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The Ancile- chapter one
Date: 23 October 2004, 5:09 AM
THE ANCILE
CHAPTER 1=========================================
0543 hours, April 20th, 2525 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Scout Ship Argo, Harvest System.
First Lieutenant Thomas Garret stood speechless as he viewed the planet. Or rather, what had been a planet. The sphere was no longer the green planet with blue oceans he had read about, but rather a glassy, bright red hell. The scoutship's navigator, Lieutenant Junior Grade Andres Paz, was equally stunned. Only thirty minutes ago, the planet had seemed like a small, insignificant spot in the distance of space. It had been then that Garret sent a transmission confirming their arrival in the System. Paz was certain that the Longsword escorts' pilots were in shock as one shifted away after it veered too close to the Argo. "Are you sure?" The captain muttered. "Yes sir," replied Paz, "this is Harvest. I'm sorry sir, but we are exactly where we have been scheduled to be." Garret chuckled, "I would never have expected you to apologize for your reliability Paz, but right now I wish you were drunk." There was a silence that lasted a couple of minutes before one of the Longswords signaled the ship. "What should we do sir?" Flight Officer Captain Carson Reyes radioed. Garret swallowed his confusion, he was after all, in charge of these bewildered men, and he would rather be dishonorably discharged than to have his crew think that their leader was weakened by any tragedy.
"Return to the Argo, we're going home and giving ONI our report. I want your team back onboard ASAP, the faster we leave this system, the better." He knew that the ONI spooks would be furious at him for leaving the system with little more than pictures showing the death of millions of people, and the destruction of a valuable planet with no knowledge of the cause, but his mind was set. He also did not want Master Sargeant Nicholas Reynolds, the highest ranking ODST on the ship, to see what became of his wife and son, who were new residents in Harvest. Garret was sure even this rock-solid warrior would lose his mind looking at his family's impossible grave."Warm up our translight engine Paz, we're leaving this God-forsaken place." He closed his eyes, but did not budge otherwise.
FOC Reyes repressed his finger back onto the transmitter. "Aye, aye sir," he responded to the captain, "on our way." He shook his head slowly and was headed back to the ship with his fellow pilots when a movement caught his eye. He squinted off towards the planet as an object came around the burning mass. He was staring in disbelief when he fumbled his finger to the transmitter. " Sir," he managed, "I think we have something here."
Garret was also focusing on the object on his viewpad."Sir... I think we have something here." came Reyes's voice from his speaker. The Object was large, larger than the Argo. It appeared to be a a gigantic, wavy teardrop with a boulbous protrusion on the port side. It resembled a whale somewhat, and was bluish in color. "What...the hell?" gasped Ensign Jonas McNeal, another of the Bridge's crewmen.
"Is this a natural phenomena?" pondered Garret. "No sir," Paz replied, "This is artificial... I would say manmade, but I've never seen anything this bizzare, not even from what Section Three has released." Garret straightened up and took a deep breath, "That might be what caused this tragedy. McNeal, zoom in on the object, I want you to get me the best picture possible."
Possible was not saying much, as the heat radiating from the planet greatly distorted the image, but McNeal was already clearing up the vid by the time Garret gave the command. "Sir, Image focusing on main view screen." The Lieutenant was taken back at the craft on the screen, for that is what it had to be, what else had stabilizers on the port section and a clearly defined hull? He winced at the realization that whatever it was, it had to be both hostile and unimaginably powerful if it could decimate an entire planet with a population of three million.
Suddenly something else happened, or rather, appeared. Another craft, Identical to the first, came out of the dark side of the planet, then another, and another, until six ships were formed in a row orbiting the planet. Garret dared do nothing to get their attention, lest he provoke them. He considered the possibility of them being a friendly species, coming in to see if anybody was to be saved, but that thought left his mind, there was no way that these ominous whales were friendly, and as they suddenly veered towards the Argo, Reyes would be the first to find out about their true hostility.
The Ancile- chapter two
Date: 15 January 2005, 3:45 AM
CHAPTER 2=========================================
0552 hours, April 20th, 2525 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Scout Ship Argo, Harvest System.
Reyes watched the alien vessel inch closer as he firmed his finger on his Comm.
"Retreat to the Argo ASAP men... I have a feeling this isn't going to be pretty," he ordered, but no sooner had he replaced his hand on the flight controls that he saw a bright blue flash eminate from the leading ship, and felt a sudden jolt throw him forward. "My god." he gasped as two ships from team Hotel silently but fiercely erupted in a dance of white and crimson.
"Retreat, retreat!" He roared into the Comm as more Longswords began to explode. His ship led the race to the docks, though he wished to stand and fight rather than to leave his dying men alone. He knew though, that staying was suicide, the Longswords would hardly be a challenge to the massive attackers. His ship quickly approached his landing station, and he was just about to enter the Argo when a bright light filled the cockpit. Reyes managed to hear his co-pilot scream before a thunderous sound of burning metal drowned out all noise.
"Direct hit on the starboard side, it appears to be an energy salvo of sorts," McNeal reported.
"Is the MAC gun warmed up yet?" asked Garret, recovering from his fall. The MACs on scout ships were more like oversized gauss cannons, and nowhere near as powerful as those on, say, a destroyer, but they were still a formidable weapon.
"Main cannon at eighty-seven percent sir," Replied Mcneal, " Archer pods almost ready to fire though."
CMA had no idea what they sent us against, thought Garret, but at least they sent an armed ship. All of the unarmed Chiroptera class ships were being decomissioned because of their tendency to break down, which was apparently a mixed blessing to Garret, who was, in his youth, a pilot of one. Had he been sent here onboard, say, Pale Horse, his ship would not have withstood a single hit from the energy torpedoes the hostiles were launching.
"What of our Longswords?" he inquired.
"Two thirds gone sir," replied Paz, counting the ships on his radar,"one crashlanded onboard, two are in the docking bay, both are critically damaged, hostile weapons seem to emit an EMP pulse beyond the blast radius. Five... three ships still in evasive maneuvers, on their way to their docking stations."
"Sir," reported McNeal, "Archers hot!"
"Fire first wave at the leading cruiser, prepare for evasive maneuvers as soon as the remaining Longswords are onboar-"
"Sir!" interrupted Paz as the shouts on his COM immediately halted, " Remaining longswords destroyed."
"Right," replied Garret as he watched the Archer rounds race through the empty space, most intersected and destroyed by the enemy counter-fire, "full reverse, but don't turn away from them." The rounds slammed and detonated against the enemy cruisers hull, however, instead of melting the surface, a large, glistening ripple covered the entire surface where the missiles had detonated, only to fade away in a matter of seconds.
"What the hell?" gasped Garret in disbelief.
"They appear to have an energy shield covering the surface" stated Paz.
"Let's see if it can withstand a MAC round," Garret pondered aloud as he regained his bearing, "Fire one third of our Archers and tell me when we can fire the Cannon.
"MAC gun hot and firing on command!" reported McNeal.
"Fire," ordered Garret, dubious of the round's power, but making sure his voice was confident. The round tore through the gap between the Argo and the ships, barely visible at it's speed. The round smashed against the alien ship, managing to tilt it upwards, however, the shield held, the telltale ripple covering the entire front side, only to be struck by the Archers that weren't destroyed during the journey to the ship. This time, the shields flared, and a few of the missiles actually managed to penetrate the hull, but the armor used in these ships kept the damage's radius much narrower than Garret had expected. The enemy ships began to glisten, a light appearing at the front of each ship.
"Slipspace rupture! they're bugging out!" Exclaimed Paz.
But they're winning, thought Garret, why would they escape? Escape, was the last thing the ships intended, as the Argo's crew would find out when the ships reappeared, engulfing the main viewscreen.
"No," whispered Garret as the ships floated in space, appearing to stare down the smaller Argo, but the silence did not last, as the three ships in front of the V formation prepared to fire, the blue spheres beginning to form under them.
"Not like this," sighed Paz. But as a strange rippling light began to appear in thin air not two hundred miles away from the impending slaughter, the ship's crew would find that the fierce and fiery death they expected was not to come from these alien ships. And most of the men onboard the Argo, they would later find, would live to fight again.
The Ancile- chapter three
Date: 14 February 2005, 2:49 AM
CHAPTER 3=========================================
0559 hours, March 3rd, 2286 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Colony Ship Ancile, Sol System.
Two Hundred Thirty-nine years ago.
Finally, the testing of the new Translight engine, quite possibly man's greatest achievement was ready to commence, and the mood of the men and women onboard the Ancile was nervous excitement. The Shaw/Fujikawa team were not coming on the trip to Proxima Centauri, but would be onboard the Ancile until the time came to launch. Nobody wanted to miss the opportunity to reach a star system four point twenty four-hundreths light years away in a matter of months, But ONI considered them too valuable to be risked on any experiment, especially one in which a single error would be more than fatal, it would be brutal. The creators of the faster-than light engine howeve;r despite their denied wishes, were in high hopes, and were not ashamed to show it. The self proclaimed "Sushi Party" onboard the Ancile was in fact, their idea, and motivated the crew to maintain their enthusiasm, the light ambience relieving their pre-mission jitters, the entire party was allowed by the ONI spooks simply, and only, for the stress relieving benefits.
The ship in which the first slip-space journey would be taken, the Ancile, was in fact a Colony class ship, the largest ships of their time. This was more of out of necessity than design, this made the engine safer, as the predicted hole that the ship would tear would be larger, relieving the need for pinpoint controls and reflexes, hopefully reducing the stress on the bridge crew. It would also be the first class of ships publicly released to support the SFTE feature.The Ancile had not seen any flight time before, prototype Colony ships were much larger than the typical human transports used to take people from one planet to the next, but this line of ships would not be unveiled for at least ten years if the mission went well. These would be able to transport an entire city's worth of people to distant moons and planets in other solar systems. The Ancile was the crown jewel, specially modified to carry the slipspace engines within it's crowded girth. The trip would require an extensive crew, about two hundred of the governments best scientists and engineers, along with the fifteen bridge crewmen to navigate and maintain specs on the ship. The entire mission would be in secret, as was the developement of the SFTE.
And so the time had come to bid farewell to the men and women onboard the Ancile, and there was not much the SF team could do but hope for the best, and saluting from the docking station, they caught sight of the bright blue light that began to engulf the ship as it accelerated into slipspace. The captain of the great Ancile bravely barked orders to his crew as the bullet they rode began to fly into the light, the rough metal contrasted with the heavenly glow around the entire machine, fierce and proud the ship went into the unknown, and all of the men and women who witnessed it's departure never before had seen such a furious beauty. Then, like a quick breeze, it was gone...
- -------------- Chapter Epilogue -------------- -
The Ancile had been scheduled to return in within a year, but after two years, scientists on the Shaw/Fujikawa team began to study every possibility as to why it had failed to return. It was months later that they made a vital discovery. They had theorized, and even expected, for the tunnel in slipspace to be a mere "pinching" of space, but the reality had been that this pinching was more of a time distortion, a factor that they were ill prepared for. They added this factor into the design of the next slipspace engine by modifying the dependency of the engines from brute force, to the mere balancing of the speed, more like sliding on ice rather than breaking through it. The new engine was then placed onboard the Odyssey, the sister ship of the Ancile. It's passage was successful, though it arrived at a five percent difference of the schedule. Months later, the "first" SFTE was unveiled to the public, which never learned of the fate of the men and women of the ship. ONI, with pleas from the people who knew what had taken place, included in it's final report an honor towards the crew of the Ancile, who went without flinching into the gates of hell.
Or so it was thought...
The Ancile- chapter four
Date: 28 October 2005, 12:57 am
CHAPTER 4=========================================
0557 hours, April 20th, 2525 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Scout Ship Argo, Harvest System.
Luna OCS had been the best academy that he could have chosen, even if it had lead to his death. They had taught him well, and he was proud that his memory would be honored, even if he was not able to attend his own funeral. Would his wife mourn him? Of course, what a strange question. How long did he have? Their past shots did not take this long to charge. The visits to Earth between semesters, it had been during one of these that he had met her, where was it? Oh yes, the terminal, she had been a young co-pilot between flights. He was proud of his crew, they faced death with honor. How he wanted to tell them. Curse these merciless monsters. Why was there no warning? How long until a search team comes for us? How long has it been since we called in our arrival? Hours? Minutes? No help will be coming. Hmm. Wait, what is that?
Garret's thoughts abruptly halted as he focused on the distant phenomenon rapidly approaching. It was an extremely large light, much larger than the enemy ships, and eerily silent. There seemed to be a distortion in the area around it, debris vanishing as if magnetically drawn to it. And as it raced closer, the electronic systems onboard the Argo began to dim and falter. It closed the distance very rapidly, and it's electromagnetic properties seemed to cause a severe malfunction in the aliens' weaponry, the large blue energy blobs dispersing into nothingness. Was this an opportunity to attack? To escape? No, at this speed this object would pass through extremely quickly, they were all simply being interrupted momentarily at best. And at worst? He had no time to consider what exactly was occuring, as the large force shifted direction and headed directly straight towards the skirmish and was almost upon them all, dwarfing them in it's glorious light. He was, however, able to witness dozens of small, metallic, teardrop shaped objects pour from the sides of the ships. An evacuation? He hadn't even considered it, of his ship's thirteen lifeboats, he had no idea how many remained intact. But then again, how many of his ship's one-hundred-seventeen soldiers and crewmen still remained alive? It didn't matter, most were in cryo, and would die oblivious to the attack. His ship had also sustained heavy damage, and it's slipspace drive was the only way off of this outer colony. No, escape was no longer even feasable.
The teardrop shaped ships, each roughly half the size of a longsword, seemed to float uselessly in the same trajectory that they had headed upon exiting the behemoth ships, and in less than the blink of an eye, the large force was upon them, engulfing, then powerfully and electromagnetically, drawing in the Argo and the teardrop ships, but only one of the whale motherships.
In their coma-like state, none could evade a head on collision with the object, and all but the damaged one leading the attack, because of the fact that its shields were not yet recharged had a large quantity of exposed metal, were violently repelled away from the light, the force fatally damaged the ships' integrity as the shields were instantaneously blown away, the hulls sharply bent, then shattered, explosive decompressions tearing the many segments of the ships apart. The only one spared was drawn into the light the same as the Argo, but not before sustaining heavy blows from the remains of its fellow ships which, now unshielded, were also drawn into the brilliant fray.
Garret had only had time to witness the inside of the large energy laced phenomenon, an enourmous silver object with dozens of rough edges, before a complete darkness enfolded the bridge and a spine shattering crash caused his head to get smashed against the side of his command chair, causing him to black out.
The powerful light flashed brilliantly, enourmous, powerful flares of electrical energy exploding in various directions as the monster sped up, and then suddenly dissappeared. The only thing left to show that there had been anything here at all was a glowing residue which designated the mysterious object's seven second appearance, which extended the one hundred and eighty-six miles of its path. That too, however, dimmed and vanished into nothingness, just as everything else had. The only witness to these events was a lonely, burning planet.
The Ancile- chapter five
Date: 23 December 2007, 5:15 am
CHAPTER 5=========================================
0608 hours, April 20th, 2525 (?) (Military Calendar)
UNSC Scout Ship Argo, unknown location/bearing.
Blood. The taste of blood. The pilot attempted to move, but a sharp pain on his side made the attempt unbearable. Opening his eyes, FOC Reyes almost wished he hadn't. Blood was streaked around the cockpit, on his suit, and on the controls. But it wasn't his. At least, not most of it. He looked over at his co-pilot, but recieved a horrible sight. Burning metal, the metal from the outside of the ship had crumpled into the cockpit, where his co-pilot once sat. Most of his lower body wedged between the spark-spewing control panel and what looked to be part of the ship's weapon systems. The blood streaked through the cockpit was mostly of the ill-fated man, whose scream still rang clearly in Reyes's mind. Reyes abruptly stirred, ignoring the pain in his side. He was alive, bleeding but alive. The agonizing pain in his side grew to a blinding pain. Looking down he noticed the cause of the pain. It was part of his seat, torn from its place and jutted into his back. He had to get off, lest he bled to death from the jagged pieces of metal. Unclipping his restraints he collapsed onto the deck. He crawled towards the rear and witnessed the true extent of the damage cause by the crash into the docking bay. The entire right side of the ship was in the same condition as the cockpit, and the rear hatch was not even visible through the wreckage. He had survived, but only through a stroke of luck. The speed at which he raced to the ship, dangerously fast for a docking, could have crumpled the ship like a can, so why didn't it? He crawled back towards the front of the ship. Unless he was willing to bleed to death on the floor of his own fighter after miraculously surviving the inital crash, he was going to have to fight through the pain and go out through the gaping hole where his co-pilot's blood and remains cooked onto the surface. He gave a yell as his arms pulled him forward.
"Captain"!
Garret's eyes opened slowly, a throbbing pain in his head fought to keep him unconcious. But the cold-pack being held against his head helped keep him awake. There was a faint red light in the background, silhouetting his crew.
"Sir." McNeal's voice rang out, "Sir, the ship- it's- we have a full system malfunction, redlined all across the board. We've managed to get primary systems functional but it seems as though the rest was shut down by an EMP."
EMP? On an entire ship? What had that object been, and what did it do to the ship? More importantly, what of the attackers?
" McNeal, do we have any way to get a visual on the ships?"
"No sir, not yet. But- they haven't attacked yet, and it's been a few minutes since-" since the large phenomenon tore trough the battle and landed them in this situation. Garret wavered as he stood, and ordered his crew back onto their posts. They had to find a way to restore power back onto the ship, at least enough to escape. If the enemy ships had remained as they were shortly before the object's blinding light, then they might have a chance to escape. Escape. The thought had been unfeasasable before, but now there was a faint hope, and he would do his best to get his crew out of this situation.
Reyes was painfully crawling out through the front of the ship, braving the flames that licked the inside of the Longsword, when four arms suddenly grabbed him. A tube was placed against the edge of the wound on his side and a foamy substance rushed into his flesh. A pain worse than before tore at him, but dissolved quickly. The two men then rolled him onto his back and pulled him from the wreckage. They wore flight suits, and he recognised them as two pilots fom team Hotel. At least more had made it back to the ship. As he was dragged down the ship's remaining wing, he peered through the darkness, and as the emergency lights slowly flickered on, it dawned on him that the docking bay was nearly empty besides two other badly-damaged fighters. They couldn't be the only ones, could they? The thought was unbearable, but the truth was that they were indeed the only ones left. But how long would they last?
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