Halo: Crimson Tide/Chapter Two

July 17th, 2526 (UNSC Military Calendar) / Forty Ninth Unit, Second Cycle, Ninth Age of Reclamation (Covenant Battle Calendar) / Covenant Military Staging World “Unwavering Virtue,”

Space ripples and glows when a ship exits slipspace. Quantum mechanics interact in two dimensions simultaneously, and the cherenkov radiation emited by fissile materials produces a stellar light show.

Space didn’t ripple. But the ship was there.

The ship was hardly discernable against the backdrop of space, its matte black hull blending into the infinitude. But there was nobody close enough to see the ship anyway, much less detect it. Heat dumps masked its thermal image, and the its radiation signature was shielded by thick layers of lead lining. With a miniscule tap of thrusters, the UNSC Prowler Muninn began its calculated drift towards the systems only habitable planet.

However, space did ripple as another ship entered the system. With a jerk, Cacap switched his display from routine traffic reports to a detailed sensor scan and analysis of the new ship – more than five thousand Units long, an odd radiation distortion from energy shields, and reception of an authenticity code being transmitted. He pressed a holographic button on his display.

“Carrier Enlightenment, this is Unwavering Virtue Fleet Traffic Control Command. Your current course brings you into a heavily used shipping lane. Please correct your course, bearing three-two-three by zero-one-three, and reduce your speed to one-third.”

There was a crackle of static as the reply came – even using the slipstream, Covenant transmissions were not instantaneous, and were not the most reliable to use. ''“I hear you Virtue Fleet Control. Correcting ships course per instructions.”''

Cacap sat back, letting out a brief sigh – he had just avoided a major collision in the Tarnaqt Commerce Route. The fallout would have been devastating – cordoning the area off, towing damaged freighters out of the region, perhaps having to scrap some. With a single communiqué, he had saved himself and the rest of the people in the control platform months of work and inquiry for incompetence.

And he would never be thanked for it.

Cacap had become accustomed to that in the Units he had spend here. As a member of the Yangon clan, he had grown up believing himself to be the best and the brightest – bred for intelligence, strength, and courage, he was certainly no regular Unggoy. When he had enrolled in the Balaho Military Academy, his Sangheili instructors had tried to enlist him in the Special Operations divisions – idealist that he was, he had refused, joining the Commerce Guild, believing it would bring wealth and fame to his family, and increase their status.

If he could go back, he would take that opportunity.

He chuckled to himself self-pityingly. The Sangheili here were not like those who had trained him – they didn’t see his superior breeding and training. All they saw was a small creature, beneath their stature, that they thought could be bullied.

His eyes returned to the display – and caught there. He frowned.

“Excellency?”

Cacap squinted, peering at his screen. His Sangheili supervisor, striding across the platform deck, leaned down from behind him, eyes casually glancing at the display.

“What is it Unggoy? I have other duties to attend to.”

Cacap bit back a retort, reminding himself for what seemed like the hundredth time that questioning a Sangheili’s orders was a Council-recognised form of suicide.

“I detected a small event on the sensors. Four thousand Units away in sector seven-two-four. It quickly disappeared, but it was there. A short flash.”

The Sangheili grunted dismissively. “Equipment error. Or perhaps a reflection from a meteorite. They’re common enough here.”

“Perhaps, Excellency, but it may be more than that. Might I suggest we upgrade the Alert Fighter Pickets to “Chakra” Status?”

The Sangheili frowned, looking at the smaller creature, and then jerked his head in a dismissive motion. “Upgrade it to “Threka” Status, and have the sensors switch from passive scan to active scan. If there is something out there, then we will find it.”

“But Excellency, if there is-”

The Sangheili bared its fangs. “You presume to question orders, Unggoy?”

Cacap calmed himself down, reminding himself again that death and dismemberment was not what he wanted. “Of course not Excellency. I apologise.”

“Good. Do not question me again.”

Cacap waited until the overseer was out of eyeshot, and made a rude hand gesture – and then flipped the holographic button for the COM.

“Carrier Enlightenment, this is Virtue Fleet Control. You are requested to divert a third of your Seraph patrol to Sector Seven-Two-Four according to “Threka” directive.” ''“I hear you Virtue Fleet Control. Seraphs are diverting as requested, according to “Threka” directive. Glory be to the Prophets.”''

“Honour to those who serve,” said Cacap, returning the counter-response, and deactivating the COM.

He loaded the data again, peering at the display, scrutinising it further. Transitions from the Void produced a sudden and noticeable flare of radiation, far more than he had detected. Perhaps the overseer had been correct, and it was merely a reflection off of space debris? Or stray cosmic radiation? Or one of a hundred things that it could be in the vacuum of space.

The only alternative that he could think of was that it could be a Stealth Corvette – a missionary ship appropriated from the Ministry of Tranquillity and refitted with active camouflage – but he ruled that out. Why would a Covenant ship need to remain stealthed in friendly territory? And the humans, of all creatures, had no such ability.

Didn’t they?