User:RelentlessRecusant/Halo: Memory/Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Something’s Out There

ONI Strategic Intelligence Team GREY APEX Forward Operations Base Keyhole, Carinae-312

“Keyhole Aerospace Control, VTOL Red Six requesting permission for immediate take-off.”

In the two days since the first Albatross landers had dropped off the initial Marine companies and fast-setting permacrete, Keyhole had expanded across the expanse with an almost organic fervor. The initial hangars for the dropships and fighters had been established, and one of the first VTOL squadrons to populate the base had been Red Squadron—which included Second Lieutenant Ross. It had been a quick turn-around—Ross’s Hornet had been equipped with extra-capacity fuel tanks to allow the fighter to scour all three Brute garrisons across the width of the planet, and at the end of the reconnaissance operation, nearly twenty hours in duration, what had originated as an adrenaline-charged hostile recon op had deconvoluted into a soporific dream. After the debrief, Ross had been permitted six hours of blissful REM-occupied sleep about Grunts with plasma grenades sticking his low-flying craft, and then had received another briefing for a second operation.

Not only was Ross being pulled off of the elite reconnaissance squadron, he had been re-assigned to some ONI spook.

His incredulousness and protest had reached the ceiling of the orbital missile umbrella overhead, but Red Leader, Major Fletcher, was implacable, although apologetic. “The orders are from the Office of Naval Intelligence in Sydney. I hate losing two of my best fliers, but Colonel Rosen’s not letting up either.” The bit of flattery had assuaged Ross’s resistance enough that he was gradually drawn into the operation and relinquished from Recon Red, with no chance of re-assignment to his parent unit. Fletcher had said it was likely that he would be able to transfer back into the VTOL squadron after his stint with ONI, but Ross knew damn well there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell the position of Red Six wouldn’t be filled by the time he returned from the prolonged ONI reconnaissance operation. Still, Ross desperately clung onto the callsign of “Red Six”, and his wingman, Colander, who had also been transferred along with Ross, still went by “Red Five”.

Keyhole C&C, centered in the central command post, replied tersely, “Grey Team, you are cleared for take-off. Taxi to bravo-kilo and follow omnidirectional laser sighting arrays.”

The whole of Dr. Passmore’s Strategic Intelligence show, code-named GREY APEX, consisted of Passmore’s personal spook team, a squad of Marines from D Company, Fourth Platoon, two Pelican dropships to haul the troops, ONI field operatives, and equipment, and Reds Five and Six as escorts. Ross still hadn’t ascertained why the hell he had been requested specifically to fly the escort operation, and was too disenchanted to even offer Lieutenant Commander Passmore an angry diatribe.

With a whimsical sigh, Ross observed the orchestra of firm green lights on his encompassing control panels, and in a single linked thought, Ross and Colander vertically rose, their fighters drawn upwards as if being tossed about on a drama stage. Underneath, the Pelican dropships were being towed by haulers, taken to secure locations for take-off where they could burn their scramjet engines and achieve the lift velocity.

A moment later, the haulers detached their tow cables and scurried as the Pelican engines grew to a hoarse pitch, and then lit with dancing white-and-orange flames as they engaged. Then, the craft were all in the air, Carinae-312’s star projecting a slender arrow-shaft of light, penetrating the dawn as the four UNSC craft banked and turned for their first target of the day.

*   *    *M/center>

The Pelican Dropship known as Grey One lumbered unsteadily into the air, and Passmore uneasily eyed the far image of Keyhole Base in the open rectangular troop hatch at the posterior of the dropship, rapidly declining in size and increasingly replaced by the husky dark dawn air and unilluminated carpeting forests as Grey One accelerated away from its home hangar. To be candid, Passmore had minimalistic field experience – he was more of a researcher than an ONI field agent, and conducting his researches on a potentially hostile planet didn’t appeal to him. The open hatch at the end of the troop bay was also something he would have to adjust to—GREY APEX was scheduled to be on Carinae-312 for six months, and the mission required each hour of every day. Every day, in a military ship surrounded by men with guns, and a nice vista at the rear of the Pelican that could easily pluck them out of their crash webbings and send them sailing to the forests below at terminal velocity.

Passmore forcibly shunted his perception the open door, and instead turned to purview his core team, his hand-picked specialists from the Department of Strategic Intelligence. There were merely three of them; Agent Vaught, the sociologist, Agent Leary, the archeologist, and Lieutenant Denning, the technologist and also the security chief of the ONI expedition in the event that they were engaged by enemy forces. In the sister dropship of Grey Two, there were the Marines of Green Squad from D Company, led by a Sergeant Barton, similarly disenchanted as Second Lieutenant Ross was.

Passmore produced a computer-pad from his side pockets, ushered his ONI team around him in the metal confines of the troop bay, the winds uncomfortably tucking at the Lieutenant Commander. “The target for today will be Anomaly Sixty-Two-Alpha, identified as a tetrahedral formation integrated into a nearby mountainside by the overhead reconnaissance from Beneath Shoreless Waves.”

There was no dissent in the ONI team. They knew why they were on Carinae-312 IV.

UNSC Gemini Slipspace en route to Mission of Enlightenment

Cassidy saw the movement at the entrance to the small gym aboard the frigate Gemini, and with a rushed pace, hurried to his memory what he had been rehearsing for the last sixteen hours—all his waking hours. As his phalanges began to be lubricated by an unwelcome sweat and he felt the steady cadence of his trained heart begin to accelerate precipitously, his mental control over those memories also faltered, and a fear fluttered in him as he groped for those thoughts again, and with a desperation, swept his consciousness in a vain attempt to recall the smile he had been preparing for Helen. A most unusual thought to come to the mind of a SPARTAN-III commando, and most especially a team leader hand-picked by Kurt and Mendez and entrusted with the operations of the ONI Department of Strategic Intelligence.

The knowledge of strategically eliminating a target with an ONI hard-sound rifle from a kilometer away and insinuating the death was of natural cardiac arrhythmia didn’t coincidence with teenager infatuations.

When he caught Helen’s slender figure in the doorway, the smile he’d been preparing for the last sixteen hours was in shambles, the one he had given dedicated thought and concern to—Cass had intended to flash a warm, friendly smile—not one that conveyed the intimacy they’d shared nights before, but rather, one that acknowledged his fellow SPARTAN-III and team partner before the exercising Marines and crew of the Gemini. In the fervor of the moment, his acknowledging smile was transformed into an intense, approving observation of her slight figure.

This was the first time he’d seen her out of the SPI infiltration armor or the dress uniform of the Office of Naval Intelligence, and now, she was in a particularly revealing exercise outfit—short-cut pants, a translucent tank-top shirt. She didn’t blush as she strode into the cramped compartment, past the similarly-evaluating gazes of the men also exercising. Her stride was one that bespoke of authority, a calm indomitability, each step made with authority. Helen took upon her shoulders an aura of indifference, her jaw stonily set, but her eyes had another glitter in them—the dancing light of content, delight, and perhaps something more. As she neared, Cass’s gaze turned to inspect not just her face, but the rest of her body; her body was a seamless meld of seductiveness and grace—she had a lustful athletic figure, but her musculature was well-sculpted into an alluring feminine figure, but her strong, bare thighs and steady face bespoke of a savage beauty, not merely a femme fatale, but rather, a feline predator, and Cass found that animalization to be captivating, enthralling…he licked his lips, and felt a warmth and a stirring within his loins.

Helen steadily approached and addressed him stiffly, “Chief.”

He felt the jealous glares of the surrounding crewmen and Marines on him, and that brought a slight contentness to his lips. Cass replied off-handedly, “Good to see you again”, accentuating the silent burning furies in the surrounding personnel.

When she drew close enough to him for smell the intoxicating fragrance, he could no longer stand it—the shimmer in her eyes was now undisputedly one of enjoyment—she was toying with him. Helen replied coyly, “Good to see you again, sir.”

He felt a beguilement within him—they were both teenagers, merely fourteen years of age, and now they were sharing their deepest intimacies with each other already, deconvoluting their complex selves into floral creatures of passion, allowing emotion to seize and overthrow all inhibition, and drive them together with a single-minded inexorableness…yet, as his sight fell upon her lips, slightly parted, inviting…that temptation was too fierce for him to offer any resistance—sin it may through be, it was an indulgent one, one that wholly satisfied the senses, gratified them.

There was a carnivorous silence between the two young SPARTAN-IIIs as the men and women and the Gemini continued their routines, oblivious to the romance between the paramours – each of the two desiring, biding their time to find somewhere private…

Chief Petty Officer Cassidy waved at the door. “Petty Officer, now that you’re here, I think that we should review the mission deployment plans. There was some confusion regarding the S&R call frequencies, and I wanted to synchronize my comm protocols with yours before we reach the colony. I have the op book in my quarters…”

Helen’s hint of a smile was that all that he needed, and he felt a soothing gratification that this beautiful woman had accepted his offer, that her satisfaction was pinned on him. As she drew slightly closer, she said in a similar, professional voice, “Of course, sir.”

The walk back to Cassidy’s quarters near the armory was the most difficult part of the night—not the questioning glances from the crewmen and Marines in the passageways as to their non-dress uniforms and informal gym clothing, but rather, the yearning within him that he strained to repress; his arms wanted to enfold her, to slide to her back, and—

When they reached his quarters, Helen closed the door securely with a loud slam, bespeaking of her sudden loss of finesse, and Cassidy’s fingers didn’t even twitch towards the light panel, and instead, he seized her warm body in his hands, and felt the gentle warmth reassure him, permeate him, intoxicate him…she slenderly compressed her curvaceous body to his chest, molding herself against him as he saw the pink edge of her tongue flicker at her lips…and all restraints fell as if Jericho’s walls, and he could stand it no longer. He met her lips were on, holding onto the kiss with a rampant desperation, and heard a palpable groan from himself as he took refuge in the protracted kiss, felt his body and hers palpitate, and he felt a downy sweat aggregate on his skin. When they broke off, he was breathless with anticipation—her body was stiffened, heaving, pupils dilated with an excitement.

She subtly inserted her thigh into his crotch, and he felt a sudden pressure, and the two of them collapsed upon the cold floor, writhing. Swiftly, his hands closed around her sides, meeting snugly at the nape of her back as she compressed her chest against his, and he felt the soft, intoxicating press of her breasts, and her eyes glitter with delight…

His hands subtly slid underneath the back of her shirt, running along the sculpted, strong muscles of her back, and he kneaded them, and she released a terse sigh. Their lips met again as his hands slid lower upon her bare back—there was no reason, and the only reason offered was passion. A passionate night.

Reconnaissance Drone 5-7 Near Forward Operations Base Keyhole, Carinae-312

Reconnaissance drone five-seven was merely one of hundreds of gnats harbored by the hive known as Keyhole. Approximately the size of a Marine’s laden field pack, it was a spherical metal wraparound shell that encased peroxide-fueled chemical thrusters, an attuned sensor array, and a primary and backup transmitter to the nearest receiving UNSC communications relay. For operations on the temperate world of Carinae-312, Drone Five-Seven was in mottled green-and-brown colors; forest camouflage. The letters “UNSC” were in unmistakable blocky text, to prevent addled college students on UNSC worlds from interfering with the drones—even in the post-war UNSC, the military still had a harsh treatment of civilians that mettled in military affairs. At the fore of the drone was an aperture not unlike the human eye, with a biconvex lens and optional lenses underneath that provided ultraviolet, infrared, polarized, and alternative views. Snuggled elsewhere were miniaturized antenna arrays, photospectrometers, and other detector devices used for other types of physical observation. Considering the diminutive size and profile of each drone and the complexity of its sensory equipment, every single probe was a hefty expenditure for the UNSC Marine Corps, and the exclusive compartmentalization of drone systems and the advanced reconnaissance arrays made them difficult to mass-produce. Carinae-312 was the first UNSC operation to field the drones en masse. On other UNSC colony worlds, they were deployed as alternatives to the pre-war ARGUS bomb-detector systems, and far less noticeable than the hulking behemoths, they flitted around streets and private quarters, scouring for explosives with the determination only a robotic processor could control.

Five-seven was one of the drones to be dispatched farthest from the base—as the spherical construct bobbed in the lightening air, trailed by its own cone of exhaust, it was surprising such a small object could be so vivacious and be flying of its own accord. This was not on five-seven’s mind, however—only reconnaissance protocols were. Stay low, and avoid detection. Search for Covenant or foreign materials on the planet. Continue transmitting to UNSC Command. And so it did. One hundred kilometers away from the base, with its fuel at, it calculated, seventy three point four percent, it plummeted from its skimming slightly above the carpet of trees, and descended through the sappy leaves and gnarled trunks lower into the foliage. Carinae-312 was a planet of unusual arboreal vitality – vegetation abounding, scouring the planet with a consistent temperate environment that facilitated a monotone plain of evergreens. Consistent evergreens, with rich underbrush underneath the swollen roots of the trees. Yet, not a single indication of fauna. Not a one scampering animal tunneling underneath the bush, nor a bird of prey in the pristine air. The atmospheric content, weather conditions, geological and volcanic activity were all conducive to the evolution of near-sentient life. Earth herself was merely an example. If sequoias had managed to manifest themselves upon Carinae-312 IV and solely populate it, it was an oddity that mammalian life had not co-evolved. Add to that the constant temperate atmosphere and the overpopulation of non-decidual trees, and it was an interesting puzzle for a planetary climatologist, and far beyond the interest of Recon Drone Five-Seven.

It was one hundred twenty-three kilometers north-northeast of Keyhole that Five-Seven found an anomaly. The mass photospectrometer, constantly trapping air from the drone’s lurkings in the shaded forest, was vaporizing it and comparing the densities of the solutes in the standard nitrogen-oxygen-composite atmosphere. It was then, whiffing the verdant underbrush, did the photospectrometer detect a heavy metal trace – gallium arsenide, silicon, germanium, and osmium. Items that generally weren’t expressed by the underbrush. Immediately, it ejected that air sample, analyzed a second. Even the probe’s dim intelligence was sufficient to recognize an eccentricity. The second sampling turned out to authenticate the presence of heavy metals. On a more careful introspection, it was not a significant deviation—the miniaturized photospectrometer was not the most reliable instrument, and on a structure such as a whole planet, there was so much gross surface area, numbering in the hundreds of millions of square kilometers that it was probable that there would be an erroneous concentration of these heavy metals. Five-Seven, however, pursued this errant concentration to its source, and for the next five minutes, was flitting in the brush, gradually “feeling” its way to the projected source of the metal contamination, moving in a direction, sampling the air, and proceeding in the vector with the strongest concentration.

What it stumbled upon was shocking—a thermally-crumpled and corroded oblong mass of metal, no more than a meter in length. When it used its physical feelers and voltmeters to conduct an analysis, it and the specialists at Keyhole monitoring the feed recognized it as only one thing—a memory core of a Seraph-class starfighter, badly burnt, the rest of the ship vaporized an indeterminable amount of time earlier. Immediately, Five-Seven began an automatic link-up with the memory core, extracted its contents, and began transmitting to Keyhole a most unusual log.

Covenant Frigate Steadfast Faith Slipspace en route to Doisac

The intruder closed upon the Steadfast Faith in the realm known as Slipspace, and it was with an ejaculation of surprise, the sensors officer at his blood-crystallized station declared, “Soliton wave detected!”

Slipspace was an imprecise matter – while UNSC vessels were wholly incompetent at travelling through it or communicating through it, Covenant vessels had limited tracking and communications abilities through Slipspace, although these technologies were often misrepresented to UNSC forces as a propaganda effort to demoralize their crews.

Covenant vessels often had short-range detectors capable of monitoring nearby Slipspace-travelling vessels while in Slipspace, a rudimentary measure to assess formation integrity when making combat jumps and also to detect if or when nearby vessels suffered navigational failures that destroyed their craft instantaneously or if they errantly transitioned back into realspace. When the Jiralhanae Captain in his crimson plating at the navigations station announced that the tachyon array had detected something, all the forty Jiralhanae of Megatey’s strike cohort had reason to be alarmed.

The possibilities were few, but the ramifications far more grave. At the foremost of their minds was if a Sangheili or human intelligence ship was tailing them in Slipspace…Megatay’s pulse quickened with an urgency, and he felt his cheek and muzzle become inflamed as he stormed towards the navigational console, not bothering to conceal his displeasure in his heavy-footed steps. The captain manning the station saw the anger evident in the Commander’s expressive eyes, and said almost pleadingly, abandoning efforts of masculinity and self-respect, “My lord! I was not responsive for—”

The Jiralhanae Commander waved away the protesting, useless lackey, and observed the data himself. Indeed, the instruments had detected a soliton wave, one of the indicators of another object’s presence in the quagmire of Slipspace. A soliton wave was simply a compression wave—one formed by an object’s transversions of Slipspace, and as it moved forward, the immediate superdimensional space in its vicinity became compacted, and these compaction propogated outwards in all directions. The amplitude and frequency of the wave were notably peaked—an object of high mass was moving at high speed towards the Steadfast Faith. At first, his fears were pacified—the object was in excess of thirty thousand tons, far exceeding the mass of a stealth vessel, or for that matter, the most powerful of Covenant or UNSC warships, cruiser or carrier. However, a lingering doubt remained, one that was invaginated and accentuated by his memory of the disastrous clash over Sigma Octanus IV, before the burning of the human world of Reach. The spy had told a tale that the human destroyer commander had knowledge of the small fleet’s arrival because of its unusual readings in Slipspace, picked up by a human Slipspace recon station at the system’s edge—how the carrier, destroyer, and two frigates, had collectively formed one massive Slipspace signature because of their close proximity. That suspicion, however, quelled—to perpetrate the mass signature of that vessels, it would take a whole task force of warships or dozens of stealth vessels put together. If it was a Sangheili or human task force, a vagrant possibility, it would be simple to out-chase the vessels by jumping out of Slipspace and making a set of randomized jumps. Even the finest of Sangheili warships would not have the Slipspace detection capabilities to track them for thousands of light-years in Slipspace. While a Sangheili stealth vessel would have an easier time finding the Steadfast Faith, it was highly unlikely even the Sangheili would send several squadrons clumped together in Slipspace.

Yet, this was an abnormality to be acted upon carefully.

At the navigations console, he pulled up a holographic diagram of the galaxy, with worlds plotted by the Astrological Ministry overlaying the brilliant fire-points that were the stars. And closest to their projected position in Slipspace was a planetary system—known simply by the anonymous epithet of CAM-326-17, after the Astrological Ministry vessel that had stumbled upon it, and that it was the seventeenth world found by mapping vessel three-twenty-six. The almanac said that based on the atmospheres, temperatures, and orbits of the first and third worlds, the second world, CAM-327-17B, was projected to have been habitable. However, the fact the world was a desolate wasteland, devoid of any biosphere, contradicted that postulation.

He stabbed a finger at the navigations captain, who was standing uneasily nearby, minding the glares of the crew circumventing him. “Back to your post, captain. Bring us out of Slipspace at the system of CAM-327-17. If there is an intruder behind us, we shall throw them off, and return to Doisac victorious!”

Unidentified Vagabond Vessel Slipspace en route to DM-3-1123 B

I feel something.

The vessel’s gentle cooning rose Tandem Succession from his eons of slumber, and it was with a lethargy that power trickled back into it, reinvigorated synapses that had fallen mute, thoughts lost to a hundred thousand years of coma.

Perfunctorily, it queried, “What do you feel?”

There is a ship travelling in the dark space, three hundred and sixty kilo-argos distant. It is of class-four technology and class-seventeen projected battle strength.

For once, Tandem Succession felt a gentle blossom of warmness and success, rippling along his mind, enthralling, captivating him. For a hundred thousand years, they had found nothing, a blinded one groping along the galaxy, unable to fulfill the mission they had been assigned, unable to hear the voices of their masters. Now, perhaps, Tandem Succession would hear again that voice of comfort which he relished, see those that had made him…there was a cavernous emptiness within him, and admittedly, he had been lonely in this vessel, which glided upon the stars with mechanical precision, following orders within its matrices. Yet, Tandem Succession was a more enlightened individual, with his own imperatives, wants, desires…maybe again he would see them, have that sight touch his eyes. They had not spoken for a long time. However, a small suspicion richocheted within him…the vessel that the vagabond had described was a primitive one, and one of firepower lesser than even the smallest picket vessel. Indeed, if who he suspected was within the vessel, why had they not hailed the vagabond through the tachyonic transceivers?

Tandem Succession aroused, spread his consciousness across the vessel, and took the ship’s report and examined it closer, with a fiercely-struggling wanton desire that perhaps his logic was errant, that there was a probability he hadn’t accounted for that would make the vessel one of his masters…and even as he relentlessly attacked his own cognition, attempting to find such a circumstance, he was unable to. Yet, even then, perhaps it would be one of the master’s sons—Tandem Succession had been alerted prior to his mission that there was a possibility, a far-away probability, he’d never set eyes upon his lords again, merely their children. For all his vast intelligence, Tandem Succession refused to believe that fairy tale, and this vessel, the first they’d found in their millennia of Slipspace voyages across the galaxy, would be one…

That was when the vessel announced, Target vessel has descended from dark space into visible space. Distance to emergence point is two hundred and twenty-one kilo-argos distant. A pause, and then, Confirmed. Vessel has departed dark space.

The time was measured in fractions of milliseconds as Tandem Succession seized upon the navigational database to find an object two hundred twenty-one kilo-argos away…and found, to his incredulousness, that it was the vagabond’s own destination. DM-3-1123 B. Tandem Succession immediately gleamed that despite his prior doubts about the allegiances and passengers of the target vessel, it was too much of a concidence that they too would be headed for the system of DM-3-1123…

“Take us from dark space”, Tandem Succession ordered. “Let us track down and hail this vessel. It may yet be our lords’ craft.”

When the vagabond dropped from Slipspace to DM-3-1223 B, it was disappointed with that it found.

Covenant Frigate Steadfast Faith CAM-327-17B Orbit

Commander Megatey revised his measure of the Jiralhanae Captain that staffed Navigations – the Steadfast Faith was brought out of Slipspace and sharply transitioned into geosynchronous orbit over the dead world the Astrological Ministry had identified and tagged as CAM-327-17B. Two seconds later, his displeasure resumed its station in his aura.

The tracking officer cried, “Unknown vessel has decanted from Slipspace! Heading one-seven-nine, fifty hundred thousand kilometers aft.”

The Captain Major at firing control said warningly, “Commander, they are in our aft fire arc. All plasma torpedoes and pulse lasers are far out of range.”

Megatay snapped, “Sensors! What is the nature of this vessel?”

When the Jiralhanae made the instant realization, he did not live long enough to contemplate the possibilities of how it had survived. Another Jiralhanae screamed that they were being scanned, and then all was a horrid spew as an energy beam lanced the Steadfast Faith, burning through every armor layer, every deck, every onboard system. The first shot, inserting itself into the frigate at the aft engine bank and tunneling directly through the meridian line to exit the nose prow of the warship, was enough to gut the one-kilometer frigate. The reactor core, so painstakingly bought with Jiralhanae blood from the Sangheili, erupted in blue-white fire, filling the compartment and the rear compartments of the ship with radiation, permanently contaminating the vessel. The beam’s supraluminal velocity made the beam next gore through the hangar bay and the tactical center, both amidships in the core of the Steadfast Faith, and then exiting through the forward plasma torpedo tubes, leaving an unmistakable puncture wound as it left—the nose of the frigate was vaporized, leaving the vessel more a cylinder than an oblong, sleek vessel. The shot also had the advantage of superheating the artificial concoction of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane to such a temperature that everything immersed in atmosphere—the crew, bulkheads, and systems, were instantaneously vaporized, saved from the fate of pain, dying a painless death and then retiring to nothingness, as they began their lives. The superheated air also had the advantage of fenestrating the hull, rupturing it open at numerous points, much like a cell’s lipid bilayer membrane being cleaved apart by a cytotoxic T cell’s perforin or the complement system’s membrane attack complex. These hull ruptures would facilitate the vagabond’s later purposes for the vessel.

A tenth of a millisecond after the Steadfast Faith suffered its critical reactor failure and its crew were part of the heterogenous atmosphere being explosively vented to space, the vessel confirmed to Tandem Succession that the frigate was effectively neutralized and incapacitated. With an eagerness, the vagabond pressed onwards to the vessel, seizing it within its grip, reaching through the hull breaches…searching.

Keyhole Command Center Forward Operations Base Keyhole, Carinae-312

Recon probe five-seven was the central focus for the dozens of operators encompassed in Keyhole C&C’s Communications and Intelligence departments. Five-seven’s semiconductor tendrils slid into the crevices of the Seraph’s memory core, and utilizing arcane magicks known only to ONI, began extracting the information—it was a syncopated, staccato rhythm of beats—0s or 1s-and instantaneously, as these digits were recorded, they were beamed back to Keyhole, a hundred and twenty-three kilometers distant. There, the information was recorded to the supercomputer nestled at the heart of Keyhole, and then efficiently disseminated--copied hundreds of times, distributed to systems across the base, across the two other planetary garrisons, and to the vessels in orbit, where the Mediator transmitted a copy to FLEETCOM Sydney on Earth. At Keyhole, however, there was more than data copying and systemic organization—under Colonel Rosen’s personal watchful eyes, the few intelligence teams were beginning compilation of the data into a recognized Covenant file format, decrypting it, and interpreting it.

Lieutenant Barr’s Team Two was the first to make something comprehensive of the stream from the drone as dutifully, the yonder probe continued methodically extracting the information. Barr stabbed a finger at a conspicuous string of uncovered alphanumeric digits, and announced triumphantly, ensuring his voice could be heard by Rosen, “There! That’s the designator code for the processor…” Barr’s eyebrows quirked. “It’s installed on a Seraph-class, all right, but not the normal version.”

Rosen said incredulously, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean, Lieutenant?”

Quite aware of the colonel’s hunched form over his console, Barr replied pedantically, “The type of Seraph we’re most accustomed to is the Type-B Seraph—the space-equipped and atmosphere-equipped interceptor. There are several other variants, including the Type-M, which this model of processor core is installed on.”

“And what’s this Type-M Seraph?”

The ONI lieutenant replied steadily, “An unarmed courier, sir. It’s a messenger—much faster than the other Seraph classifications, or for that matter, the fastest armed Covenant fighter, and with a Slipspace speed that can compete with those stealth vessels the Elites have.”

“Why the hell would a garrison have a courier if they had supraluminal communications systems that could transmit instantly across light-years?”

“Each planetary invasion force typically has one or two of the fighters, in the event that comms fail or get jammed. It happens.”

An analyst from Team Four confirmed that. “We’ve cracked the IFF header stringed to the data file. It belongs to a Type-M Seraph-class ship, piloted by Captain Wraccus, Ultra Grade.”

“A bit high of a rank for a courier pilot”, noted Rosen.

And so the work proceeded in earnest for several minutes, and the Intelligence Section at C&C Keyhole swelled threefold as nearby personnel swarmed into the compartment, ravenously stealing peeks over the shoulders of the ONI analysts for progress…

That was when Barr reported again, “Sir. The majority of the data in the data core are audiovisual files. Encrypted.”

The colonel’s tone was more disbelieving than before. “What’s this? So the tribe Chieftain decides on a whim to send out one of the highest commanders in an unarmed ship to let someone know about some videos? Who the hell is this for?”

“Working on the navigational solution that was programmed into the core.”

Seeing their inability to decipher the snowstorm of digits and parameters being visualized on the displays of the five huddled ONI teams, the bulk of the crew turned their attentions to the central high-definition display, showing a schematic of the core, the position of memory circuit-boards, and which had been fully uploaded to Keyhole, those being translated and transmitted to C&C, and those still remaining. For those that even that simple display was beyond their mental faculties, there was a simple linear horizontal bar, filled with color, indicating the total percentage of data.

The mental intent of the ONI teams soon defused from conversation with the Colonel and his lackeys, and instead, to the video files. Rosen too left the intelligence officers to their work, and noted the percentage uploaded. Fifty-one percent. Six minutes remaining to wrest the rest of the core’s secrets.

Reconnaissance Drone 5-7 Near Forward Operations Base Keyhole, Carinae-312

The electromagnetic signature emitted by drone five-seven was easily detectable—a spike of energy in the midst of a tranquil plain of homogenous trees and saplings. The attack was swift. The bolt squarely struck the spherical probe with precise accuracy, and as the drone erred, its digital systems abruptly halted by the magnetic jarring, mechanical grapplers extended, encircling the vulnerable probe. Unable to maneuver, to offer the most rudimentary of struggles, or even to record its fate for its controllers at Keyhole, five-seven struggled briefly in the cruel embrace, and an instant later, was gone in the woods.

Keyhole Command Center Forward Operations Base Keyhole, Carinae-312

The captain entrusted with communications shouted adroitly, breaking the murmur of anticipatory conversation between the non-ONI personnel and disrupting the intensified debate amongst the intelligence with the keenness of an icebreaker nosing through the Antarctic drifts.

“Colonel! Probe’s down!”

With knitted eyebrows, Lieutenant Barr spun to the primary display, and it was with a heavy doubtfulness that he regarded the frozen percentage bar and the redacted field for upload rate from the recon probe. For the others, though, those of less complexity and more earnestly willing to believe, the communications officer’s proclamation was one of graveness and disaster.

Rosen demanded, “Communications! What the hell happened?”

The captain’s response carried an appropriate mixture of alarm and intimidation at the stout, bristling colonel. “We’ve lost the carrier signal of drone five-seven on the scopes.” With the reports of several subordinates, the captain affirmed, “Our transceivers are working. However”, he indicated the probe’s schematic, “that isn’t transmitting.”

The unidyllic chill in Rosen’s veins offset an angrily accusation of the engineering officers that were charged with maintaining the recon drone wing. Something was askance about the situation, and perfunctory blame could be laid after he had unraveled the crux of it. The possibilities were obvious.

“Captain, is the probe destroyed or just not transmitting?”

“Can’t tell, sir.”

The tremulation of uncertainty burrowed into Rosen’s heart, tunneled there, took residence there, and immediately, he turned to the Flight Ops commander of the shift, and said with an iron in his voice, “Tell the combat air patrol to take off. Immediately. Send them to five-seven’s last known coordinates. Firing authorization is a go.”

Turning now to address the audience more broadly, he said with a determined steel, “Something’s out there, something that didn’t want that courier’s information to get to us. To battle stations.”