Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood marched down the brightly lit corridor, surrounded by his Marine escort and Dr. Ren Huan, and wondered if the week could get any worse. Reach had fallen only days ago and now one of ONI's Special Projects had run into… "unexpected developments". It was these developments that Dr. Huan was explaining to the Admiral as they hurried down the corridor.
"Initially the readings looked just as Hermes, our smart A.I., had projected. Once the device had reached optimal power levels we activated it," Admiral Hood had always liked being briefed by Dr. Huan because the small scientist had a way of briefing him without too much technical jargon or making him feel like an idiot. " A wormhole did open but the tachyon readings were highly abnormal. We sent a probe through and the readings came back were too impossible to believe. We had targeted the device for Alpha Centauri colony and the probe said that all instrumentation read that it was on Earth. But its starchart memory banks indicate Earth as it was over five hundred years ago."
Admiral Hood almost stopped in his tracks at that,"Is that possible, Doctor?"
The Admiral, doctor, and half dozen veteran Marines boarded a freight lift and rode nearly five hundred meters deeper into the crust of Io.
"In theory… anything's possible. If you would have told me about the Covenant's Slipspace capabilities before the war started I, and my professors at university, would have laughed in your face saying it was impossible. I haven't used that word in nearly twenty-seven years. Back to the point… yes, it is possible. Unfortunately the probe was destroyed and so we sent another probe, this time armed, and that was destroyed in the same manner."
The party stepped off the lift and exited into the control room for a cavernous hanger nestled in the center of the moon.
"How were they destroyed?"
"With plasma weaponry."
The Admiral hoped that his voice was neutral as he said, "Covenant?"
Dr. Huan shook his head," I've had a few transfers from Special Weapons R&D take a look at the readings. Covenant plasma is fired in tumbling globules, sometimes self-targeting, while these plasma weapons seemed to be laser-beam cohesive."
"So if it's not the Covenant on this… planet, then who is it?"
"We have intercepted a few encrypted communications and Hermes has identified them as human. Very archaic, which the time differential explains, but human."
The control room's far wall was an observational bubble that the Admiral immediately headed for. All the ratings in the room saluted him as he passed while the scientists were too busy pouring over the data still streaming into the niches each had along the walls. When Hood saw what lay before him on the floor of the hangar he lost the ability to speak for a few moments. He had known about this certain Special Project but actually seeing it come to life was something else.
There seemed to be nothing so much as a hundred meter long, fifteen-meter high arch in the center of the hangar. Through the arch could be seen the rubble of what Hood assumed to be a former urban center. Earth was secure as of six hours ago and that deepened the mystery for him.
"Human, hmm," Hood said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "Was it supposed to be this large?"
"Yes, sir, but we cannot close it. Originally it was thought that all we would have to do was deprive the wormhole of an external energy source, our Engine, but this Gate, as we call it, seems to be self-perpetuating. Hermes believes that we have torn space-time and that, like an organic, body it is slowly healing itself."
"Forgive me for interrupting," a cheerful voice called and a life-sized hologram of a minor Greek god appeared beside Dr. Huan. "It is healing itself. In the last sixteen hours the Gate has shrunk two point three centimeters. It seems to be closing faster the smaller it becomes though we have not computed the exponential quotient as of yet."
"Is the insertion team prepped?" Huan asked, keeping his eyes locked on the visage that could be viewed through the Gate.
"Yes, if you would look directly below you, they are preparing to enter the GateWay now."
Hood looked below them and saw a platoon of ODST's flanking a probe 'bot that looked like a miniature tank.
"Here you are, Admiral," one of the ratings held up a comm-link and Hood took it with a nod.
Hood placed it in his ear, activated it, and placed it on the platoon's command freq," Who am I speaking to?"
"Lieutenant MacAlister, sir," came the rough-voiced reply.
"I've read your file, son, and I have the utmost faith in your abilities. Just remember to not take any offensive action until we have fully ascertained the situation. In the event of attack I want you all back through the GateWay. No sense wasting lives. Am I understood, soldier?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good. Go show 'em why they call you HellJumpers."
Hood watched as Lieutenant MacAlister waved his men forward and together they strode towards the Gate. When they passed through it there was no obvious spatial disturbance. It was as if they simply walked from one room to another. There was a moment's hesitation before the platoon began setting up a perimeter and deploying the comm-gear that would boost the faint signals coming through the Gate. Admiral Hood could only wait and watch anxiously for the unknowns, possibly hostile, to make their presence known.
Lieutenant MacAlister breathed in the air and knew immediately that something was not quite right about it.
"Vihn!" he whispered over the team's com-freq. "Go check out the atmo-read on the 'bot. The air feels funny."
"Yes, sir!" the corporal replied and hustled his way over to the 'bot.
MacAlister was just settling into the shallow trench he had just dug when Vihn broke out over the comm. again.
"Sir! The 'bot says this place is filled with background radiation and minute traces of fall-out from a dirty nuke!"
"Calm down, corporal. What's the rad-count?" MacAlister asked as calmly as he could.
"Uhm, it says that the fatal exposure deadline is two years."
"I'm going to kick your ass, Vihn. You nearly scared the shit out of me!" Lance Corporal Singh snapped, her voice not concealing her amusement.
"Cut the chatter!" Master Sergeant Ivan snapped and his voice was very serious," The comm-gear is up, El-Tee."
MacAlister switched to the command frequency and all hell broke loose.
His only impressions were of brilliant purple-white streaks blasting into the ground only four meters in front of him. Each left a scarlet after-image in his eyes, definitely not Covenant plasma weaponry, effectively blinding him while the firing continued. The air was filled with a high-pitched whining sound that was occasionally interrupted by a low thrum. The Lieutenant thought his entire platoon was going to buy it, he gave little thought to his own person, and he nearly sobbed at the undignified way he was going to die. Then the firing stopped and MacAlister was still alive.
"Sound-off!" he immediately barked after quickly switching to the team-freq even before his vision cleared. All of his team was accounted for and there had been no casualties.
"Drop your weapons or the next volley's up your asses!" a rough voice, seemingly human and female, seemed to come from all around them.
"Can anyone pinpoint that bastard?" MacAlister hissed.
There was a moment of silence before Ivan said," With all due respect sir, I can't see shit."
"Do what she says, Lieutenant," Admiral Hood's voice broke in on the team's frequency.
"You heard the Admiral. Drop 'em." MacAlister was the first to lower his Battle Rifle and sidearm to the ground and slide them away.
Once the entire platoon had followed suit the voice spoke again," I'm sending my dog out. If you fucks hurt him I'm going to personally light your asses up!"
"Her dog?" Singh whispered, barely containing a giggle.
"Shut it, Singh, or its latrine duty for a week!" Ivan hissed.
A huge, short-haired mutt suddenly darted from the ruins in front of the Lieutenant. The mutt unhurriedly walked up to him, sniffed his face, and began licking him. His huge head was thrust toward the Lieutenant, accompanied by a plaintive whine, and MacAlister unthinkingly reached up to pat the dog's head. A short woman, with short brown hair, appeared from the same ruins as the dog. She was dressed in rust-colored and granite camo with unfamiliar body armor that looked like segments of alloy woven together. This woman was as dirty as the mutt and seemed just as comfortable with it as the dog.
"You Sci/Tech bastards sure have a lot of-" she stopped as she got a really good look at MacAlister and his team. Then she brought her rifle to bear, it looked like an ancient assault rifle design to MacAlister, and grinned wolfishly. "It looks like someone has a lot of explaining to do."
Admiral Hood stepped through the Gate, expecting some sense of disorientation, and found it was much like walking through a door. His guard immediately fanned out to provide cover for him when it was obvious, from the apparent effectiveness of these mysterious soldiers, there wasn't any hostile within a hundred kilometers. It seemed that the two groups of infantrymen were having a game of 'show me yours and I'll show you mine'. The Admiral and Dr. Huan walked up behind the MacAlister and the woman as they test-fired each others weapons.
"So what do you think, Lieutenant," the Admiral asked.
"I'm in love. It's light, much lighter than Covie weaponry, and it doesn't splash so you can use it in close-quarters. I-" the Lieutenant turned saw the Admiral and snapped a hasty salute," Officer on deck!"
The Admiral was surprised when everyone, UNSC and the other group, all snapped to attention.
"At ease," he said, returning the salute.
"At ease," someone with a slightly accented voice said from behind him.
The Admiral turned to find a tall, dusky-skinned woman standing behind him with her hands clasped behind her back in a position identical to his own.
"Fleet Admiral Hood, UNSC Naval High Command," he introduced himself, holding out his hand.
The woman took his hand," General Luna, Commander-In-Chief of TechCom, Military Chair of the United Earth Government. "
"Maybe I should be saluting you," Hood grinned as she released his hand.
"Don't," she said, returning his grin," Most of the time I still feel like a Lieutenant. "
Two hours later, as Hermes briefed General Luna on the Covenant-Human War, Admiral Hood was still reeling from Luna's tale of her dimensions Machine War. Dr. Huan and his team had met with some of TechCom's Sci/Tech Division scientists and they had come up with the theory that the Gate was a doorway into an alternate dimension. General Luna, and his own astrophysicists, had pegged the year in Luna's time as roughly 2049. Luna's humans, it was how he thought of the human race in her dimension, had fought a thirty-year war against an A.I. construct named SkyNet. Hermes had found it incredible that a defense system computer had developed consciousness on its own and had escaped the effects of rampancy. Then once SkyNet's defense system was down in North America TechCom was thrown into war with the Machine-Humans for another twenty years, all while both Machine-Humans and TechCom fought the remnants of SkyNet's machine armies. The Consolidation, what they called the second conflict, was just now dying down all over their world. It amazed Admiral Hood that these humans had not only fought tooth-and-nail from the brink of extinction but that it was almost entirely attributed to one man. This Conner sounded like just the man that the UNSC needed. He would be over sixty by now but Luna had never said anything about the man being dead.
General Luna leaned back in the comfortable chair in Dr. Huan's briefing room back in the ONI installation on Io after Hermes had finished.
"It seems you are in dire straits, amigo," she said, shaking her head. "I wish we could give you more men but we can't. TechCom's forces have been decimated by five decades of fighting. There are less than two thousand veterans of The Machine War and The Consolidation. The rest of them, a paltry nine thousand, are recruits from the past ten years who have seen some fighting but not enough to make the kind of soldiers you need. They don't know what it's like to see the twilight of their species not too far away. We knew what we were fighting for during The Machine War and The Consolidation. Survival, plain and simple. Our population, worldwide, is less than ten million. SkyNet's extermination campaigns nearly emptied the Third World and only those people living in remote places probably survived. It could be another five decades before we find any of them. I'm sorry, but we're just not equipped to assist you."
Admiral Hood nodded sadly," I thought as much after your briefing. But there are ways we could help each other. "
Luna grinned," I was hoping you'd say that."
Three hours later Admiral Hood and General Luna were flying low over the MidWest in the cockpit of a Pelican dropship.
"I've been in planes before," Luna said, grinning like a little girl and not a Commander-In-Chief in her forties," This beats them all. "
Admiral Hood shared her grin," Hold on!"
The Admiral, like a freshman Academy recruit, whooped loudly as he pulled the Pelican's nose up and made a hard-burn for low orbit. General Luna whooped too as they tore through the atmo, the ship bucking and shaking around them, and within minutes they were in zero-gee. General Luna's long black hair floated up around her and her smile seemed as though it would tear her face in half at any moment.
"Now comes the fun part. This is why they call it a dropship."
Then the Admiral dove back towards the planet's surface. Luna screamed the entire way down, from sheer excitement Hood surmised, and was out of breath by the time they had leveled off. Neither of them spoke again until they neared the coordinates Luna had given him. She typed a specific frequency into the dropship's broadcast transponder so they wouldn't be shot out of the sky. Shortly Hood was settling the dropship a hundred meters to the west of a small farming community.
The two quickly disembarked and were immediately mobbed by people dressed in simple clothing who smelled of freshly turned dirt. Surprisingly Luna seemed to know them all and greeted most of them by name.
"Perry, this man wants to meet our friend. Go introduce them," with that said Luna was swept off back towards the dropship to answer the farmers excited questions.
Hood turned to the man Luna had spoken to and nearly swallowed his tongue. This behemoth of a man could have been a Spartan for all Admiral Hood knew. He was brown-skinned but had half his face covered in the most barbaric tattoos, they made the HellJumpers' look like fanciful doodles, and his eyes seemed coldly inhuman. He was older than Luna, maybe closer to fifty, but the way he moved told the Admiral all he needed to know about the man's fitness level.
"Follow me," he said, his voice deep and vaguely threatening.
Hood followed him through the tightly clustered buildings and toward a large one in the center of town. Without a sound a boot came streaking from a doorway into Perry's side. The huge man rolled away from the blow, grunting with the impact, and came to his feet in a combat stance. Perry growled lightly as he charged into the room. The Admiral was no fool and wisely drew his sidearm and stuck to the shadows of a building. The deep-voiced grunts of Perry were punctuated by the higher sounds of someone giving frantic combat shouts of exertion. Then glass shattered and the building shook with Perry's titanic bellow.
"Damnit, Reese!"
Someone was thrown bodily through the doorway. They landed in a heap and one of the most beautiful women that Hood had ever seen stood to her feet. Even the steadily darkening bruise under one green eye did not deter from the young woman's beauty. Her short reddish-brown hair stuck up crazily from her head as she dusted herself off and frowned at the bear-like figure of Perry coming from the doorway.
"That was an antique from Australia, girl! Do you-!"
"You are the one that adopted and started training the girl, Perry."
Perry snapped a rigid salute at the stately figure that had snuck up on them all unawares.
"Sorry to wake you, General, but Luna thought you would like to meet-"
"Yes, Admiral Hood, I know all about it. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, Admiral?"
The legendary John Conner sat at an old, scarred coffee table and politely listened to everything the Admiral had to say. Hood took a sip of his lukewarm tea; he had talked that long, before speaking again.
" I don't think I need to spell out our dire situation for a military man of your ability, General. The UNSC could use a man of your tested abilities in the dark times to come. I ask you, no I beg you, please come with me."
Conner stood slowly and walked to the large window facing the plain sweeping out as far as the eye could see. His hands were clasped behind his back and even Hood could feel the tension in his shoulders. Reese, Perry, and Luna sat at the table as well with guarded expressions locked on the man they viewed as their savior.
"I'm sorry, Admiral," Conner began and Hood's heart fell just slightly," I've grown very comfortable living a relatively simple life out here. Call me a coward if you want," he held up a hand to still Perry, Luna and Reese's half-formed protests. " I'm also old. Most of the people of my generation died years ago and I feel like I should end my life here on this earth. Luna told me that you are trading the UEG for their plasma technology and some of SkyNet's old data files. I should thank you for the supplies you are giving us. It will save many lives, but tell me why you require so much manpower? I would have thought with your number of colonies, the number of refugees, you would have a military force just waiting to be activated. "
Admiral Hood cringed," The UNSC has kept the details of the war from the public. All refugees are funneled away from the Inner Colonies so that they don't spread panic. Recruitment for the Marine Corps has leveled off in recent months and there aren't enough reinforcements. Minimal estimates have the Covenant infantry numbering in the hundreds of millions even though we have only seen a fraction of those forces. If it comes down to a war of attrition we will lose. If we can hold on to the Inner Colonies and Earth while we retrofit our Navy and Marine Corps with plasma weaponry then we have a chance."
"It sounds to me like you need to hold them up. Have the Covenant ever shown express interest in one of these… Outer Colonies?" Conner asked, resuming his seat and fixing Hood with a gaze that made him feel as though he was under a laser scalpel.
"Yes. "
"Why?"
"Some kind of artifact. They didn't glass the planet until they had completely explored the area."
"Good. I'd advise you to send teams to your Inner Colonies to search for more of these ruins. If you find them come back to contact me and we can talk more."
"Very good, General," and that was how the Fleet Admiral found himself deferring to a legendary militia leader.
Five days later Admiral Hood watched the last of the TechCom veterans march through the doorway sized Gate. It would be completely gone in another day or two. ONI teams had discovered ruins buried deep beneath the capital city of Terra Secondus in Alpha Centauri. General Conner had indeed talked to Hood, a great deal, and his proposal had been approved by HighCom despite the protests of that bastard Ackerson.
General Perry, commander-in-chief, of the newly formed UNSC TechCom Militia stood as his five hundred-plus man company got into formation. General Luna was there to give him a send-off on behalf of General Conner and the UEG. The two talked for a moment and then Perry cocked his head to the side. The bellow he uttered could be faintly heard through the observation viewport.
"Damnit, Reese!"
Perry grabbed one of the helmeted TechCom soldiers by the collar and held them off the floor by main strength alone. Luna grabbed his arm and together they set the soldier down. Reese removed her helmet and Hood could clearly see her defiant expression. Admiral Hood made his way, via the lift to the left of the observational window, to the floor of the hangar and approached the quickly escalating conflict. When he got there the soldiers had circled the General and Reese. Admiral Hood stopped beside Luna, who was clutching Reese's helmet, and watched as the two assumed combat stances.
"What's going on?" he asked, just as Reese came forward with a darting jab that Perry calmly blocked.
"Reese wants to come with Perry and join TechCom. Perry wants her to stay with me," she began shouting to be heard over the cheering soldiers," They're fighting to see who gets their way like a couple of kids."
"She is a kid!" Hood shouted to which she just snorted in reply.
The two combatants were a blur of motion that the Navy man was hard-pressed to follow. Finally it ended with a boot to the shin that was quickly followed by a shoulder-throw that ended in a comfortable chokehold. It was only over when Perry slipped into unconsciousness and a bloody Reese rose shakily to her feet.
Luna grinned," You should feel sorry for the Covenant."