Chapter III
Legacy Of The Precursors
Chapter III
Conner awoke to a mind numbing headache. With a groan he sat up and looked at his surroundings. His crew lay in broken heaps scattered around the bridge. He sighed heavily. He may not have liked any of them but they were his responsibility and he had failed them.
"Commander it is good to see you up and about." A voice spoke to him.
His foggy mind did not register who it was so he drew his MX-34 laser pistol and scanned the room. "Who said that?" He growled.
"It is I sir, the ship's A.I, Epsilon." A virtual spartan materialized on the pedestal built next to the captains chair.
Conner simply nodded in understanding and holstered his weapon, it mag locked to his thigh. He looked at the corpses of his crew "give me a status update."
"Well sir, the entire crew compliment is KIA. Yet the ship is unharmed and ready for service."
"The death of the crew was....unfortunate." Conner replied. "But the real problem is can we get back through the wormhole?"
Epsilon went quiet for a moment. "I'm afraid that would be impossible."
"Why?" Conner demanded angrily.
"The wormhole closed after I engaged the hostiles."
"Hostiles? Wait where are we." There were to many questions without answers.
"It seems sir we are in uncharted space, in this A.I's opinion I don't even think we are in the same galaxy. The stars don't match the charts and the sentient life here is like nothing we have seen before."
"Troubling." Conner mused, "about those hostiles..."
"Yes sir, there was a force of alien ships arrayed at the wormhole when the Spirit came through, they sent a first contact package and I received and perused it. You may look through it when the time is available. Shortly after another fleet arrived with hostile intent to capture this ship. So I made a choice, I sided with the original forces and destroyed twenty five frigate and cruiser weight ships. They also had one larger ship, about a kilometer in size."
"Hmmm...threat assessment?"
"Minimal, their ship's shields were inferior and their energy weapons hardly brought our shields down five percent. Additionally they were weak to kinetic and ballistic munitions. I recorded the engagement if you wish to view it."
The spartan nodded. "Maybe later, for now I must see to my crew." The spartan said emotionlessly, although the A.I detected a slight shift in posture and brain chemical balance that suggested he was upset.
"I want you to chart a course to the nearest star." Conner ordered as he gently picked up one of his deceased crew mate. The unfortunate communications officer, it seemed that his spine had broken when he hit the wall. Conner thought he was lucky. He wouldn't have felt the pain of the radiation scouring through the ship.
"By your order." Epsilon saluted and phased out.
Conner spent the next five hours finding all six hundred off his crew and placing them in their metal coffins. Once he was done with the grisly task he began to load them into the missile tubes.
"May I ask what your doing?" Epsilon inquired as he watched the spartan load the last of his crew. Gunnery chief Mitchell Ortega, the man was found holding a photo of his family in the infirmary. The A.I had logged him as going to pull though his fever. Sadly it didn't matter anymore.
"I'm going to jettison them into the star." Conner said simply.
"Would it not be more respectful to wait to bury them?"
"They are dead, this is the most efficient way to deal with them. I won't allow decay to set in on my ship." The spartan said firmly and coldly.
"Understood sir." Epsilon said briskly before his avatar left in a huff.
Conner scoffed as he closed the last silo. "Why would an A.I care?" He muttered to himself. 'This must be done.' He thought, although, a small shred of doubt lingered. He crushed it swiftly and efficiently burying it under his stone cold and hard will. Now was not the time for sentimentality.
With that done he headed back to the bridge and summoned Epsilon. "Are the silos primed?"
"Yes sir." The A.I said blandly, although Conner could swear he heard a tiny bit of anger.
"You do understand why I must do this, right? I don't have the time or manpower to bury six hundred men and women. And from what you have told me we are stuck in a different galaxy this is the only option I had." The spartan said.
Epsilon could detect the almost childlike plea for understanding in the rough voice of the spartan. After a nano second of processing Epsilon forgave him.
"You are correct sir, this was the only way."
The spartan shifted ever so slightly to a more relaxed posture. "Thank you, now if you would please, send off are fallen."
As the silos opened and jettisoned the caskets into the red dwarf star the spartan stood up and saluted them. He watched them slowly drift towards their final destination not moving an inch his armor silent as the night and twice as dark.
He stood there for an entire hour, until the last casket had vanished into the stars molten core. "Now..." The spartan said stiffly. "Let's figure out what's going on."
He spent the rest of the day sorting through the first contact package and the battle report. "Intriguing, an alien race based off all the animals from earth, space fairing no less." He mused to himself in his cabin.
Epsilon entered the room via the tiny pedestal on Conner's desk. "Sir what is our next course of action?" It wondered.
"I don't know Epsilon, we are stranded in another galaxy with no way to contact fleetcom or any other form of humanity. And I don't think we will ever get back. The alien races here have ships and will stumble upon us eventually, no doubt after the engagement at the collapsed wormhole they will in fact be looking for us as we speak."
The spartan sounded frustrated. In point of fact he was. He had sacrificed any chance at a normal life in order to bring death and ruin upon his families murders. Now he never would. The UNSC had turned him into a living weapon. A tool to be aimed at its enemies. Without them he had no purpose, no reason to carry on.
"What do you suggest we do?" He asked Epsilon.
The A.I could see the spartan shaking almost imperceptibly. He was at his limit. "If I may suggest," the A.I said gently. "We make contact with the CDF. And we could offer them our services."
"Why would we do that?" Conner demanded.
"Frankly commander we have no way of returning to our galaxy. It is only logical that we align ourselves to a galactic power. Additionally you were bred to fight, by my estimates you would reach a mental breakdown if you did nothing."
Conner had read up on the CDF through the first contact package. They were the protectors of the free people of this 'Lylat' system. A peace keeping force. And therein lay the problem.
Peace keeping.
Spartans don't do peace keeping. They are special forces operatives that are meant to demoralize and then annihilate an enemy, they didn't 'peace keep'.
"I don't know..." Conner said unconvinced.
"You asked me for my opinion sir and I gave it, ultimately the decision is yours."
"I will....consider it." He said finally.
"As you wish." Epsilon dematerialized leaving the spartan alone with his thoughts.
He leaned back in his protesting chair and took of his helmet. As he set the large warrior variant helm on the table he looked at his face through the small mirror at the table.
Conner was unnaturally pale. Having spent the latter part of seven years in his armor only occasionally taking it off. His eyes were a deep shade of gold another byproduct of his augmentation. He had a square jaw that had a thin layer of stubble and a thin mustache. His raven black hair was cut extremely short so it wouldn't bother him while he wore his helmet.
He turned his gaze away from the puny rectangle of glass and sighed as he leaned back further. The chair groaned dangerously, but he didn't care. He ran his gauntleted hands through his hair. 'What do I do?' He asked himself.
Meanwhile a certain galactic vulpine hero was walking through the streets of the cornerian capital. He was accompanied by his fellow mercenaries as they headed for the defense force headquarters. They had been summoned by a concerned General Pepper, and that worried them. General Pepper was always calm and collected. As Fox walked into the building and after signing in he looked back to the door to watch his team file in.
Falco Lombardi, the arrogant and antagonistic avian, Peppy Hare the wise old man of the team, Slippy toad the youthful and intellectual mechanic, Krystal the blue vixen and telepath, Miyu Lynx the fiery dispositioned interceptor pilot, and her long time friend Fay the border collie.
Fox had a grin on his muzzle as he watched them. They had been through allot together. From the defeat of Andross to the resurgence of the venomian empire. There was no one he would rather have at his side.
Falco was the first one to finish signing in and was grumbling as he walked up to Fox. "You would think they knew who we were by now."
Fox just chuckled loudly. "Of course they do! It's just standard procedure."
"Standard procedure." Falco mocked using and exaggerating Fox's tone.
Fox slugged him on the arm playfully. "Cut that out we're here on business." Falco just mumbled to himself and Fox could swear he heard, "I'll show you business!"
The next one to walk up to him was Krystal. She sedately waltzed up to him and giggled when she saw Falco's disgruntled state. She was wearing a purple pilot jacket, form fitting pants, sandals, and fingerless gloves showing off her red manicured claws.
"Hey Krys."
"Hey Fox." She snipped back playfully.
"You ready to see Pepper?"
"I don't know, he sounded upset when he called us, I hope its nothing bad." She answered.
"I'm sure everything will be okay." Fox placated the concerned vixen.
"Fox!" Slippy shouted as he ran over to the forming group.
"Yeah Slippy?"
"Did you hear what the guards are saying?" The energetic toad said excitedly.
"No what'd they say?" Fox asked.
"They were talking about a battle between a venomian fleet and a CDF battle group."
Fox frowned and Falco butted in. "That doesn't sound good."
"Maybe that's what Pepper called us in for?" Krystal hypothesized. She was sucking on a claw tip as she said that.
"Maybe." Fox said.
In short order Peppy Miyu and Fay made their appearance.
"I'm guessing Slip filled you guys in on the scuttlebutt?" Miyu drawled when she joined the group.
"You guessed right." Falco replied.
"This has me worried. If this is true we may be looking at another war." Peppy said.
"I sure hope not!" Fay exclaimed.
"Well if we want answers we better go talk to Pepper." Fox said. The group walked through the corridors of the building and noticed that all the staff seemed to be rushed. They zoomed around carrying tablets and whispering amongst themselves. Something big was going on.
"I think that Peppy might be right." Falco said to Fox.
Fox only grimaced and picked up his pace. In a couple of minutes they arrived at the secretaries desk outside Pepper's office. The young doe their seemed to have been waiting for them. "Pepper is expecting you, please enter." She said in a melodious voice.
"Thank you." Fox said before opening the door for his team. As they walked in they noticed the old bloodhound watching something on his screen and was deep in thought. His muzzle looked troubled. Yeah it was something big.
"Sir?" Fox announced them.
Pepper looked up from the screen paused it and stood up. "Fox it's good to see you again I just wish it was under better circumstances."
"What's the problem?"
"Earlier today the 5th picket fleet discovered a gigantic wormhole just off the Katina sector."
"A wormhole?" Miyu said in surprise.
"Yes. Admiral Adam requested reinforcements to help lockdown the sector. While the 6th expeditionary fleet was mobilizing over Katina a massive alien vessel emerged from the wormhole." Pepper said. "Soon afterwards a fleet of venomian ships came to lay claim."
The team was stunned. "Well what happened?" Falco blurted out.
"This." Pepper answered and pulled up the after action report and played the recording. The view point was from the admiral's carrier. It showed a massive winged vessel hovering ominously near the wormhole.
Fox was awed by its size. The great fox was a dreadnought. This ships eclipsed it. That wasn't even taking the wings that curved out of the ship.
Falco was drawn to the vast array of visible weapons that covered the alien ship. The largest being two monstrous cannons along its back.
Slippy was busy trying to grasp the amazing mechanical skills needed to bring such a ship into existence.
The other members of starfox just thought that it was the single most intimidating ship they had ever seen.
Then in the video the admiral ordered for his crew to send a first contact package. Once away they waited for a response. When one of the bridge crew warned that the alien craft's weapons and shields were powering up they feared the worst. To compound the matter the venomian fleet arrived and tried to claim the area. The admiral had told them to leave and was answered by the venomians moving to attack positions.
What really surprised them was the titanic alien ship, which moved into a defensive stance between the small CDF fleet and the inbound venomians.
"Why?" Fox asked Pepper.
"We don't know Fox."
Then the venomians fired on the ship. Starfox watched in awe as the ship seemingly absorbed the lethal beams of energy. And even more so when the alien ship fought back.
Two iridescent beams of light lanced out of the vessels wingtips and scythed through two venomian ships. Scalpeling through the shields and hull like wet tissue paper. It wasn't done. It exuded a storm of missiles that tore through enemy fleet like nothing they had ever seen before. When the remaining vessels fired back and the fog cleared the gargantuan ship was gone.
Starfox was puzzled until they saw it appear out of thin air behind the enemy. "Jeez a ship that big can stealth!" Falco exclaimed.
No one answered as they watched the alien vessels spine light up blue until it reached a peak. Then two slugs flew out at unbelievable speed. One sliced the dreadnought down the middle and the other smashed through a few ships. In another display of awe inspiring might it crashed into the leftover ships and engaged in brutal close in broadsides that efficiently albeit crudely finished the leftovers.
It then flew out of the debris and stopped at its previous location and stared down the CDF's fleet and then vanished. Pepper paused the recording.
"That's it."
It took them a few minutes to absorb what they had just witnessed. "...Holy crap." Falco had just summarized everyone's thoughts aloud.
"Indeed." Pepper agreed.
"What does this mean for us?" Fox asked.
"For some reason that ship went out of its way to help us. I think that they're stranded here and need allies. I'll be frank the president wants to meet them."
"So?"
"I need you to find them."