The Shores of Xanadu (A StarCraft/Halo crossover)

Neptune, Triton, Orbital Station 2

1300 hours

February 21, 2290

The automated station orbiting the dark blue world of Triton had been put to a most unusual task. A private group of investors had launched the device to have it monitor the nearest stars and the Oort Cloud for anomalies.

Its sensors had been long inactive, with little to peak the device's qualifications for interest. Now, however, a pulse of electromagnetic energy was recorded in a place on the borders of the Oort Cloud, and the device recorded it.

It also recorded the odd silhouettes of ships that were illuminated by the pulse, and included that in the data transmission back to warmer worlds, nearer to the sun.

Uranus, Survey Group 12

1450 hours

February 24, 2290

Harvey Dent ran into his colleague, Elizabeth Williams. "Have you seen this?"

Elizabeth smirked as she saw the sheaf of documents in his hands. "Yeah, Harvey, the readings are why we're even going out there."

"No, no," the man groaned, waving them around excitedly. "THIS!" He grabbed a particular sheet of paper in his hand and shoved it virtually under Elizabeth's nose.

She read it, then squinted her eyes. "This is your opinion?"

"Yes. That couldn't be explained by anything else."

Well, at least Harvey was calmer. Elizabeth sighed. "Okay Harvey, I'll mention this to the analysts after we get underway."

"That's all I ask, Liz." Harvey bowed, then departed.

She sighed. Scientists.

Survey Group 12, Oort Cloud

1560 hours

February 30, 2290

Commander Evans of the Zephyr looked out into the blackness of space. They were out in the edges of nowhere, the Abyss itself, light-minutes away from civilization. A virtual eternity, for somebody in trouble. Evans was rather paranoid. He had been out here about a dozen times. Each time, virtually something would nearly cause disaster. Luckily, nobody had died. Mankind had a lot to learn about building good ships.

"Commander Evans?"

"Yes?"

"We're almost on the site of the disturbance."

"Good. Cut engines and drop to vector 370,declination 43."

"Declination 43, aye."

It was slow going. While leaps and bounds had been made with sublight engines, making travel across the solar system moderately affordable, FTL had been entirely different. So far, nobody had successfully caused FTL to proceed, leaving mankind isolated here at Sol.

"Sir!"

"What?" Nobody could get that excited out here in the middle of nowhere.

"Look at this silhouette!"

He stared in the holo-screen, at the barely perceptible gray form of a black-body object. There was a series of objects, and their sleek, hammerhead-shaped lines showed the objects to be clearly of an artificial nature.

He could feel the dollar bills rattling around in his head.

Evans managed to reach inside his mind and find the ability to speak behind the gibbering. "Somebody get me a comm. drone. Send this back to Earth ASAP. We're gonna need backup."