Chapter II
Legacy Of The Precursors
Chapter II
Admiral Adam was looking at something breathtaking. Their fleet had arrived at the location of the strange readings. It was an amazingly large wormhole. The fleet had cordoned it off as well as they could with such a small force. They had already contacted headquarters and requested more ships.
"What's the status on our support?"
"They are mustering at the rally point above Katina and will warp in once all the requested units arrive." His second in command Mary replied.
"Excellent, do we know if venom has detected this?"
"We can not tell at this time sir but we should be on the lookout." Mary answered.
Adam leaned back with a sigh. He only had a few corvettes and cruisers at his disposal. Ill suited for a venomian attack. He prayed that nothing would go wrong.
"Sir something is emerging from the wormhole!" Mary said worriedly.
"What!" Looks like the gods weren't listening. "Warm up the laser cannon batteries raise shields and launch all fighters!" He wasn't going to take any chances.
"Already done sir."
He smiled, "good work Mary. Now let's hope its nothing."
It was the opposite of nothing. The biggest ship he had ever laid eyes on slowly oozed out of the wormhole. It was larger then anything even the venomians had ever built. It was all hard edges and angles, and had long menacing wings on either side. A single glance at it burned one word into his mind.
Alien.
"By the gods!" He gasped. The entire bridge went silent. The most worrisome thing about the alien craft was its appearance. It was clearly designed for war. Adams could see two massive cannons at the front. They chilled his blood. By the looks of it one shot could shear a CDF carrier in half and then go on through another half dozen ships. That wasn't even including all of the obvious missile silos and smaller cannon emplacements.
If this was indeed hostile he doubted that even with the reinforcements he would be able to stop it. "What do we do?" A feline ensign asked voice trembling.
"Initiate first contact protocols. Send the greeting." The ensign nodded and set up the package and relayed it. The admiral prayed to the gods that they were friendly.
Aboard the silent vessel bodies floated in the darkness of the bridge. The ships A.I was processing all of the events that had just occurred. The entire compliment of its crew lay dead, or rather floated, except for the spartan, who was unconscious. The A.I wasn't concerned, his suit vitals signs were in the green. Conner floated by a bulkhead, which was indented a good three feet.
It spent a few minutes restoring the ships systems. It slowly restored gravity so that the bodies would gently reach the deck. Conner still made a loud noise when he hit the floor. The A.I then reactivated the two stalled generators and returned the ship to full functionality. 'Now what to do about those ships outside?' It thought to itself.
It ran them through the ship identification roster. They weren't of covenant, UNSC or any known forerunner design.
While it was still debating the best course of action it received a signal that was surprisingly in English. It was coming from the largest ship on the fleet surrounding the spirit. The ship was small only about a kilometer long.
It was seemingly a standard first contact package. Except for one thing. This race of aliens appeared to be evolved forms of earth fauna. 'Interesting' it took only moments for the A.I to digest and store all the information in the huge file.
Then it detected from long range scanners that a large fleet of ships was barring down on this location. The scanners were so sensitive they could tell that the incoming fleet was charging what appeared to be energy weapons. The A.I prepared for combat.
"Sir I'm detecting what seems like energy weapons and shields powering up!" A ferret called from a workstation.
The admiral froze. If this thing intended to fight they would all probably die. Still they would fight to the end. "Go to battle stations!" He commanded. "Pull the rest of the fleet back and get them into position."
As the fleet moved into place he was surprised to see that the alien ship had not fired during that moment of weakness. "Sir ships coming in from out of system, it's the venomians!" A she wolf cried out from her console.
Damn! This couldn't get any worse. In jumped twenty five venomian vessels. A hodgepodge of cruiser and corvette weighted craft lead by a dreadnought. They could not hope to fight both the venomians and the massive alien ship. "Move the fleet into tortoise formation, if we are to die we'll give them one hell of a fight!"
The A.I carefully monitored this new development. It did a quick recap on the package about venomians. From what it read they were like the covenant, brutal and without mercy. They clearly did not come here to talk. 'I could make a decision here.' It thought to its self. 'Which side to help?' After only a few nanosecond it made its choice.
"CDF dogs! This is commander Arkwright of the venomian battle fleet rising revenge. As of now this area belongs to the the mighty venomian empire." Arkwright was confident that they could seize this wormhole and that huge alien ship for the empire. The lizard smugly sat in his chair. He just loved tormenting the weak.
"Venomian fleet, this is admiral Adam of the CDF 5th fleet. As per the coalition accord you are trespassing in cornerian space, we would ask you to leave." A terrier answered back.
Arkwright scoffed and cut the transmission. The accord was a joke, all he had to do was destroy the fleet and kill every last one of them. It could always be blamed on pirates, after all pirates don't leave survivors
"Sir!" Mary warned, her tail was whipping around erratically. "The venomian fleet is launching fighters!"
"Position our fighters and prepare an intercept course." Adam was afraid. Not for himself, but for his crew. He had lived a good life but they were all young and ambitious. They didn't deserves to go out like this.
As the venomian ships ever so slowly approached, the inevitable demise of his fleet was averted. "Admiral the alien ship is moving!" The feline ensign reported.
At first the admiral felt a jolt of fear, 'was it moving to destroy them?' The massive alien ship glided to the front of the outnumbered and outgunned CDF fleet and stopped. "Sir it has taken what appears to be a defensive position in front of our forces!" The feline said sounding slightly confused.
"What?" The admiral exclaimed in surprise. No one answered his question as they were to busy watching the events unfold. The venomian fleet slowed marginally until they halted just outside weapons range.
"What is the meaning of this?" The venomian admiral demanded. No one on his bridge offered an explanation. "No matter I want that ship disabled. Target its engines." He waved dismissively. The entire venomian fleet fired on the alien craft.
The CDF watched in awe as the venomians barraged the huge vessel. The lasers either glanced of or were absorbed by the impressive shielding. It was like watching bees pick at a giant bear. Once the fleet stopped firing the ship retaliated.
Two piercing bright lights shot out of the vessels wing tips and bisected a pair of venomian corvettes, they burst into dazzling shards of heated shrapnel and debris. The explosion was so intense if wiped out the wing of fighters stationed in between the two doomed ships.
"Gods!" Mary exclaimed at the sheer destructive power. The alien ship was not done. The many mission silos opened revealing the cavernous tubes filled with the harbingers of death and destruction. The silos released their deadly payloads. The streaks of exhaust left by the torpedoes filled the entire area of space around the ship concealing it briefly.
The missiles impacted amongst the startled venomian fleet like the hammer of an angry god. A dozen of the ships were crippled or downright destroyed by the hail of explosive ordanance. In response the remnants of the once powerful fleet emptied everything they had into the smoky haze where the missiles had emanated from. Once it cleared the venomians and the CDF were dumbstruck. The ship was gone. It was no longer on sensors and there was no debris signifying its end.
"Hah! We got it!" Arkwright exclaimed triumphantly. His victory was short lived, as was his remaining time alive.
"Sir the enemy ship has reappeared behind us!" An ape said panicking. Indeed the alien ship was now flanking the dreadnought and the few cruisers and corvettes that were left. It had just materialized out of nowhere.
"Bring us around!" The lizard shouted voice laced with fear. It was no use.
Lines of blue light began to manifest along the spine of the alien ship. Once the light had reached a crescendo the two massive cannons fired.
One shell split the dreadnought from prow to stern. It exploded violently as the generators and energy cells ignited completely vaporizing the pride of the venomian fleet. It was the luckiest ship.
The alien craft charged forward at an unbelievable speed and smashed into a cruiser cracking it open like an egg. The coup de grâce was the close in network of cannons firing amidst the ships obliterating them as their hulls splintered and shields failed.
It plowed through the carcasses of the once grand and mighty fleet and stopped facing the awed and terrified CDF battle group.
The admiral was wrong, there was no way he could ever have stopped it. "W-what d-d-do we do n-now?" Mary asked quietly, almost as if the ship was a living being that could here them.
"I don't know Mary." Adam said just as quiet. Then amazingly the huge alien ship vanished. It just disappeared leaving the bewildered CDF floating in the darkness of space orbiting a brand new ship graveyard.
They were so shocked they didn't even notice the wormhole closing.
The bridge was quite until a fleet of CDF cruisers lead by a carrier warped in. "Adams this is Blake, how's it going you old dog...." The boisterous voice of the other admiral reverberated through the silent bridge before petering off. "What in the blazes happened here?"
"Blake I need you to contact headquarters immediately, get General Pepper."