Chapter One: One Cold, Dusty Moon

As the sun rose over that blue and white marble, she caught the textures of the planet's surface, the winding rivers and snaking seas of Shanxi. She wondered at the soft lights of civilization that winked and faded against the coming dawn, and hoped the view from Shanxi's capital, New Landing, was as beautiful as she'd heard on the Intranet. The soft sliding of an opening door broke her trance, and she turned to face the fiery hair of her ONI liaison, Agent Aubin.

"Doctor Peters? I didn't think I'd find you in the observation deck." Aubin joined her at the wall-sized window overlooking her new home for the next few weeks. She smiled, and turned to face the magnificent view of the planet below.

"I've always appreciated the wonders of interstellar travel, Lionel. And please, call me Ava."

He chuckled at that, and turned to face his ward. "I suppose it's one of the perks of this job, getting to watch the sunrise on every dirtball in existence. I came to let you know the ship is docking with Shanxi Station soon, start packing your bags, we're moving to a military ship."

"Military? I thought this was going to be a civilian expedition?"

"As did I, apparently the energy signature on XRC1 is "growing," brass wants to make sure we won't be instantly vaporized if it turns out to be a Forerunner artifact." He handed her a slate with her new escort details, as she pondered his constant flippancy towards reasonable dangers.

"A heavy frigate and two corvettes are supposed to protect me from a Forerunner superweapon?"

Mock surprise animated Aubin's face. "The Merry Dancer is the very best of the UNSC's patrol fleet in Shanxi System, I hear she's an old Paris class, retrofitted with the latest energy projector tech."

"Was that supposed to make me more confident in these junkers?"

"Perhaps." He gave a signature grin before turning back toward the exit. "We dock in 30, be sure to be on-time, we want to beat the garrison resupply."

As Aubin left the room, Ava turned to watch him go, her mind turning to thoughts she was too old to be entertaining. She chuckled to herself, she was far too old to be chasing cute military men again, and a bit too married as well. She looked at her ring, and her hand's brown and weathered skin; 58 years of life had taken their toll. She looked back to the blinking lights of New Landing. The Human-Covenant War had taken its toll too, left 100 year old scars even on this new colony, her major population centers situated in defensible terrain: a mountain range on one side, and a series of rivers to the other. Perfect for protecting her 3.5 million citizens from an invasion force unlikely to ever hit such an isolated colony.

She sighed, and prepared herself for boarding.

In her time as a xeno-archeologist, Ava had been on a variety of Human, Sangheili, and even Kig-Yar and Jiralhanae vessels. Warships, trade ships, even water ships on some of the wayward human colonies. Merry Dancer was a different breed entirely. Apparently, as the bubbly Captain D'Noka explained, the craft had been lost with all hands during the Battle for Earth, but was able to be salvaged and renamed following the discovery and disappearance of the Ark. D'Noka had continued on about the distinguished history of the Dancer for quite a bit longer than Ava cared to recollect, and by the time some pitying ensign managed to pull the Captain to the bridge, she felt a migraine pushing at the back of her forehead.

"I do apologize about our dear Captain, this posting tends to… exaggerate D'Noka's naval history obsessions." said the smartly dressed Commander Heras.

Ava only smiled, "I suppose we should go over the anomaly on our way to XRC1?"

Heras nodded "Sounds like a good palate cleanser to me: a few weeks ago the patrol vessel Laid With Love detected some abnormal energy readings on the moon of an outer rim gas giant."

"Unnamed?

Heras shrugged, "This is a relatively new colony, only 20 years old. Most of the system isn't even surveyed yet, no time for a naming ceremony."

"I guess we really are in the boonies out here."

That drew a wry grin from the young officer. "You have no idea. The Love's telemetry and sensor data were pulled, but we can't make heads or tails of it, which is why we called for you." He pulled a slate from his jacket, and passed it to Ava. "Take a look for yourself, best I can tell it's some sort of anti-gravity field messing with our mass readings, the moon seems to fluctuate in mass every few seconds."

Ava studied the charts for a moment, before handing back the slate. "It may be a sort of code, perhaps to access ruins beneath the surface?"

Heras tried to hide the surprise that washed over his face "Best theory I've heard, I'll try to compile the pattern when we're back on the bridge."

"I thought we'd been saved from the good Captain's ramblings?"

She earned a chuckle from the officer then, "If only it were so easy. Don't worry, she'll grow on you. Besides, we ought to save your ONI friend."

An uneventful walk to the bridge left Ava to examine the environment of the vessel. Unlike the more modern ships in the UNSC fleet, Dancer had been built during a time of war, and the hard times shone in its utilitarian design and uncomfortable walkways. Such spartan accommodations were softened only by the crew's personal touch. Color, in the form of painted corridors and non-regulation crew wear, was everywhere, Heras being the only exception, his prim and proper officer's uniform standing out from the sea of colorful patches and t-shirts. Being this far into the frontier meant that decorum loosened substantially, with the goal of preventing moral collapse and "spacer madness" as civilians called it.

Such laxness spread to the bridge as well, with pictures and children's drawings decorating the monitors of many stations, including the captain's, whose chair swiveled to meet their entrance.

"Doctor Peters, glad you made it, we're only a few minutes from the moon, and I was nearly done telling your assistant-"

"Special Attache,"

"Thanks sweetie, I was telling your attache about the fleet arrangements for Shanxi's defense."

The vacant stare Aubin met her gaze with was all the proof she needed for that. "We should probably start preparing for our investigation, wouldn't want to waste any time." Ava ventured.

The Captain took the bait "I suppose not, though I must admit it's curious to have such an esteemed mind as yourself on such a remote agri-world like ours."

"You'd think, but my work with forerunner artifacts takes me to some remote places. Speaking of, it seems we're here." The main viewport framed the 40 kilometer moon perfectly, the dull light of the system's star accentuating the pitted and icy surface of the ovoid structure.

D'Noka stiffened, as if realizing her command "I'll have one of my escorts send a core probe to the surface, maybe we'll find some hint in the moon's crust. Heras, did that project you were working on pan out?"

The officer looked up from his station. "The code seems to be the definition of some sort of mass unit, measured in hydrogen atoms. Fascinating method for encrypting data, but I'm unsure of the purpose of it."

"Maybe they're asking for information?" interjected Aubin.

Heras pondered that for a moment. "Perhaps, I'll ask Zizka to translate the alien units to kilograms."

The holoprojector lit up, displaying the form of a purple, wizened man in medieval garb, "Nice of you to finally introduce me Heras, Jan Zizka, 6th generation combat and analysis AI, at your service." His form bowed gracefully, before returning to his speech. "I've already calculated a conversion rate, apparently one of their units is about 3.4 kilograms, my databases have no such recorded unit in use by forerunners, or any other known intelligence."

"Then this is a first contact?" D'Noka's comment brought the bridge from the low hum of conversation to a startling quiet. Discovery of new intelligent life had become something of a bad omen in human space.

"I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions here, might be old Epsi-7 or Etruso ruins this far out, lots of dead empires existed in this part of space-"

"Christ, I should've worn my dress blues." Nervous laughter swept the bridge, but the weight of the situation seemed to have settled on the crew. "Ensign Carton, communicate our findings to Grateful Live and Morning Star."

The ensign nodded, and returned to his work, whilst the Captain launched into a series of queries and orders that Ava hadn't expected from the formerly chatty CO. Ava scanned the crew, and found what she'd expected from a dusty post like this, young and inexperienced deck officers and technicians, suddenly pulled to the forefront of a serious situation that now required all the talents they'd been forced to waste at their dead-end posting. It was almost inspiring, watching a rusty machine slowly spring to life.

"Peters-"

"Jesus!" Ava looked to see Aubin right behind her, how does he always manage that? "Agent Aubin, what do you need?"

"Is there a serious possibility that whatever's on that moon is from an unknown civ?" Ava suddenly remembered the real responsibility the young man had on his shoulders.

"Listen," she pulled the agent into a relatively secluded corner, "Weird artifacts like this show up all the time, its possible, but ONI doesn't need to be on high alert about this."

His face hardened, "If you say so Doctor, I'll-"

"Doctor Peters, Zizka has something for you." Heras called.

"What is it?" Ava maneuvered through the busy bridge to reach Heras, and the holographic form of Zizka.

"I have a theory Peters, if you'll indulge me. I think the ruins might be sending out these signals as a request for ship tonnage."

"Hmm, why wouldn't the designers just ask for the information?"

"It's possible this is a back-up communicator."

"Or," Heras said, "It could be a method of communication we haven't yet identified, Forerunners used a variety of signals on the electromagnetic spectrum to communicate, it's possible we simply haven't found the right one."

"It's better than nothing I suppose, how do you intend to respond?" Ava asked.

Zizka perked up, "I think a retuning of the directed energy projector could lessen the damage, and increase transmission power to allow for a pulsed message to make it through the crust, and allow it to be received by the transceiver!"

"Or we could send a boosted transmission using the onboard transmitter?"

The AI deflated, "Come on Heras, you never let me have any fun. Lieutenant Jin! I'm sending you a message that I want you to transmit to the moon's surface. Boost to 300% power."

"Understood!"

"Captain, if I could request a repetition of that order on our escorts? Want to make sure the transmission gets through, and that our friends don't get to miss the party."

"Granted Zizka, and please stop ordering my officers around."

"What can I say, I'm made for command."

The shriek of an alarm from Heras' console cut that conversation off. "Captain D'Noka, it looks like the energy readings on that moon are increasing dramatically, gravity sensors are all over the place right now, we should-"

"Heras, I think you should take a look out the viewport."

The bridge fell to a dead silence, as they watched fissures, spurned by purplish energy, rend the moon. At first, only small pieces were flung away, but as the fissures deepened, kilometer long chunks drifted from the remains, enveloped in an electric energy that danced across the icy surfaces. The mesmerizing sight almost distracted from the deep purple of the vessel within: bulged at one end, with an electric blue vortex of concentric rings lodged centrally in the wider end; pronged, tapering arms extending 8 kilos from the vortex.

"Uh, you're seeing that too right?" whispered Zizka.

"I've never seen anything like it." Ava stared in awe, yet her mind continued to run in the background. Forerunner architecture looks nothing like this, between pre and post flood, golden era, even Precursor aged structures look nothing like this. Who made this structure?

"Captain, its pulling us in!"

Arcs of lightning bounced against the shields, pulling the craft toward the spinning rings of energy.

"Get me a trajectory on those rings-" was all D'Noka managed before her ship was accelerated faster than light into the unknown.