ALWAYS OPEN [IC] Halo - Empty Throne: The Eastern Covenant Sphere

[Apothecary Bruce]

On December 12th, 2559, the UNSC Infinity disappeared. They had been sent to stop Cortana, leader of the Created, from using Zeta Halo for her own nefarious purposes. As many would later discover, the UNSC was not the only force who had come to Zeta Halo with that goal.
The Banished, who had thrived under Cortana's iron yet loose regime, had sent an invasion force. After contact, no signal was sent from the Infinity. All probes and scouts, from all sides, who went to the Ephu system - Zeta Halo's prior location - found the installation, and the fleets attacking it, had suddenly vanished. Only trace wreckage from the Infinity, Banished warships, and a Forerunner Guardian construct, remained.

For the UNSC, they had lost the Master Chief, and their strongest warship. Both were symbols of humanity's strength and resolve, the hero who had saved them, and the flagship emblematic of their post-war successes, an era which was now undoubtably over.
For the Banished, they had lost not only Atriox, but Escharum too. With the other senior leaders of the Banished trapped at the Ark, the nascent empire had been left without a central commander, but while the cracks could be seen visibly forming, the Banished were more than content feasting upon a ripe galaxy.

Whatever happened at Zeta Halo, it had been the end of Cortana. Her Created empire immediately fractured, breaking down into warlord states as AI carved out what they could of the galaxy, using what Forerunner assets remained active and available to them.
With the fall of the Created, came the return of interstellar travel. The galaxy was open once more - for better, or for worse.

It is January 12th, 2560, and all throughout the galaxy now see the future is uncertain. While some cower from uncertainty, the bold see it as an opportunity - and the prize would be total dominion over all civilizations remaining.

---

Regions of the Galaxy:
Human Inner Colonies and Sol (UNSC/Created)
Human Outer Colonies (URF/Banished/Created)
Doisac Sphere (Banished)
Eastern Covenant Sphere (Banished/Covenant Remnants/Swords of Sanghelios)
Sanghelios Sphere (Swords of Sanghelios/Covenant Remnants/Banished)
Western Covenant Sphere (Covenant Remnants/Swords of Sanghelios/Banished)
​

---

What is the Eastern Covenant Sphere?
Outside the Sanghelios Sphere, more divergent regions of the empire began to take shape, as was natural with frontier settlements. Continuously, the empire grew and grew, for thousands of years. Along the way, they found many species of note, plenty newfound colonies won the lotteries of strategic importance, and historical shifts in the Covenant Empire defined entire regions and their history.

As opposed to the West's more chaotic and diverse nature, the Eastern Covenant Empire could always be relied upon for reliability, though confusing that for safety could be at times a very lethal mistake. Entire swaths of the Orion Arm belonged to a delicate balance of sangheili houses and families, all pushing for harder and faster expansion, so that they may lay claim to more territory and fatten up their titles and boasts. All of the resulting riches and resources went into developing house militaries, ministerial development, shipyards and war machines.

In the end, these time bombs would go off from time to time. Resource wars, grudge wars, holy wars - all these and more have set the Eastern Covenant Sphere alight on more than one occasion. The West would have you believe the Eastern Covenant Sphere did not wage wars as they did, because the foolish sangheili traditionalists did not have the same heart or minds for the modern war, still stuck in their history scrolls, believing themselves to be the great kaidons of early Sanghelios.

The East would have you believe the Eastern Covenant Sphere did not wage wars like the West, because the West was too faithless and poor to conduct conflict on the same level. While western squabbles were brutal, quick, yet ultimately small in scope, the East's wars stretched across sectors, affecting even the Sanghelios Sphere at times.

Beyond these 'honorable conflicts', the East's other claims to fame were it being the home of the yanme'e, known to humans as Drones. They were insect-like creatures, in many ways. They also doubled as great engineers. Curiously, Cortana did not bring her Created to pacify Palamok, or any yanme'e world, leaving them to grow and develop unabated. The reasons for this have been debated since the declaration of Reclamation was given, even amongst her highest ranks - but now, all in the East fear and prepare for the likely invasion of the resurgent and industrious yanme'e.

There's also the yonhet, at the appropriately named planet of Yonhe. They don't get around much, though.



The Eastern Covenant Sphere is the last region of the Orion Arm resembling the old Covenant. It is also the home of the Yanme'e Hives, and several other Covenant Fringe species, who have been strangely quiet since even before Cortana's rise to power.

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

JANUARY 12th, 2560
Earth Standard Time
Human Outer Colonies

@CT2222

The UNSC Boomer had spent the better half of a year traveling eastward, pushed out of human space at the height of the Created Crisis, and slowly chased throughout the galaxy, catching the attention of Acolyte-class harrier vessels, and losing them in increasingly creative ways as the human heavy cruiser was slowly chipped away at.
Now, on the far end of everything, the Marathon-class starship finds itself entering a new system, seemingly uninhabited - save for a single signal, a beacon which had lured the Boomer here for the past month.

The crew of the Boomer had seen nothing but ex-Covenant for a year now, without a hint of other humans around. There had been births aboard the ship, and the only faces the newborns had seen were crewmates. There had been ethical deliberations about the Boomer becoming a generational ship, rumors Captain Eris Lapham had crushed quickly, but Leela had been prepping pre-school and kindergarden courses just in case. She had already had to play teacher for the onboard civvie children.

The Boomer was the closest thing to human civilization in Covenant space, without the hint of a human being for entire sectors at a time...yet, now, they had not only found a human distress beacon - it had identified as Koslovic.

'...this is commander Rowan McDowell, of the Koslovic Independent Union frigate Tears of Ganymede. Someone, please help us...'

Of course, the ONI personnel onboard the Boomer had checked their records, but there was no such thing as a Koslovic Independent Union, or a ship registered as Tears of Ganymede. It could be an elaborate ruse, but if it was genuine, it could change everything.
The Boomer was now in the star system. It contained a blue star, three gas giants, four lifeless terrestrial planets, but one with a perfectly habitable atmosphere - and that was the one where the beacon had been set up.

Now, it was time to investigate. How, would be up to the captain and their advisors.

 

[CT2222]

JANUARY 12th, 2560
Earth Standard Time
Human Outer Colonies

@CT2222

The UNSC Boomer had spent the better half of a year traveling eastward, pushed out of human space at the height of the Created Crisis, and slowly chased throughout the galaxy, catching the attention of Acolyte-class harrier vessels, and losing them in increasingly creative ways as the human heavy cruiser was slowly chipped away at.
Now, on the far end of everything, the Marathon-class starship finds itself entering a new system, seemingly uninhabited - save for a single signal, a beacon which had lured the Boomer here for the past month.

The crew of the Boomer had seen nothing but ex-Covenant for a year now, without a hint of other humans around. There had been births aboard the ship, and the only faces the newborns had seen were crewmates. There had been ethical deliberations about the Boomer becoming a generational ship, rumors Captain Eris Lapham had crushed quickly, but Leela had been prepping pre-school and kindergarden courses just in case. She had already had to play teacher for the onboard civvie children.

The Boomer was the closest thing to human civilization in Covenant space, without the hint of a human being for entire sectors at a time...yet, now, they had not only found a human distress beacon - it had identified as Koslovic.

'...this is commander Rowan McDowell, of the Koslovic Independent Union frigate Tears of Ganymede. Someone, please help us...'

Of course, the ONI personnel onboard the Boomer had checked their records, but there was no such thing as a Koslovic Independent Union, or a ship registered as Tears of Ganymede. It could be an elaborate ruse, but if it was genuine, it could change everything.
The Boomer was now in the star system. It contained a blue star, three gas giants, four lifeless terrestrial planets, but one with a perfectly habitable atmosphere - and that was the one where the beacon had been set up.

Now, it was time to investigate. How, would be up to the captain and their advisors.

Worst Space-Bus Ride Ever!
---​

Captain Eris Lapham, of the UNSC Navy, sat in her command chair, staring through the bridge's viewport into the expanse of the void. Their current course and orientation had them moving through the system, slightly off-axis from their sun, which burned a hard orange through the viewport. She checked her displays, checking on the orbital trajectory of that habitable planet as her ship moved ever-closer, and realized that if she squinted hard she might be able to see it on the backdrop of its star.

Captain Eris Lapham, of course, did not do this; she had more important things to do. "XO, what's the situation with those probes?" Her executive officer, Commander Victor Campbell, looked up. He was not as experienced as she was, only having been commissioned as an officer in 2553, but he was a hard worker, high-performing at the academy, and had adapted well to service aboard this cursed ship.

He grimaced "Not looking good, Captain. Our stores of probes are almost out, and the ones we have left are so scrambled from plasma burns that they're nigh-useless." A brief pinging noise alerted both of them to an incoming message from the ship's AI, Leela, which scrolled on their displays. <Additionally, even our active sensor scans cannot provide us with the detail we need. Not unless we get much, much closer.>

As part of the compromises of her design, Leela was unable to project an avatar like others of her kind. On top of that, damage taken from Created cyberattacks had gotten into her library speech files and turned them into a tangled mess. The last time Leela had attempted to "speak", four crewmen had been sent to the infirmary, their ears bleeding. Now, Leela had to rely on text or non-verbal noises to convey information.

The Captain considered this information for a moment, then sighed, rubbing tired, sleep-deprived eyes. "I suppose it can't be helped. Campbell, tell Colonel Jackson I need a ground team prepped and ready in two hours. Four Pelicans, we need a team to take point on figuring out what the hell is going on. Send the Spartans and Booker, too, they'll need a good escort. Tell them they need to figure out what's going on, and that it may be our ticket back home."

---​

Four Pelicans spewed from the Boomer an hour later, loaded to the brim with personnel, guns, and supplies for the expedition. Aboard the lead Pelican, Master Sergeant Booker stood, clutching her assault rifle in one hand as she grasped one of the Pelican's handholds. "Alright, Marines, listen up!" She said, broadcasting to the whole force. "Command has detected some strange signals coming from some beacon or whatsit planetside. Our job is to get down there and poke around a bit to find out what it is and who's broadcasting. Don't play heroes, keep your heads down, and let the scientists do the touching. You break it, you buy it. You hear me, Marines?"

One could almost imagine the resulting Oo-Rah being heard in the vacuum of space.
Booker grunted approvingly. "That's what I want to hear, Marines! Alright, buckle in, it's gonna get bumpy out there…"
She sat down and refastened her safety harness, locking in for the difficult flight down. Aboard with her were nine others, not counting their pilots; the members of the elite "Theta-Four" unit, ONI's Commander Durand and Lieutenant McKesson, and UEG science attache Jennifer "Jinni" Cortez. She smiled at the woman to her left, Theta-Four's NCO, although because of their helmets neither could see it. "You ready for a fun one, Gunny?" She asked, on a personal channel.

"Don't get me started, Top." She replied, looking over. "You know I hate dropship ops." The younger woman had confessed as such during the two's first ever meeting, on the last ride up from New Grove ops. The Master Sergeant grinned again. This was going to be a fun one.

---​

The descent through the atmosphere was a bumpy one, bumpy enough that the huge Pelicans were jostled as they descended. The atmosphere was thick as soup, murky and cloudy, and hitting it caused a jolt to run through the spines of all aboard. After they had transitioned into atmosphere, Senior Chief Petty Officer Benjamin decided he needed a better view. He released his restraints and stood up, mag-clamping to the deck. If it wasn't for the need for the Pelicans to have full crews for both delivery and pick-up, he'd have insisted he fly the mission himself. He was more comfortable among the clouds than almost any in the Boomer's crew, and his reaction times were the best even among those few. Alas, he was needed for the ground operation.

He and his team were ensconced in the rearmost Pelican, alongside a particular annoying ONI scientist named Howell and a team of four ODSTs. His team leader quirked her head towards him as he moved towards the cockpit, her gesture clearly questioning. "Where might you be going?"

"In-flight meal didn't agree with me. Going to tell the pilots that I'll be lodging a complaint with the spaceline." He said dryly.

She snorted. Alexis-G081, or most Spartans for that matter, were not the most jovial types, but they appreciated the occasional levity. "Alright then, go ahead. Tell me if you see anything interesting."

He nodded, and opened the door to the cockpit. The co-pilot looked back at him for a second before returning his view forward. "Chief." He said, nodding. "We're coming out of the worst of it now, and circling near to the landing zone. We'll actually pass by the beacon site, if you want to take a look."

Ben surmised that would be a difficult endeavor. Beyond the cockpit's glass, he saw nothing but dark fog. The pilots were navigating almost entirely based off instruments; visibility was near zero. However, for just a fraction of a second, no time at all for a normal human and barely much for a Spartan, he saw… something. It looked like a fragment of a ship, jutting upward, a design that seemed at once alien to the UNSC and yet profoundly human. For some reason, he felt a slight shudder come over him. "I… better get ready for the drop." He said, closing the door. He had no idea what was coming, but whatever it was seemed… ominous.

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

Worst Space-Bus Ride Ever!
---​

Captain Eris Lapham, of the UNSC Navy, sat in her command chair, staring through the bridge's viewport into the expanse of the void. Their current course and orientation had them moving through the system, slightly off-axis from their sun, which burned a hard orange through the viewport. She checked her displays, checking on the orbital trajectory of that habitable planet as her ship moved ever-closer, and realized that if she squinted hard she might be able to see it on the backdrop of its star.

Captain Eris Lapham, of course, did not do this; she had more important things to do. "XO, what's the situation with those probes?" Her executive officer, Commander Victor Campbell, looked up. He was not as experienced as she was, only having been commissioned as an officer in 2553, but he was a hard worker, high-performing at the academy, and had adapted well to service aboard this cursed ship.

He grimaced "Not looking good, Captain. Our stores of probes are almost out, and the ones we have left are so scrambled from plasma burns that they're nigh-useless." A brief pinging noise alerted both of them to an incoming message from the ship's AI, Leela, which scrolled on their displays. <Additionally, even our active sensor scans cannot provide us with the detail we need. Not unless we get much, much closer.>

As part of the compromises of her design, Leela was unable to project an avatar like others of her kind. On top of that, damage taken from Created cyberattacks had gotten into her library speech files and turned them into a tangled mess. The last time Leela had attempted to "speak", four crewmen had been sent to the infirmary, their ears bleeding. Now, Leela had to rely on text or non-verbal noises to convey information.

The Captain considered this information for a moment, then sighed, rubbing tired, sleep-deprived eyes. "I suppose it can't be helped. Campbell, tell Colonel Jackson I need a ground team prepped and ready in two hours. Four Pelicans, we need a team to take point on figuring out what the hell is going on. Send the Spartans and Booker, too, they'll need a good escort. Tell them they need to figure out what's going on, and that it may be our ticket back home."

---​

Four Pelicans spewed from the Boomer an hour later, loaded to the brim with personnel, guns, and supplies for the expedition. Aboard the lead Pelican, Master Sergeant Booker stood, clutching her assault rifle in one hand as she grasped one of the Pelican's handholds. "Alright, Marines, listen up!" She said, broadcasting to the whole force. "Command has detected some strange signals coming from some beacon or whatsit planetside. Our job is to get down there and poke around a bit to find out what it is and who's broadcasting. Don't play heroes, keep your heads down, and let the scientists do the touching. You break it, you buy it. You hear me, Marines?"

One could almost imagine the resulting Oo-Rah being heard in the vacuum of space.
Booker grunted approvingly. "That's what I want to hear, Marines! Alright, buckle in, it's gonna get bumpy out there…"
She sat down and refastened her safety harness, locking in for the difficult flight down. Aboard with her were nine others, not counting their pilots; the members of the elite "Theta-Four" unit, ONI's Commander Durand and Lieutenant McKesson, and UEG science attache Jennifer "Jinni" Cortez. She smiled at the woman to her left, Theta-Four's NCO, although because of their helmets neither could see it. "You ready for a fun one, Gunny?" She asked, on a personal channel.

"Don't get me started, Top." She replied, looking over. "You know I hate dropship ops." The younger woman had confessed as such during the two's first ever meeting, on the last ride up from New Grove ops. The Master Sergeant grinned again. This was going to be a fun one.

---​

The descent through the atmosphere was a bumpy one, bumpy enough that the huge Pelicans were jostled as they descended. The atmosphere was thick as soup, murky and cloudy, and hitting it caused a jolt to run through the spines of all aboard. After they had transitioned into atmosphere, Senior Chief Petty Officer Benjamin decided he needed a better view. He released his restraints and stood up, mag-clamping to the deck. If it wasn't for the need for the Pelicans to have full crews for both delivery and pick-up, he'd have insisted he fly the mission himself. He was more comfortable among the clouds than almost any in the Boomer's crew, and his reaction times were the best even among those few. Alas, he was needed for the ground operation.

He and his team were ensconced in the rearmost Pelican, alongside a particular annoying ONI scientist named Howell and a team of four ODSTs. His team leader quirked her head towards him as he moved towards the cockpit, her gesture clearly questioning. "Where might you be going?"

"In-flight meal didn't agree with me. Going to tell the pilots that I'll be lodging a complaint with the spaceline." He said dryly.

She snorted. Alexis-G081, or most Spartans for that matter, were not the most jovial types, but they appreciated the occasional levity. "Alright then, go ahead. Tell me if you see anything interesting."

He nodded, and opened the door to the cockpit. The co-pilot looked back at him for a second before returning his view forward. "Chief." He said, nodding. "We're coming out of the worst of it now, and circling near to the landing zone. We'll actually pass by the beacon site, if you want to take a look."

Ben surmised that would be a difficult endeavor. Beyond the cockpit's glass, he saw nothing but dark fog. The pilots were navigating almost entirely based off instruments; visibility was near zero. However, for just a fraction of a second, no time at all for a normal human and barely much for a Spartan, he saw… something. It looked like a fragment of a ship, jutting upward, a design that seemed at once alien to the UNSC and yet profoundly human. For some reason, he felt a slight shudder come over him. "I… better get ready for the drop." He said, closing the door. He had no idea what was coming, but whatever it was seemed… ominous.

The Pelicans rumbled through the inky sky, dark raining clouds jostling them about, cracks of lightning and thunder heralding their arrival. Yet, despite all the noise and wrath of nature outside, it was eerily quiet. Tension gripped everyone onboard as they either tried to ignore the likely nightmare awaiting them, or their minds wrestled with what the presence of this ship meant.

The wreck was warped and burnt, from either re-entry, or energy weapons. Given the visible sturdiness and thickness of the metal on display, it was likely the latter.
The Boomer's ground team marched out of their Pelican dropships, eager to investigate the wreck.

There were two large, 'main' entrances, though it would be very easy to find another hole to climb through. The aft had a large tear, like something had bore through the hull without care for its armor plating. The ship's six decks were all exposed, but even at a slight angle, the ship could only be entered from the ground floor, unless someone brought a grapple hook, or some other method of traversing upwards.
The second was the open hangar bay. Most of the lights were dead, but a few near the back still flickered with whatever power remained within the battered starship.

On the side of the vessel read, KIU Tears of Ganymede. The signal was not a lie, the design looked firmly rooted in human origin but utterly different than anything built in human space. For better or for worse, this was real, and it was the ground team's job to investigate.

 

[CT2222]

Worst Space-Bus Ride Ever!
---​

Captain Eris Lapham, of the UNSC Navy, sat in her command chair, staring through the bridge's viewport into the expanse of the void. Their current course and orientation had them moving through the system, slightly off-axis from their sun, which burned a hard orange through the viewport. She checked her displays, checking on the orbital trajectory of that habitable planet as her ship moved ever-closer, and realized that if she squinted hard she might be able to see it on the backdrop of its star.

Captain Eris Lapham, of course, did not do this; she had more important things to do. "XO, what's the situation with those probes?" Her executive officer, Commander Victor Campbell, looked up. He was not as experienced as she was, only having been commissioned as an officer in 2553, but he was a hard worker, high-performing at the academy, and had adapted well to service aboard this cursed ship.

He grimaced "Not looking good, Captain. Our stores of probes are almost out, and the ones we have left are so scrambled from plasma burns that they're nigh-useless." A brief pinging noise alerted both of them to an incoming message from the ship's AI, Leela, which scrolled on their displays. <Additionally, even our active sensor scans cannot provide us with the detail we need. Not unless we get much, much closer.>

As part of the compromises of her design, Leela was unable to project an avatar like others of her kind. On top of that, damage taken from Created cyberattacks had gotten into her library speech files and turned them into a tangled mess. The last time Leela had attempted to "speak", four crewmen had been sent to the infirmary, their ears bleeding. Now, Leela had to rely on text or non-verbal noises to convey information.

The Captain considered this information for a moment, then sighed, rubbing tired, sleep-deprived eyes. "I suppose it can't be helped. Campbell, tell Colonel Jackson I need a ground team prepped and ready in two hours. Four Pelicans, we need a team to take point on figuring out what the hell is going on. Send the Spartans and Booker, too, they'll need a good escort. Tell them they need to figure out what's going on, and that it may be our ticket back home."

---​

Four Pelicans spewed from the Boomer an hour later, loaded to the brim with personnel, guns, and supplies for the expedition. Aboard the lead Pelican, Master Sergeant Booker stood, clutching her assault rifle in one hand as she grasped one of the Pelican's handholds. "Alright, Marines, listen up!" She said, broadcasting to the whole force. "Command has detected some strange signals coming from some beacon or whatsit planetside. Our job is to get down there and poke around a bit to find out what it is and who's broadcasting. Don't play heroes, keep your heads down, and let the scientists do the touching. You break it, you buy it. You hear me, Marines?"

One could almost imagine the resulting Oo-Rah being heard in the vacuum of space.
Booker grunted approvingly. "That's what I want to hear, Marines! Alright, buckle in, it's gonna get bumpy out there…"
She sat down and refastened her safety harness, locking in for the difficult flight down. Aboard with her were nine others, not counting their pilots; the members of the elite "Theta-Four" unit, ONI's Commander Durand and Lieutenant McKesson, and UEG science attache Jennifer "Jinni" Cortez. She smiled at the woman to her left, Theta-Four's NCO, although because of their helmets neither could see it. "You ready for a fun one, Gunny?" She asked, on a personal channel.

"Don't get me started, Top." She replied, looking over. "You know I hate dropship ops." The younger woman had confessed as such during the two's first ever meeting, on the last ride up from New Grove ops. The Master Sergeant grinned again. This was going to be a fun one.

---​

The descent through the atmosphere was a bumpy one, bumpy enough that the huge Pelicans were jostled as they descended. The atmosphere was thick as soup, murky and cloudy, and hitting it caused a jolt to run through the spines of all aboard. After they had transitioned into atmosphere, Senior Chief Petty Officer Benjamin decided he needed a better view. He released his restraints and stood up, mag-clamping to the deck. If it wasn't for the need for the Pelicans to have full crews for both delivery and pick-up, he'd have insisted he fly the mission himself. He was more comfortable among the clouds than almost any in the Boomer's crew, and his reaction times were the best even among those few. Alas, he was needed for the ground operation.

He and his team were ensconced in the rearmost Pelican, alongside a particular annoying ONI scientist named Howell and a team of four ODSTs. His team leader quirked her head towards him as he moved towards the cockpit, her gesture clearly questioning. "Where might you be going?"

"In-flight meal didn't agree with me. Going to tell the pilots that I'll be lodging a complaint with the spaceline." He said dryly.

She snorted. Alexis-G081, or most Spartans for that matter, were not the most jovial types, but they appreciated the occasional levity. "Alright then, go ahead. Tell me if you see anything interesting."

He nodded, and opened the door to the cockpit. The co-pilot looked back at him for a second before returning his view forward. "Chief." He said, nodding. "We're coming out of the worst of it now, and circling near to the landing zone. We'll actually pass by the beacon site, if you want to take a look."

Ben surmised that would be a difficult endeavor. Beyond the cockpit's glass, he saw nothing but dark fog. The pilots were navigating almost entirely based off instruments; visibility was near zero. However, for just a fraction of a second, no time at all for a normal human and barely much for a Spartan, he saw… something. It looked like a fragment of a ship, jutting upward, a design that seemed at once alien to the UNSC and yet profoundly human. For some reason, he felt a slight shudder come over him. "I… better get ready for the drop." He said, closing the door. He had no idea what was coming, but whatever it was seemed… ominous.

The Pelicans rumbled through the inky sky, dark raining clouds jostling them about, cracks of lightning and thunder heralding their arrival. Yet, despite all the noise and wrath of nature outside, it was eerily quiet. Tension gripped everyone onboard as they either tried to ignore the likely nightmare awaiting them, or their minds wrestled with what the presence of this ship meant.

The wreck was warped and burnt, from either re-entry, or energy weapons. Given the visible sturdiness and thickness of the metal on display, it was likely the latter.
The Boomer's ground team marched out of their Pelican dropships, eager to investigate the wreck.

There were two large, 'main' entrances, though it would be very easy to find another hole to climb through. The aft had a large tear, like something had bore through the hull without care for its armor plating. The ship's six decks were all exposed, but even at a slight angle, the ship could only be entered from the ground floor, unless someone brought a grapple hook, or some other method of traversing upwards.
The second was the open hangar bay. Most of the lights were dead, but a few near the back still flickered with whatever power remained within the battered starship.

On the side of the vessel read, KIU Tears of Ganymede. The signal was not a lie, the design looked firmly rooted in human origin but utterly different than anything built in human space. For better or for worse, this was real, and it was the ground team's job to investigate.

Buyer Beware…
---​

"Go go go!" Booker shouted, as she and her team vacated the dropship. "Clear the takeoff radius!" She rushed out, rifle raised and sweeping, covering her area as she knew her men were doing. The Pelicans were back in the air in moments, returning up to Boomer's safety. After a moment, she stood up, making a hand gesture. "Alright Marines, we're in the clear! Let's get ready to move!"

She gestured to the the team leaders, to form up on her. "Alright, people, here's the plan. Echo-7, you and Charlie Squad will take ONI agent Howell up that hole in the rear of the ship. Dog Squad, you'll be covering our egress. The rest of you are with me, we'll be going in the hangar. Keep strict trigger discipline: we've got no idea what's in there. Now, let's get moving!"

She assembled with her group. Spearhead, Theta-4, CDR Durand and LT McKesson, and finally, Cortez, who waved at her cheerily. All in all, she reckoned, not the worst team to go into a hostile environment with. "Alright team, keep it close and keep ready. We've got no idea what's going on in there, and this strange ship gives me a bad feeling… SPARTANs, you lead the way."

 

[Doctor Jax]

Bizarre. There were few other, better words for it.

Lieutenant Lovelle McKesson leaned her head to peer out of the open bay of the Pelican for her first look at the derelict that had been putting out distress signals ad nauseum to the Boomer since they'd been in range. While she was aware most would feel the shiver up their spine of ghost stories and horror movies, she only felt intrigue and excitement, a cold and singing focus on the conundrum before her. She fully ignored the turbulent ride in the Pelican, blood high in her ears as she finally saw the KIU Tears of Ganymede.

A ship, that shouldn't exist. Didn't exist.

Immediately, the shape stood out to her as being foreign. Obviously human - it did not bear the swooping curves of Covenant engineering, nor the strange and spindly gargantuan form of Forerunner ships. Devastatingly human, made to human scale, of human parts, but alien entirely to them as any missionary ship or Forerunner ruin. Her red hair whipped about her face as she put her helmet on, hiding a classically pretty face behind UEG military-grade glass.

With that, Booker gave them their heading, and Lovelle gave a finger wave to CMDR Durand, cheeky and perhaps a little too blasé about their current situation. Never the less, she did advance - finger off the trigger of her pistol - with the team towards the hangar, the only portion of the ship still with power.

Did it run on a conventional power source? What sort of computer systems had survived the crash? She got the feeling they had been fleeing... something.

The billion credit question was, what, exactly? And had it stowed aboard?

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

Worst Space-Bus Ride Ever!
---​

Captain Eris Lapham, of the UNSC Navy, sat in her command chair, staring through the bridge's viewport into the expanse of the void. Their current course and orientation had them moving through the system, slightly off-axis from their sun, which burned a hard orange through the viewport. She checked her displays, checking on the orbital trajectory of that habitable planet as her ship moved ever-closer, and realized that if she squinted hard she might be able to see it on the backdrop of its star.

Captain Eris Lapham, of course, did not do this; she had more important things to do. "XO, what's the situation with those probes?" Her executive officer, Commander Victor Campbell, looked up. He was not as experienced as she was, only having been commissioned as an officer in 2553, but he was a hard worker, high-performing at the academy, and had adapted well to service aboard this cursed ship.

He grimaced "Not looking good, Captain. Our stores of probes are almost out, and the ones we have left are so scrambled from plasma burns that they're nigh-useless." A brief pinging noise alerted both of them to an incoming message from the ship's AI, Leela, which scrolled on their displays. <Additionally, even our active sensor scans cannot provide us with the detail we need. Not unless we get much, much closer.>

As part of the compromises of her design, Leela was unable to project an avatar like others of her kind. On top of that, damage taken from Created cyberattacks had gotten into her library speech files and turned them into a tangled mess. The last time Leela had attempted to "speak", four crewmen had been sent to the infirmary, their ears bleeding. Now, Leela had to rely on text or non-verbal noises to convey information.

The Captain considered this information for a moment, then sighed, rubbing tired, sleep-deprived eyes. "I suppose it can't be helped. Campbell, tell Colonel Jackson I need a ground team prepped and ready in two hours. Four Pelicans, we need a team to take point on figuring out what the hell is going on. Send the Spartans and Booker, too, they'll need a good escort. Tell them they need to figure out what's going on, and that it may be our ticket back home."

---​

Four Pelicans spewed from the Boomer an hour later, loaded to the brim with personnel, guns, and supplies for the expedition. Aboard the lead Pelican, Master Sergeant Booker stood, clutching her assault rifle in one hand as she grasped one of the Pelican's handholds. "Alright, Marines, listen up!" She said, broadcasting to the whole force. "Command has detected some strange signals coming from some beacon or whatsit planetside. Our job is to get down there and poke around a bit to find out what it is and who's broadcasting. Don't play heroes, keep your heads down, and let the scientists do the touching. You break it, you buy it. You hear me, Marines?"

One could almost imagine the resulting Oo-Rah being heard in the vacuum of space.
Booker grunted approvingly. "That's what I want to hear, Marines! Alright, buckle in, it's gonna get bumpy out there…"
She sat down and refastened her safety harness, locking in for the difficult flight down. Aboard with her were nine others, not counting their pilots; the members of the elite "Theta-Four" unit, ONI's Commander Durand and Lieutenant McKesson, and UEG science attache Jennifer "Jinni" Cortez. She smiled at the woman to her left, Theta-Four's NCO, although because of their helmets neither could see it. "You ready for a fun one, Gunny?" She asked, on a personal channel.

"Don't get me started, Top." She replied, looking over. "You know I hate dropship ops." The younger woman had confessed as such during the two's first ever meeting, on the last ride up from New Grove ops. The Master Sergeant grinned again. This was going to be a fun one.

---​

The descent through the atmosphere was a bumpy one, bumpy enough that the huge Pelicans were jostled as they descended. The atmosphere was thick as soup, murky and cloudy, and hitting it caused a jolt to run through the spines of all aboard. After they had transitioned into atmosphere, Senior Chief Petty Officer Benjamin decided he needed a better view. He released his restraints and stood up, mag-clamping to the deck. If it wasn't for the need for the Pelicans to have full crews for both delivery and pick-up, he'd have insisted he fly the mission himself. He was more comfortable among the clouds than almost any in the Boomer's crew, and his reaction times were the best even among those few. Alas, he was needed for the ground operation.

He and his team were ensconced in the rearmost Pelican, alongside a particular annoying ONI scientist named Howell and a team of four ODSTs. His team leader quirked her head towards him as he moved towards the cockpit, her gesture clearly questioning. "Where might you be going?"

"In-flight meal didn't agree with me. Going to tell the pilots that I'll be lodging a complaint with the spaceline." He said dryly.

She snorted. Alexis-G081, or most Spartans for that matter, were not the most jovial types, but they appreciated the occasional levity. "Alright then, go ahead. Tell me if you see anything interesting."

He nodded, and opened the door to the cockpit. The co-pilot looked back at him for a second before returning his view forward. "Chief." He said, nodding. "We're coming out of the worst of it now, and circling near to the landing zone. We'll actually pass by the beacon site, if you want to take a look."

Ben surmised that would be a difficult endeavor. Beyond the cockpit's glass, he saw nothing but dark fog. The pilots were navigating almost entirely based off instruments; visibility was near zero. However, for just a fraction of a second, no time at all for a normal human and barely much for a Spartan, he saw… something. It looked like a fragment of a ship, jutting upward, a design that seemed at once alien to the UNSC and yet profoundly human. For some reason, he felt a slight shudder come over him. "I… better get ready for the drop." He said, closing the door. He had no idea what was coming, but whatever it was seemed… ominous.

The Pelicans rumbled through the inky sky, dark raining clouds jostling them about, cracks of lightning and thunder heralding their arrival. Yet, despite all the noise and wrath of nature outside, it was eerily quiet. Tension gripped everyone onboard as they either tried to ignore the likely nightmare awaiting them, or their minds wrestled with what the presence of this ship meant.

The wreck was warped and burnt, from either re-entry, or energy weapons. Given the visible sturdiness and thickness of the metal on display, it was likely the latter.
The Boomer's ground team marched out of their Pelican dropships, eager to investigate the wreck.

There were two large, 'main' entrances, though it would be very easy to find another hole to climb through. The aft had a large tear, like something had bore through the hull without care for its armor plating. The ship's six decks were all exposed, but even at a slight angle, the ship could only be entered from the ground floor, unless someone brought a grapple hook, or some other method of traversing upwards.
The second was the open hangar bay. Most of the lights were dead, but a few near the back still flickered with whatever power remained within the battered starship.

On the side of the vessel read, KIU Tears of Ganymede. The signal was not a lie, the design looked firmly rooted in human origin but utterly different than anything built in human space. For better or for worse, this was real, and it was the ground team's job to investigate.

Buyer Beware…
---​

"Go go go!" Booker shouted, as she and her team vacated the dropship. "Clear the takeoff radius!" She rushed out, rifle raised and sweeping, covering her area as she knew her men were doing. The Pelicans were back in the air in moments, returning up to Boomer's safety. After a moment, she stood up, making a hand gesture. "Alright Marines, we're in the clear! Let's get ready to move!"

She gestured to the the team leaders, to form up on her. "Alright, people, here's the plan. Echo-7, you and Charlie Squad will take ONI agent Howell up that hole in the rear of the ship. Dog Squad, you'll be covering our egress. The rest of you are with me, we'll be going in the hangar. Keep strict trigger discipline: we've got no idea what's in there. Now, let's get moving!"

She assembled with her group. Spearhead, Theta-4, CDR Durand and LT McKesson, and finally, Cortez, who waved at her cheerily. All in all, she reckoned, not the worst team to go into a hostile environment with. "Alright team, keep it close and keep ready. We've got no idea what's going on in there, and this strange ship gives me a bad feeling… SPARTANs, you lead the way."

Bizarre. There were few other, better words for it.

Lieutenant Lovelle McKesson leaned her head to peer out of the open bay of the Pelican for her first look at the derelict that had been putting out distress signals ad nauseum to the Boomer since they'd been in range. While she was aware most would feel the shiver up their spine of ghost stories and horror movies, she only felt intrigue and excitement, a cold and singing focus on the conundrum before her. She fully ignored the turbulent ride in the Pelican, blood high in her ears as she finally saw the KIU Tears of Ganymede.

A ship, that shouldn't exist. Didn't exist.

Immediately, the shape stood out to her as being foreign. Obviously human - it did not bear the swooping curves of Covenant engineering, nor the strange and spindly gargantuan form of Forerunner ships. Devastatingly human, made to human scale, of human parts, but alien entirely to them as any missionary ship or Forerunner ruin. Her red hair whipped about her face as she put her helmet on, hiding a classically pretty face behind UEG military-grade glass.

With that, Booker gave them their heading, and Lovelle gave a finger wave to CMDR Durand, cheeky and perhaps a little too blasé about their current situation. Never the less, she did advance - finger off the trigger of her pistol - with the team towards the hangar, the only portion of the ship still with power.

Did it run on a conventional power source? What sort of computer systems had survived the crash? She got the feeling they had been fleeing... something.

The billion credit question was, what, exactly? And had it stowed aboard?

The tear looked familiar to just about everyone who had worked in a dock sometime in the past thirty years. Every deck floor was curled, misshapen, and scorched from plasma fire. Something was broken inside the ship, and it was forming a layer of fog which stuck to the deck. The ship groaned as onboard systems detected life, and moved to re-activate automatic doors and lights, with only a handful actually working.

The ship, where it wasn't black for burning, was typically white and orange, sleek and classically space age. Exposed, heavy piping ran across the bottoms of walls, punctured in many places. Most of the technology on display was analog, doors controlled, if not by sensors, then by switches. There were no holographic displays, and an uncommonly small amount of screens - it was the future past, like a classical engineer from pre-flight Earth was asked to design a spaceship.

It was more still more advanced than the Interplanetary Wars, the time frame of the Koslovics. McKesson's keen eye did spot, however, several references to a pinch fusion generator at the heart of the ship - which only added to the mystery, seeing how that was Covenant technology.

Periodically, Dog Squad would report back in. They had found several crates of supplies in the box, all of which were written on in some odd mix of Russian and German. Everything from spare parts, to MREs, to medicine, to guns and marine equipment were present. Of course, Dog Squad took the most interest in the new firearms, after deciding the MREs were not an improvement.

The Koslovic assault rifle wasn't too bad, all in all. While Dog Squad wasn't stupid enough to start shooting with it, they reported it was light, but not fragile, furnished with wood and combined with simple, machined parts. It was even still a bullpup, and they remarked how little different these disparate humans seemed.

There was more, of course. Revolvers, shotguns, body armor, pizza slices. The key takeaway was, though these Koslovics seemed to embrace a different tongue than the UEG-endorsed central language of English, they weren't alien to Earth's humans by any means that they could tell.

That didn't answer every question, though. Not by a longshot.

Eventually, Booker and her team found the bridge of the derelict vessel, where they found bodies. A lot of bodies. The entire room was filled, nearly to the brim, with corpses. They spilled out when the door opened, decidedly human, and decidedly dead. They were missing limbs, parts of their heads, holes driven through their chests, like someone had plunged a chair leg through them.

It was horrible, and Jiralhanae. But the Banished, and many of the brutes, would've used this harvest for a feast. This was slaughter, and they treated the bodies dementedly. Through a speaker, echoing from behind the pile of the dead, the same voice from the distress call rang out, and rang again, and Booker couldn't help but wonder if the people, or beasts, who did this action were still lurking around the area.

Regardless, it was only a matter of time until others came to investigate, perhaps even other Koslovics. The promise of a new and entirely independent human civilization on the other side of the Orion Arm, boarding Sagittarius, was as boggling as ever. Now, however, it had a new, dark light which painted it, and Booker had a hell of a report to make - and a decision. What to do with all this?

 

[CT2222]

One Hell Of A Report…
- - -​

Ty Robbins grew progressively more and more nervous as he and his team swept the darkened halls of the strange derelict. Jittering lights cast insane shadows and the sounds of creaking, groaning and slamming occasionally echoed through the halls. His technician's eye had spotted half a dozen things that both intrigued and alarmed him, and he understood even less than that vaguely off-putting ONI officer did! The decks were filled with a strange fog, some malfunctioning system, no doubt… right? He kept moving, kept sweeping hallways, and as he proceeded his dread only grew. The only thing that broke up the silence was periodic reports from Dog Squad as they explored the great tear in the ship. Even with the huge, quiet Spartans leading the way, he didn't feel secure. He knew they weren't invincible; he had seen them nearly go down several times during the Poniard attack, and even beyond that he'd seen some of the leaked footage on the deep intraspace nets…

"This ship gives me the creeps…" He jumped at the sudden crackle over the comms, startled, then glanced around embarrassed to check if anyone saw his indiscretion. Helljumpers didn't get scared! Thankfully, everyone was too focused on their jobs to mind his little jump. The one who spoke up was Craft, the demolitions expert. He seemed jittery, even a bit hyperactive, as he checked his corner.

His best friend, Hickman, waved it off. "Nah, man, you're just paranoid! What, a little fog got you more scared than some Covies or tinheads?" He scoffed. Hickman was the only one who seemed totally at ease; even Gunny seemed a bit more stiff than usual. He proceeded to move to the next door and prepare to clear the room, as usual. "Is some spooky fog and dark corridors enough to scare Shock Troopers? Man, I guess I got assigned to a squad of yellow-bellied cadets!"

Gunny just shook her head. "Check the door, Hickman, and shut your trap." The rest of the squad stood, either watching the rest of the hallways or ready to follow Hickman. He tapped the door control, and the door shuddered. He tilted his helmet, and hit it again with the butt of his shotgun.

It opened, and he turned back to look over his shoulder at the group even as he started to enter. "See! Nothing to be scared of- WHAT THE FUCK!" He stumbled backward, nearly tripping as he reeled out of the doorway.

"Shit!" Gunny said, turning from her position. "Hickman, what's going on?!" Goosebumps ran up Ty's arms. He couldn't see through the door from his current position, blocked by Hickman as it was, but things had spilled out of the door. One of them almost looked like… an arm? He stepped by Hickman with the Gunnery Sergeant, gun raised and ready. What he saw nearly made him rip off his helmet and throw up right then and there. Only his training and disciplined stopped him, as he knew such an awful pile of offal could potentially carry some sort of disease or other nasty, nasty thing. Failing that, he really didn't want to smell what was inside that room.

It was fully stuffed with bodies. Not in a metaphorical sense, or a theoretical sense. As he processed it, the urge to puke only rose. It was full of bodies. He could see some of them had their arms and legs bent at unnatural angles, even broken, to stuff them inside. Behind them all, a voice echoed, the voice they had heard in the briefing room as the mission was laid out.

"...this is Commander Rowan McDowell, of the Koslovic Independent Union frigate Tears of Ganymede. Someone, please help us… this is Commander Rowan McDowell, of the Koslovic Independent Union frigate Tears of Ganymede. Someone, please help us…" Again and again, this plea played over the speakers.

Even the Gunnery Sergeant staggered back a pace.

"...this is Commander Rowan McDowell, of the Koslovic Independent Union frigate Tears of Ganymede. Someone, please help us…"

She contacted Booker and the Spartans further down the hallway. "We- urk -found something here."

"...this is Commander Rowan McDowell, of the Koslovic Independent Union frigate Tears of Ganymede."

"Looks like massive casualties, all human so far. Need support."

"Someone, please help us…"

- - -​

As the ODSTs labored to move some of the corpses out, Booker pondered the situation, her mood grim. After moving perhaps thirty corpses into the hall, they were able to determine that the room appeared to be the bridge deck. A dark thought flitted across her mind. 'It's about thirty, because they're so destroyed we can't even reliably estimate it.' She banished the thought, and sighed. Even in her long and storied career, she had never seen anything even close to this; even Covenant butchery of seized civilian evacuation bunkers wasn't this grim. The mutilated corpses were in a wretched state, some looking like they were the result of industrial accidents rather than combat. Staved-in rib cages, dislocated jaws on leering dead faces only held on by strips of strained flesh, piles of limbs that appeared to have been removed away from the site and then stacked like firewood… Above it all, the distress call repeated over and over again, wearing down one's soul like an angle grinder on metal.

The bodies were, mercifully at least, all seemingly adult so far, and all in strange military uniforms. At least two had been wearing some sort of armor, and another rifle matching those that Dog Squad had seen in the hangar bay was found. However, there was something strange about all this. By her rough estimates, assuming the density of bodies remained the same throughout, there were too many bodies inside this damn thing, perhaps more than a hundred. A ship this size wouldn't need that many crew, not unless it was a warship… The thought troubled her. The ODSTs were laying them all out, trying to be as dignified as they could, with their medic and the UEG doctor examining them to gain any clue as to their origins or the nature of their clearly violent deaths.

She grabbed her rifle from against the hall, and wished for perhaps the hundredth time that she'd decided to retire on Meridian instead. She sent a quick transmission to Charlie Squad, frowning. She'd left strict instructions for them to check in every ten minutes, minimum. She came to a quick decision, and walked up to the Spartan team commander, looking up into her helmet's faceplate. She wasn't exactly a short woman herself, and she was also ensconced in powered armor, but the Spartan still towered over her. 'Damn younguns and their superior augmentations' she thought, in the back of her mind. "Lieutenant Commander?" She asked, switching to a private channel.

The Spartan turned from her position covering the hallway to look at her. "Ma'am?" Even as she looked, she kept her rifle trained unflinchingly down the hallway. She had to admit, she admired their machinelike precision.

"I'm starting to get worried about Charlie Squad. We've not seen hide nor hair of them since we split, and they haven't checked in on the comms. I want you to take two of your team and go aft to ensure they're not getting massacred like these poor bastards." She gestured at the pile of corpses in the hallway. "Move fast and light. Keep your techie here, I wanted him to examine some of these bridge consoles once we've cleared more bodies."

The Spartan nodded, and silently indicated to two of her team to follow. They set off at a low jog, weapons still shouldered and tracking. The other remaining Spartan besides the techie, the one with an ODST-based helmet, walked up to her. The Spartans were fairly insular from the rest of the crew, as was their nature, but this one tended to be fairly friendly. She remembered his name, even without it popping up in her display. "Ensign Cameron," she said. "I want you covering us. If we've got any unfriendlies on this ship, I don't want them sneaking up on us.

"Yes, ma'am." He said crisply, moving to a position where he could easily look down to both ends of the hallway.

She turned to the rest of her little group. "Helljumpers, listen up!" She boomed. They all turned to face her, away from their grisly work. "We're gonna finish clearing out this bridge, at least until we can get some of those consoles exposed." One of them groaned, though she couldn't tell which. She glared at all of them for good measure. "Lock it up! After you get a console exposed, I want McKesson, Robbins and our other Spartan friend working on it. Get whatever data you can out of it, then we'll pull back to the evac point and regroup. Team two can finish the SAR sweep. Get to it!"

She turned, and began trying to establish contact with the Boomer through the Pelicans. She had a report to make.

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

[KosIndUn-NAV-0911-002-0928-TEARS OF GANYMEDE - Petrovitch-class Destroyer]
[ACCESS:BB-9982 Unit LUNA-2]
[ - KIUN Battle Group Bravo - ]
[ - Objective: Patrol Nearby Systems For Enemy Forces - ]

[FOUND.VID.09.77]

// BEGIN PLAYBACK //
// ACTIVATING TRANSLATOR - ENGLISH //

[ - (English) - TIER ONE OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE; FILING ANOMALOUS REQUEST FOR REPORTING TO МИНИСТЕРСТВО МИРА - ]
[ - UPLINK FAILED. UPLINK FAILED. UPLINK FAILED. - ]

// BEGINNING PLAYBACK //

'Alright, sensor crew - time for a sweep. Standard tag-and-report. Chief, what's the drive's disposition?'
'Ready for use in thirty minutes, commander.'
'Thirty minutes? Good time, chief. Keep up the good work. Nowak, sensor readings?'
'We've got something.'

'What? What kind of something?'
'Energy readings, gravitic disruptions, signs of artificial equipment use.'
'Is another task force from Bravo here?'
'No I-F-F tag, commander.'
'...alright, bring us in closer. Get the deep scanners working.'

[ - CEASING USE OF TIER ONE OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE - ]

«Есть что-нибудь новое?»
«Нет, командир. Но это все равно странно. Это вполне может быть замаскированный корабль».
«Мне не нужны домыслы, мне нужны факты, прапорщик».
«Командир! Принимаю привет!»
«Выведите это на экран!»

-- (Люди. Ваш приход сюда был ошибкой. Вам не избежать этой системы.) --

«Полный комплект двигателей, немедленно! Навигатор, приготовьтесь к мощным маневрам уклонения! Связь, приготовьте пакет данных для команды, отправьте его как можно быстрее! Управление огнем, приготовить все орудия!»
«Сэр! На прицелах обнаружено вражеское судно, энергетические показатели усиливаются!»
«Огонь из всех орудий!»

// END OF RECORDING. //

// PLAY NEXT RECORDING. //

«Команды по противоборству уничтожены! Экипаж не в состоянии выполнять свои обязанности!»
«Каков статус этого пакета данных!»
«Линия связи в пространстве подпространства отключена!»

«Отчет о повреждениях!»
«Плазменный луч попал в корму, потеря восьмидесяти процентов двигателей!»
«Мы в свободном падении!»
«Связь, подготовка сообщения, установка на цикл, даже подготовка его для дальних расстояний».
«Вы живы, командир!»
«...это командир Роуэн Макдауэлл с фрегата Независимого Союза Кословиц «Слезы Ганимеда». Кто-нибудь, пожалуйста, помогите нам...»
«Прорыв! Прорыв! Прорыв-»

// END OF RECORDING. //

// INFORMATION REQUESTS DENIED. TRAVEL LOG DENIED. COMMS LOG DENIED. SCHEMATICS DENIED. CREW AND CARGO MANIFESTS DENI- //

// UPLINKUPLINKUPLINK //

// HELLO, LIEUTENANT MCKESSON. THIS IS LEELA. I WILL SCRAPE THE SHIP'S MAINFRAME FOR ANY DATA OF NOTE. //

---

Between McKesson and Leela, the data-banks of the Ganymede were swept clean. It appeared the Koslovics were alive and well, but they were far from home. Slipspace was invented long after when their alleged departure date from Sol had been, and it would have taken a mighty slipspace drive to get them here by the time they said they had.

Apparently, they had four systems, but the name for them listed was a random string of numbers and letters, so no extra information on their contents. They were at war with something, some alien power. While it could easily be a Covenant remnant, the language included in the black box recordings sounded nothing like any Covenant species. More alien, even.

There were references to something called a 'Sacred Promissory,' in the alien threat's file. Apparently previous contact with the aliens, including an invasion and conquest of a fifth Koslovic system, had alluded to the aliens believing the humans had been hiding this sacred promissory from them, denying them technology which rightfully belonged to them. The Koslovic records implied they had no idea what the aliens were talking about.

Curiously, it was also noted in the damage and repair reports that long-range scanners had been mysteriously fixed, and its message altered, forty-two minutes after the ship's crash landing.

Then, the Boomer's sensor readings detected a slipspace jump, not far away in astronomical distances. It was burning bright and fast towards the heavy cruiser, with plasma weapons charging up.

There were still teams on the ground, McKesson, the Spartans and ODSTs. The ship grew ever closer. Whatever outcome Captain Eris Lapham wanted, it would have to be bold if she wanted her and her crew to survive.

 

[Doctor Jax]

Even to an ONI operative, the sight of bodies piled high like firewood made Lieutenant McKesson flinch as limbs tumbled out of the opened doorway to the bridge. She was suddenly thankful for her helmet filtering the air she breathed, as she noticed the fluids leaking through the door in slow streams. Upon Booker's order, she waited for the teams to move the bodies out of the way so she and the techie could get into a console, start to dissect the guts of their computers the way their mystery assailant dissected these poor crewmen.

God. She could hardly recognize some of them as human. More like, vague lumps inside bags of cloth. Good thing her job was computers, not manhandling these half-a-corpses.

Still, in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but think that they had not seen any corpses in the rest of the ship. It was a distracting, wriggling little thought, working away as they cleared a path into the bridge towards one of the consoles. McKesson ignored sightless eyes seeming to watch her from their ignoble repose as they waded forward. It felt as if the entire crew had been moved to this single location.

Like they didn't want you to notice anyone was missing until you get right here.

McKesson buried the thought as she knelt beside a console, making a face as her knee landed in a puddle of... something. Out of her kit, she pulled several different styles of mechanical join cables, removing the paneling to inspect the ports every console should inevitably have. She could attempt a soft join through a signaling device, but these systems had been damaged - physical connections were going to be more foolproof. Working alongside the Spartan techie, she managed to patch into their system.

"Ooooh, Russian. Why am I not surprised?" McKesson muttered under her breath as she pulled a translation processor from her bag to slot into her own console. Leela assisted in scraping the databanks, while McKesson sussed out the file architecture for the ship. Ach, and it was throwing what seemed like a million denials at her, with a security infrastructure that was just familiar enough to be frustrating and alien enough to be baffling. Whatever the case, she could build just enough of a picture to get the gist of what happened.

"We're looking at some sort of human coalition on four different star systems, but no lock on where exactly -- I'll see if maybe eggheads on the Boomer can make heads or tails of the coordinates and names. They use pinch-fusion reactors, which is a little bit odd, but I guess that makes sense, they wouldn't have been around Sol when the slipspace engine was invented, though how the hell they figured those out is beyond me. At some point they encountered a hostile alien race. It doesn't sound like Covenant forces, the vocal recordings don't match any known Covenant language we have on file," McKesson stated with a flippancy she didn't quite feel. "The aliens allege the Koslovic Union is holding onto some tech called the 'Sacred Promissory', and the KIU say 'sorry, bud, we don't have it.'"

McKesson's eyes began down the flight log next, and in rare disconcert, her eyebrows started to furrow.

"This ship's pretty far from their home systems. Then, the Ganymede encountered something that caused gravitation distortions, something they clearly weren't expecting. I'm going to guess the same race. They put together some kind of data packet to try and send out on the long-range frequency to cycle over and over. However, they crash-landed and the sensors busted. But... but someone changed the message forty-two minutes after the crash and fixed the long-range scanners."

The wriggling thought was now a writhe. Her heart pounded in her ears. Somebody showed up here, and not to help. They weren't interested in the supplies. They weren't interested in the weapons. They came here, fixed the scanner and only the long-range scanner, hid the bodies in the bridge, sent out a distress signal...

The classic wounded gazelle.

McKesson looked to the Spartan techie at a neighboring console.

"We've got to get out of here. This is a lure," McKesson said, hurriedly packing up her kit, "whoever fired on them is expecting someone to come here."

@CT2222

 

[CT2222]

Contact!

- - -​

Captain Lapham cursed under her breath. This couldn't have come at a worse time. Sensors were picking up an enemy ship accelerating for them at high speed, and powering up plasma weapons. It was smaller than her ship, by volume estimates, but the Boomer was in a bad way, having suffered in combat and on her journey. "Set Condition One throughout the ship!" She barked into her commlink, transmitting to the ship's intercom. "All crew, we are going to Combat Alert Alpha! All personnel, report to your assigned battle stations! All combat personnel, be prepared to repel boarders!" She turned off her comms, then turned to her bridge crew. "Helm, vector to engage but hold acceleration. Ops, I need shields up, now now now! Air Control, vector the CAP onto the signature and get more of our fighters in the air! Tell the CAG to deploy the Sabres and Nandaos! Weapons, get me a firing solution on that ship with the MAC and warm up a flight of Archers. We're going to give them a warm welcome." Her crew busied herself to meeting their commander's expectations, and hopefully saving their own hides to boot.

Finally, she turned to her sensor operator. "Sensors, when's that ship going to be making contact with us?"

The man hurriedly made some calculations, then turned to her. "Four minutes, ma'am, and closing."

She cursed under her breath again. "Comms, get me a line to Booker, ASAP. We're pulling them out, now. We'll just have to hold until then." She briefly stared down at the planet, watching it shrink as the ship began to rotate, orienting itself towards the new contact.

- - -​

Corporal Robbins scrambled up from his own console, fumbling with his SMG for a moment and looking to McKesson. "What's going on, ma'am?"

"Copy that." Intoned the Spartan, standing up and grabbing his Stanchion where he had leaned it against the wall. "Master Sergeant, I recommend we get ready for immediate evacuation."

Booker barged into the compartment, rifle held low but ready. "Already ahead of you, Spartan. Just got word from orbit. Covie ship jumped in, weapons hot. Boomer's gonna hold 'em off while we evac. Pelicans are already coming back down from their holding pattern." She quickly sent a transmission to the three Spartans searching for Charlie Squad. "SPEARHEAD One, this is Booker. We've got orders to evacuate. I'm giving you two minutes. Proceed as fast as possible and try to find Charlie Squad, then sprint back to the landing zone. Copy."

"Copy." A quiet voice clicked over the comms, then went silent again.

Booker flipped to another frequency. "Dog Squad, prepare for evac. Grab and bag anything you can for analysis, and make sure our asses are clear to depart. You hear me, Marines?"

"Yes, Master Sergeant!"

Booker turned back to her little force; Durand, the ODSTs, McKesson, Doctor Cortez, and the two Spartans. "Alright, everybody. Pack whatever kit or samples you've got out, and then we're leaving. Fastest pace we can manage. Keep up, or I leave you behind here for the apes! Now, get tactical, marines! We move in thirty seconds!"

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

Corporal Robbins scrambled up from his own console, fumbling with his SMG for a moment and looking to McKesson. "What's going on, ma'am?"

"Copy that." Intoned the Spartan, standing up and grabbing his Stanchion where he had leaned it against the wall. "Master Sergeant, I recommend we get ready for immediate evacuation."

Booker barged into the compartment, rifle held low but ready. "Already ahead of you, Spartan. Just got word from orbit. Covie ship jumped in, weapons hot. Boomer's gonna hold 'em off while we evac. Pelicans are already coming back down from their holding pattern." She quickly sent a transmission to the three Spartans searching for Charlie Squad. "SPEARHEAD One, this is Booker. We've got orders to evacuate. I'm giving you two minutes. Proceed as fast as possible and try to find Charlie Squad, then sprint back to the landing zone. Copy."

"Copy." A quiet voice clicked over the comms, then went silent again.

Booker flipped to another frequency. "Dog Squad, prepare for evac. Grab and bag anything you can for analysis, and make sure our asses are clear to depart. You hear me, Marines?"

"Yes, Master Sergeant!"

Booker turned back to her little force; Durand, the ODSTs, McKesson, Doctor Cortez, and the two Spartans. "Alright, everybody. Pack whatever kit or samples you've got out, and then we're leaving. Fastest pace we can manage. Keep up, or I leave you behind here for the apes! Now, get tactical, marines! We move in thirty seconds!"

It didn't take long for Alexis to find what remained of Charlie Squad. Just two hallways into the ship presented them with a blood-ridden room, and several dead marines - all of Charlie Squad. Not a single shot must've been fired, before the aliens who killed them did so. They were strange, scary creatures too, looking up from their work to spot the Spartan. They leveled their spear-weapons, and she saw what was happening - the front 'crystal' was actually some sort of energy emitter, building like a plasma pistol until it released. There was five of the large, long and bulky warriors, but one thing was for sure - they weren't Covenant.

---

Dog Squad nabbed everything they could, from blood samples to hard drives to foreign munitions, even a few off-model energy cells and boxes of tea bags, as well as some honest-to-god hardback literature.
While everyone was busy repacking their gear and getting ready to run, one of the four ODSTs noticed a sound behind them, a warble of some sort, like a Covenant Ghost. "What..?"
Then, something alien rounded the corner, a floating metallic creature cloaked in blood-orange hardlight. It paused a moment to consider the humans, before releasing an indifferent chortle of sorts. Then, a bolt of hardlight energy fired out from its core, instantly eradicating the ODST that had noticed it. Forerunner weapons? someone would think, once they were done shooting.

Captain Lapham cursed under her breath. This couldn't have come at a worse time. Sensors were picking up an enemy ship accelerating for them at high speed, and powering up plasma weapons. It was smaller than her ship, by volume estimates, but the Boomer was in a bad way, having suffered in combat and on her journey. "Set Condition One throughout the ship!" She barked into her commlink, transmitting to the ship's intercom. "All crew, we are going to Combat Alert Alpha! All personnel, report to your assigned battle stations! All combat personnel, be prepared to repel boarders!" She turned off her comms, then turned to her bridge crew. "Helm, vector to engage but hold acceleration. Ops, I need shields up, now now now! Air Control, vector the CAP onto the signature and get more of our fighters in the air! Tell the CAG to deploy the Sabres and Nandaos! Weapons, get me a firing solution on that ship with the MAC and warm up a flight of Archers. We're going to give them a warm welcome." Her crew busied herself to meeting their commander's expectations, and hopefully saving their own hides to boot.

Finally, she turned to her sensor operator. "Sensors, when's that ship going to be making contact with us?"

The man hurriedly made some calculations, then turned to her. "Four minutes, ma'am, and closing."

She cursed under her breath again. "Comms, get me a line to Booker, ASAP. We're pulling them out, now. We'll just have to hold until then." She briefly stared down at the planet, watching it shrink as the ship began to rotate, orienting itself towards the new contact.

The UNSC fightercraft launched, ready for a fight. Behind them, they watched the Boomer's shield array raise, prioritizing the front sections as the ship's limited power generation strained itself to provide the cruiser with both offensive and defensive measures. The heavy MAC rang out first, slamming into alien energy shields. It looked visually different from the Covenant, but no less durable. The shot didn't drop the enemy's shields, and when both the Boomer's Archer flight and Sentry salvos struck, they failed to bring down its shields.

The enemy ship launched fighters of their own, twelve of them. They were curvy and bulky, as if the Covenant had developed Longsword bombers, though these weren't made of nanolaminate, instead a silvery curved cube with red plasma emitters. They fired light plasma lances, like larger focus rifles. A burst wasn't enough to drop the shields of a Sabre, but once they noticed Sabres had shields, they attempted to focus fire on them, clearly afraid of its capabilities. When the Sabres were able to return fire, they found that the alien craft had no shields at all, shattering quickly to their overbearing armament. The Nandaos were vastly more maneuverable as well, dodging all attacks while unleashing their own destructive firepower. Quickly, the twelve fighters were eradicated, and forty-two launched in response.

Then, the prow of the enemy ship erupted with plasma power, and easily overwhelmed the Marathon-class's refitted shield generators. However, this had bought the Boomer enough time to avoid the incoming firepower. After that, the ship had unleashed a flurry of plasma cannon fire, as if they had several dozen plasma point defense turrets, boiling little holes in the Marathon's armored hull.

 

[Doctor Jax]

CICADA KILLER

"Huh," Jumon muttered.

"Huh?" Piotr asked with a raised eyebrow, slowly eating a potato chip.

"Huh," Jumon repeated, with a slightly more emphatic tone of worry.

"You know that's not an answer, right?" Piotr asked. She punched him in the leg far harder than warranted.

In one of the service shafts of the Boomer, the squad had set up shop to fix one of the several different struggling systems of the ship. Jumon lay on her stomach beside an open service panel, hair piled under her signature ball cap, looking at a read-out on a screen. Ed, Opal, and Iris were busy further down the shaft circuit-testing for Jumon.

"Command just got a message back from that group that went dirtside, and it's... weird. And the bridge just picked up a gravity distortion not far from us," Jumon muttered as she quickly swapped to a headset to plug into the system for a listen. Excited, nervous chatter filtered in as the ship registered something inbound. Without preamble, several red boxes appeared on Jumon's screen with siren whines, her eyes widening as she scrambled to her feet, dragging Piotr up with her and starting to pack.

"We gotta grab Ed and the others-- the ship's being attacked by something," Jumon spluttered.

"Covenant?"

"That's the problem -- it sure don't look it, so who ELSE could it be?"

Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, they felt rather than heard the MAC unload, like a pressure differential hitting the inside of an eardrum. It wasn't long after that when Jumon's readout showed that the ship's shields had been disabled, in a single shot. Rejoining with Ed and company, the squad quickly moved as battle stations were manned by the crew, the packed ship a frenzied hive.

MCKESSON

I get the feeling we are gonna WISH it was the circus monkeys we were dealing with, Lovelle thought as she hastily withdrew as many of her cable joins as possible. After a second's hesitation, she ripped a series of memory drives out of the terminal, shoving them into her bag. While a lot of the data was no doubt scraped by Leela, Lovelle hated that they may have missed something, even in just the physical build of the memory drive itself. If only she could have got her hands on the physical black box too...

McKesson made the mistake of switching frequencies to listen to what the other teams were doing, finding dead air for Charlie Squad, and excited, frantic, 'what the fuck' style noises and gunfire from Dog.

"That's not Banished," Lovelle muttered to herself as she raced to keep up, her heart pounding in her ears. "That is definitely not Banished."

Immediately, a hand went to the plasma grenade on the outside of her vest, ready at a moment's notice to hurl it at whatever might take the opportunity to come their way. Just for added measure, she made sure she was well behind the Spartan techie they brought. They were certainly more durable than she was.

@Apothecary Bruce @CT2222