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But I Don't Want To Go On The Cart!
Posted By: Kellen Squire<kellen_squire@hotmail.com>
Date: 29 May 2004, 1:38 AM
Read/Post Comments
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ALPHANUMERIC ONLY. 2D ONLY. ON SCREEN.
LOGGING ONTO FILE.UNSC.MILNET
WHAT ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR?
THAT FILE DOES NOT EXIST ON THIS SYSTEM. YOUR SEARCH HAS BEEN AUTOMATICALLY RECORDED, ALONG WITH
YOUR UNSC.MILNET IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION.
WHAT ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR?
SYNTAX ERROR - ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?
PLEASE WAIT...
WHAT ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR?
PROCESSING.
SECURITY CLEARANCE - LEVEL i
GRANTED
WHAT ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR?
PROCESSING
WARNING - MAJESTIC LEVEL SECURITY CLEARANCE
UNMILJCOS EYES ONLY
YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO ENTER THE CORRECT PASSWORD.
CLEARANCE GRANTED.
THIS DOCUMENT IS CLEARED FOR:
Secretary General Dan'el Jesús Corazon Rodr'guez
Grand Marshall Rainer Wind Chaser, CJCOS
Admiral Roschael Diedrich, UNSC
General Johnathan MacTyler, UNAF
Director Arkady Stepanovich, EarthGuard
Director Xu Xu Liu, Terran Intelligence Agency
ORDER 52 - DEFENSE OF THE EARTH IN CASE OF MASSIVE ENEMY ATTACK
1. MARTIAL LAW IN EFFECT; UNRESTRICTED CONSCRIPTING OF CIVILIANS CLASS 1A TO 1F INTO MILITARY SERVICE IN EFFECT.
2. ALL MILITARY UNITS ARE CLEARED FOR RULES OF ENGAGEMENT LEVEL SIX- UNRESTRICTED WARFARE
REGARDLESS OF ALL CIVILIAN SITUATIONS.
3. ALL OFF-DUTY MILITARY PERSONNEL WILL IMMEDIATELY RETURN TO THE NEAREST MILITARY BASE.
4. OVERALL COMMAND OF UN MILITARY WILL PASS TO MILITARY LEADER APPOINTED BY SECRETARY GENERAL.
5. UN HEADQUARTERS AT GENEVA MUST BE DEFENDED AT ALL COSTS. UN SENATORS AND COMMAND CABINENT ARE
TO BE EVACUATED TO DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES AND SHELTERS.
6. ALL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE TO BE PUT UNDER THE TACTICAL COMMAND OF THE CJCOS.
7. ALL ESSENTIAL FILES IN EVEN REMOTE DANGER OF CAPTURE MUST BE DESTROYED.
8. ENEMY FORCES MUST BE REPELLED AT ALL COSTS.
* * * * * * * * * * *
DEEP INTERGALACTIC SPACE
SEPTEMBER 1, 2552
1733 UNIVERSAL STANDARD TIME
Among the darkness, something moved.
It was slow, traveling merely a fraction of the speed of light. Already painted black, it was almost entirely lost amongst the darkness.
But for one, glowing portal, through which light shone brightly.
"Chief?" A moment's pause.
"Yes, Cortana?"
"We are now safely outside the system's gravity well... we can make the jump into slipspace whenever you're ready."
"The engines won't overheat?"
"No... well, at least not in the time it'll take us to accelerate to jump speed."
"How long will it take us to get there?"
Cortana was silent.
"Cortana?" No response. "Cortana!"
"It'll take us a little over ten weeks to get there, Chief... these fighters weren't built for long-range intergalactic travel, you're lucky that they even put Slipspace engines in these fighters! Otherwise, it'd be you, me, and hard vacuum cruising for a long, long time.
"There are some emergency rations on board, in the crew survival packs... and there's plenty of water from the emergency maneuvering jets and fuel cells. But... but I don't think you'll be able to make it the whole three months it'll take us to get to Sanctuary."
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, United Nations Space Command, saw, for the first time in his entire life, his mortality. He'd never thought of it before. Never contemplated it before a mission- the only outcome a mission could have was success.
But now he saw it, clear as day.
And he wasn't afraid.
Without another word, he tapped a button on the console in front of him. The Longsword fighter responded immediately, engines powering up to full, their velocity increasing until it was an appreciable fraction of the speed of light- and then, blackness, once again, only this time the glimmer of nearby stars was gone.
Complete nothingness.
The Master Chief was on his way.
* * * * * * * * * * *
SECRECT UNSC FLEET REDOUBT "SANCTUARY"
SEPTEMBER 10, 2552
1242 UNIVERSAL STANDARD TIME
The orbiting shipyards at Sanctuary were among the most impressive spaceborne objects ever built by mankind. Although smaller than the orbital shipyards at Reach or Mars, and less glamorous than the glittering domes hovering above Caltech, the shipyards hovering above Sanctuary were impressive because they, perhaps, held the key to mankind's salvation.
Sanctuary itself was impressive, too. It was the most Earth-like planet ever found in the galaxy. It's gravity pull was .999 that of Earth's, it was nearly the same diameter of Earth, it was 1.0 AUs out from it's bright, yellow sun, and it had an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere almost exactly like Earth's. It had an asteroid belt further out in it's star system, too, which provided the shipyards an unending supply of minerals with which to build new ships to fight the Covenant.
But all good things come with a price. Due to navigational hazards in deep space, and a nebulae of dust surrounding Sanctuary's solar system, it was extremely difficult to reach. In fact, the survey ship UNSC Icarus stumbled apon it by a fluke in a dysfunctional Slipspace navigational computer. The Icarus made the required series of Slipspace jumps to reach Sanctuary completely at random, which was later calculated to have been almost an infinitely improbable occurence.
So it was here that humanity located it's last redoubt. And it was here that, a few short weeks after the fall of Reach, that the Secretary-General of the United Nations paid a visit, to see the progress on what would, perhaps, be the key to humanity's salvation.
"Here she is, sir." The SecGen couldn't help but gape, even though he'd seen pictures and had reviewed specifications for the ship before. They didn't do the actual sight any justice.
"The UNSC Savior, sir. Two thousand meters long, armed to the teeth with SIX multi-fire MAC cannons, a hundred and fourty four reloadable Archer missile pods, hundreds of automated and crew-served autocannon, and enough anti-matter Shiva missiles to level a planet. Her armor is meters thick and layered, sir, in an alloy of titanium-III, iridum, and floroborocarbon, and weaved with the new anti-plasma cooling systems."
"But what about the special additions?"
"Don't worry, sir, I'm not done yet. We've got four of the modified Covenant plasma batteries almost ready to go online and be tested, and we're confident we'll get the shields online and working before the ship becomes fully operational."
"When will it be done?"
"In approximately six months, sir." This was definitely not what Rodr'guez had wanted to hear. The last time he'd talked to the Sanctuary engineer in charge of the Savior project, that's what he'd been told.
"I disagree." The SecGen turned around, to face a man wearing a UNSC uniform with Captain's epaulets on his shoulder. "I say we're ready to go out now."
This evoked a huge cry from the assembled crowd of engineers, each one spouting off exactly why that was such a horrible idea. Through it all, Rodr'guez could make out the Captain, yelling "We've got weapons, we've got propulsion, and we've got an AI!"
Rodr'guez raised his hand for quiet. "Please, everyone, calm down. One at a time."
"Sir," the lead engineer began, looking Rodr'guez plaintively in the eyes, "When your predecessor ordered this project to be started, we identified over three million scientific milestones we had to pass to make this ship possible. We've accomplished almost three-quarters of those milestones, sir, and a helluva lot of them weren't easy to accomplish. Reverse engineering Covenant technology isn't simple- it's like giving a holographic display projector to Leonardo DiVinci and trying to tell him to make another one.
"Not to mention our own stuff! We had to re-engineer the MAC guns to sustain multiple three-round bursts! Do you know how much kinetic energy a MAC round expends when it's fired? You don't want the barrels turning into slag or exploding, do you? Or how about how we've had to interweave the cooling system into the armor WITHOUT compromising it's integrity? And that's hardly all- we've got the top scientists and engineers from the Hans Morec AI Institute and the Navy's AICI program working 20-hour days retooling the shipboard AIs to be more self-aware and adaptive, like the experimental ones Dr. Halsey was working on, but we're nowhere near close enough!
"Now, you can take the Savior out now, and it might kill quite a few Covenant ships, sir- but then what? Then, we've got nothing, and we've got to start from scratch. Again." And everyone present knew that was unacceptable.
Humanity was running out of time.
"Si. You're right," The SecGen said, his voice colored with resignation. "Keep working, as hard as you can. That's all we can do."
"Yessir." The engineer nodded, but the SecGen wasn't done.
"Because," Rodr'guez continued, "this ship will go into all-out combat on it's shakedown cruise. It and it's sister are going to join what's left of the Fleet, blindside the Covenant invasion armada that's looking for Earth, and will drive the Covenant out of human space, roll them back to their own territory, and end this war once and for all!"
It took the SecGen a moment to realize what had just happened. The last part of his impromptu speech had risen in volume until it was near shouting, and his hand had thrust up into the air on the word "all," as if to fully emphasis his point.
It had taken everyone aback, and for a moment no one reacted. No one was quite sure *how* to react.
Finally, a junior engineer, near exhaustion from having worked sixty-five hours in the last seventy-two, had the presence of mind to scream "YEAH!" at the top of her lungs, and, moments later, everyone joined her.
"Yessir, Mr. Secretary-General! She'll be ready! I promise! Yes sir!
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