Pelicans. Perhaps the enemy is no longer around, and we should launch our own satellites into orbit to get a better picture of what is happening.”
“Not exactly subtle, Commander,” commented Nathan. “But I do agree, Captain.”
Irons agreed with it too. There were simply far too many irregularities. The enemy should’ve found them by now or the planet glassed and destroyed, and yet here they were, cautious, in fear of an enemy that may not be around anymore. “Prepare tubes six to twelve.”
“Aye Aye, sir!” officers scrambled back to their seats as they prepped the launch. Archer missiles can be tipped with conventional explosives, nuclear devices, or even satellites. They are quite versatile, and even though these weapons don't really do much against Covenant energy shielding, they are still used en masse by the UNSC.
“Satellite connection handshake shows all green.”
“Launch Tubes are open and ready.”
“Calculation for satellite stable geosynchronous orbit is complete.”
“Missile trajectory is prepared and ready, Captain.”
“Fire.” In space, these weapons are simply ejected out before their guidance system kicks off and the missile flies on its own, but within gravity and atmosphere, the ship begins to tremble as six missiles slowly begin their ascent.
“Satellite One is away.” “Satellite two…” this continues on without any issue until Irons feels like he is tipping to the right. Suddenly, an explosion. The last missile detonates within the tube as the vessel begins to lose balance, crashing on the ground below. The ship is still upright, sort of. One of its landing gears was damaged when they crash-landed earlier, and the recoil of the missiles launching stressed the damaged components and finally crippled it.
Samuel catches hold of a console with his abdomen, not exactly helping with his wounds, but he pushes himself away from it. The left side of the vessel is a foot lower than the right, Nathan slides out of his seat and can’t stand up because of his previous injury. “Commander, Report!” the captain shouts as Ethan climbs back to his console to check.
“Hull breach in Sectors Ten and Eleven! Automatic fire suppression system is active! Damage control teams en route! Landing Gear One is destroyed! The launch of satellite six misaligned mid-operation and destroyed the missile pod!”
“Fantastic! Apollo!!” It's just one problem after another. Samuel shouts for the AI as the holoprojector turns on, with the construct’s avatar standing at an angle. “Ah, finally. At least some good news. Get this ship upright now!” It seems the technician was able to fix it before he got thrown to the nearby wall.
“Sorry, Captain, but I have some bad news.” Manipulating the remaining landing gears in the background, Apollo adjusts their hydraulics to get the ship in a somewhat stable plane. “That’s the best I can push it.” The ship is still crooked, but not as pronounced as earlier. “Landing Gear One seems to have sustained damage during our landing. Two, Three, and Four are now compensating, but we’ll need number One repaired ASAP.”
Irons does not know how much more bad news he can take in a span of 24 hours. “Lieutenant! Get Chief Donovan and his men working on that.”
Struggling to get back to his seat, Nathan pressed the intercom on his station, only to be intercepted by an incoming line. “Sir! Dr. Bennett is insisting she be allowed to set up that field station.”
Sitting down and rubbing his temple, of course he’d have to allow it; otherwise, patients would be falling off their beds one after another. Signaling to Nathan to give the good doctor approval for her request, Irons exhaled audibly, clearly in distress. “Have the satellites reached orbit yet?”
“Not yet, Captain. It’ll take several more hours.”
Samuel realized he was getting impatient due to stress. He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. He felt so vulnerable, a sailor with a stranded boat. He ran his hand through his hair before securing his hat back on. “Apollo. Report.”
“Captain.” The nearby holotable came to life. The room dimmed, and the projection showed the night sky where their external cameras were currently pointed, complete with calculations to map them out, their distance, and the constellations they represented. Irons wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking at. After all, he had memorized this sector of space like any ship captain worth their salt, and so far, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
Apollo zoomed onto a sector of space, showing the Orion constellation. Samuel recognized these stars but still didn't understand why the AI was showing them to him. “Accessing data from NAVCOM,” pulling out an astrogation map from the navigation computer before overlaying it on the projection from the exterior cameras.
Visually, there wasn't much difference between the two, but the data from the NAVCOM system conflicted with what they had outside. “Was it supposed to do that?” asked Commander Hayes.
Lieutenant Commander Price added, “I mean… it's like a tenth of a degree off.”
Soon Apollo brought up the image of the moon, which appeared barren before them. Luna Station was missing, or any facilities, man-made structures on its surface for that matter. Finally connecting the dots, Samuel stood and stared at what was before him. “Apollo. Where are we?”
“Captain, I think the right question should be, ‘When are we?’”
To Her Majesty Queen Victoria,
Queen of the United Kingdom
Your Majesty,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. It is with a sense of awe and bewilderment that I write to share with you an extraordinary event that I recently witnessed during my explorations in the Congo.
While traveling through the dense jungles and winding rivers of this vast and mysterious land, my companions and I were startled by a remarkable sight one evening. As night fell and the stars began to shimmer above, we observed five great lights ascending towards the heavens with a grace and majesty unlike anything I have ever seen before.
These luminous orbs, glowing with an otherworldly brilliance, seemed to defy the laws of nature as they soared higher and higher into the night sky. Their movements were swift and purposeful, casting an ethereal glow upon the surrounding landscape and filling our hearts with a sense of wonder and awe.
Yet, the spectacle did not end there. As the lights reached their zenith, there came a sudden and deafening explosion, a powerful force that reverberated through the air and shook the very ground beneath our feet. Though we were far removed from the epicenter of this mighty blast, its impact was felt with a force that left us breathless and trembling in its wake.
Your Majesty, I confess that I am at a loss to explain the nature of this extraordinary occurrence. It is unlike anything I have ever encountered in all my years of exploration and discovery. I am compelled to seek your wisdom and guidance, trusting that you may shed light on this enigmatic phenomenon that has captured my imagination and filled my soul with wonder.
With your permission, we shall endeavor to investigate the source of this explosion at first light. I pledge to keep you informed of any developments and shall send another letter at my earliest convenience to update you on our findings.
With the utmost respect and admiration,
George Grenfell
