-####Begin Information Transmission####-
Date: May 30th 2554
Location: Deep Space; in orbit around unnamed gas-giant, departing orbital station and en-route to planet Arcadia.
Vessel: UNSC Navy Frigate: harmony.
Commander: UNSC Naval Captain Jonson helm.
Smart Artificial Intelligence on duty: jax.
Mission: Escort and deliver supplies to planet Tribute and aid in rebuilding efforts.
Crew: Minimum military crew required for ship operation, Command and Ops. Personnel, Civil workers, and one Spartan Mark – III (joseph: Spartan – W331).
Cargo: Military Hardware, Medical Aid, Civil Aid, Allocated Colony Rebuilding Supplies from Earth and remaining Colonies, and One Storage Unit for MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor.
*Request Information on Spartan – W331* - Acknowledged
Name: Joseph ‘spirit’ *******
Age: 20
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
Home World: Earth (United States – Midwest Region)
Spartan Class: Spartan Class-III Commando Unit
Spartan Number: Wolf – 331 (W331)
Position: Assault
Rank: Commander
Team Identification: Spartan Team Wolf (All Spartans but W331 - MIA – [Most likely KIA])
Last Known Conflict Participation: Battle of Earth - Battle of San Francisco (California) – Ground operations during conflict, rest of Wolf Team lost during ground engagements…
-*Requesting Information on call sign – WOLF*-
^^^Information Transmission Cut^^^
-####End Information Transmission####-
Joseph wiped off the foggy glass of the storage unit for his MJOLNIR power assault armor. The dampness of the cold condensation was a feeling he had rarely ever felt on his fingertips. He rubbed the wet moisture between his large fingers and a tiny drop of water ran down his hand. The Spartan warrior had almost never physically felt the world around him, often having the suit of armor shielding him from the elements, hostiles, or the world itself. Flicking away the droplets of water off of his fingers he stared into the coffin like metal storage unit which held his armor.
Peering through the protective glass he gazed upon his MJOLNIR suit. The helmet of the suit was the Mark V CNM variant, a trait shared by the regular UNSC developed version of the MJOLNIR armor. The dark blue colored visor shimmered in the soft light of the storage room, each beam of light being reflected off in a different direction. Resting on its left shoulder was the COMMANDO class shoulder armor piece. Resting on its right shoulder was the EVA class shoulder armor piece. These pieces of upper arm armor greatly improved joseph's arm protection while he was wearing the suit. The chest piece for joseph’s armor was the TACTICAL/RECON save for a few special modifications made by joseph himself. Two large combat blades lay sheathed on front side of the chest plate, one just below each shoulder, ready to be used in an instant. Joseph looked at the grey and red paint he had chosen for his armor. Each small scratch against the paint let the silver metal shine through. Numerous tubes and electrical wiring surrounded the armor inside its metal coffin. Soft yellow and blue lights pulsed around his armor, almost like the machine had a heartbeat of its own.
He was never sure why he and his unit were ever given such advanced military hardware…But they must have had their reasons…And he knew not to question them…
The Spartan took a step back away from the storage unit and used the reflection of the glass to look at himself. Unlike Spartan-II's, a Spartan-III was usually the size, maybe a bit bigger, then a normal man. He often was the same height of normal humans, joseph stood at a normal six feet and five inches in height. Brown eyes and brown hair adorned his facial features, save for a few scars. But what made him stand out from the crowd was his body structure. Joseph’s muscles were very well defined and his posture was straight as a bone. He walked faster than anyone else passing everyone in the ship corridors. What had made him like this were the augmentations he had received as a part of his Spartan training. This made him run faster, and hit harder than any other solider on the battlefield.
WOLF-331 walked onto the command bridge of the UNSC frigate harmony. The command crew shifted their gaze momentarily as the Spartan walked into the area. They eyed the Spartan with caution. Joseph didn't enjoy the way people looked at him now. Months before the Spartans were admired as heroes and saviors of human kind. But now they looked at him as if he was some sort of circus freak, a medically bio-engineered monster.
He continued past the command crew and walked over to a young man in a pure white uniform who was standing next to a transparent hologram screen. The screen was flashing with various numbers and coordinates for their departure into slipspace. Flickering to life on a small pedestal next to the man in with was the silver AI jax; he smiled at the Spartan as he drew nearer.
The man in white turned to the young Spartan. "Commander, it's good to see you!"
"Captain Jonson!" joseph replied loudly, giving a crisp and clean salute to the captain of the vessel.
Captain Jonson nodded at joseph, who lowered his hand from his salute. Captain Jonson helm was a younger captain, rushed into a command of the Frigate at the end of the war. He was a brave and intelligent officer even if he was still a bit green being in command of his own vessel. Joseph had served with Jonson before during pervious engagements of the Human-Covenant war, and both soon had a friendship between them. To joseph, he and only a few others really remember the Spartans sacrifice during the conflict.
"I'm glad you're on this ship with me…" The captain said casually "…It's good to have a friend these days."
Joseph was unsure about the casualness of the conversation. "It is sir." The Spartan replied keeping his soldier stance up. This made the AI jax smile to himself on his pedestal.
Jonson looked over to the hologram of jax. "Are we ready to jump?" he said raising an eyebrow, folding his hands behind his back.
Jax turned on to look out the observation window. "All preparations and coordinates are set. We are ready to jump to colony Tribute, beginning the five minute countdown now." The AI flickered and flashed disappearing from sight.
Captain Jonson nodded and began to turn back to the Spartan. He was opening his mouth when Frigate's red warning lights flashed on and impact sirens began to howl throughout the ship.
The AI once again flashed into visibility. "Incoming Projectiles! Brace for impact!"
Lurching to the right the Frigate was struck by something. The sound of metal scraping against another hard solid object caused even the Spartan to grab for his ears. Joseph watched out the observation window as a metallic asteroid collided and bounced off the ships metal hull. A large dent in the armor showed where the flying mass had stuck the frigate. One after another multiple asteroids seem to collide with the UNSC ship, sending it wobbling off course and shearing off the titanium armor plating. The flashing and howling of the alarms continued. Sparks erupted from terminals and screens across the bridges sending some of the command crew flying out of their chairs. The lights above them shattered showering the floor with pieces of glass and wiring. And as soon as it began the collisions stopped. The Spartan looked out the window as watched a group of large asteroids rocketed away from them and back into the black void of space.
"What in the hell…." joseph mumbled angrily.
"Jax, damage report!" The Captain yelled frantically, picking himself up off the floor with the help of Spartan-331.
Jax said nothing verbally and flashed a damage report onto the hologram screen.
Damage Report:
Hull Status – Holding at 90%
Casualties – None
Navigation System – Offline: No contact with sensor array
Communication Systems – Offline: No contact with communication array
Emergency Systems – Online at 50%: Life boats still functional.
Weapons Systems – Online at 95% - Archer-Pods cold. Reboot of entire weapons system.
Inter-Ship Systems – Functioning at 85%
Reactor and Engine Systems - Functioning at 99.99%
WARNING! – Slipspace Drive malfunctioning! Jump course lost! Unable to correct jump course! Unable to abort jump! Recommend immediate evacuation of vessel!
"Jump course lost?" joseph questioned. "You mean this ship is about to warp itself blindly into deep space?"
"Correct." jax droned emotionlessly.
A look of dread crossed the captain's face. "Jax, Signal ship wide evacuation and sort yourself, you're not staying here!" he began to type on the keypad in front of him signaling finalizing the evacuation of the ship.
"Roger that sir, estimated time until slipspace jump: four minutes." She nodded, closing her eyes starting to store herself onto a removable storage unit. She put up a red countdown timer on the screen.
Jonson signaled to the command crew to make for their escape pods. "Jax, what's your estimated time on finalizing your transfer?"
"ETF: three minutes and thirty seconds." he droned the emotion of the voice was gone.
"Damn It!" the captain grunted slamming his fist into the terminal. "That's cutting it close."
Joseph looked out on the observation windows, the small oval lifeboats began to eject from the ship, each filled with crew members. He turned and put his hand on the captain's shoulder. "Sir, I'm getting you out of here." He said sternly.
"What about-?" Jonson began but was cut off by the Spartan.
"I'll come back for him, don't worry he'll be in good hands."
Reluctantly the captain nodded and he and the Spartan ran out of the bridge. They ran down the metal corridor, the ship was almost empty, save for the two. They ran down the length of the vessel reaching to where the lifeboats were docked.
"One minute and thirty seconds!" jax's cool voice droned of the intercom.
The two continued into another hallway, several octagonal doors lay across one side. Many were already sealed shut except for one at the far end.
"One minute!" the voice droned again.
"Lifeboat, to the right!" Captain Jonson shouted as he turned to the lifeboat door.
Pressing on the control panel he opened the door and stepped into the lifeboat, numerous other marines and crewman had already taken their spots inside. Jonson took his seat near the end control area of the life pod.
"Sir, I'm going back for jax! Launch now crew man!" The Spartan commanded, pointing toward the pilot of the lifeboat who replied with a nod.
Stepping back into the corridor joseph shut the octagonal door. With a metallic clang the lifeboat hurled itself away from the harmony. The Spartan turned back toward to the bridge and took off at an unbelievable speed, aided by his augmentations.
"Thirty Seconds!" jax's voice howled through the now 'almost' empty ship. "AI – Classification jax now ready for transfer! My scans indicate all have evacuated the ship except for one."
Reaching the bridge joseph looked to the command screen. He frowned when he saw how much time he had left to evacuate the ship. He paused in front of the glass hologram screen. The Spartan warrior watched helplessly as he saw the countdown timer reach ten seconds.
10…
9…
8…
7…
6…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
All was silent for a few moments until the lights flickered. Lurching forward the frigate knocked joseph off of his feet and sent his body flying back against the metal wall of the bridge. Dazed joseph looked out of the observation window as the space around the ship seemed to twist itself. With pure brute force the UNSC Frigate harmony jumped into slipspace. The mass of technology and metal vanished into the unknown into the black void of space…
Author’s notes: this is my first story so tell me if anything is wrong and please be nice. I don’t know when I will update this because school is starting again. But the next chapter will contain the elements of harmony.
Twilight put Spike to bed and went for her balcony. Not ready to sleep yet, she decided to use her telescope for a while and look at the constellations. She looked at Orion, and the big dipper, and admired Luna's night.
The night Princess took great pride in her work, lighting up each constellation beautifully. She wanted more than anything to win the love and affection of her subjects back, and she didn't disappoint.
Twilight turned her telescope in the direction of The White Owl nebula, when she noticed something odd "what is that?" she asked herself, than she ran to get an astronomy book
______________________________________________________________________________
May 31th 2554
Unknown 08:15 hours
“uuugh, What happened jax…. Wait, WHY AM I A HORSE!!!!!???????” Said joseph. “Correction you have wings so therefore you’re a Pegasus not a horse. Wait I thought pegasi where a myth.” “I DON’T CARE!” “As for what happened it appears that one of the asteroids hit the engines, and when we went into slipspace the engines malfunctioned creating a sort of slipspace inside of slipspace
"Is that even possible jax?" "Well it appears that it is possible Joseph.” “Where are we?” He began to walk toward the observation window in the front of the bridge. The light from space filled the semi-dark bridge room.
"Our Location is unknown…We are not in any known UNSC or Covenant space…I can't pinpoint our location due to our sensor array damage…I'm afraid to say we are lost and on our own."
"Great…" joseph groaned and laid his head against the reinforced glass. “…jax can you turn the lights back on?"
"I'm going to do a complete reboot of the ships internal and external systems, which should do the trick." jax replied intelligently.
"Do it." the Spartan commanded simply, continuing to look out the window into the black canvas of space.
Flickering away from the hologram pad, jax vanished. Joseph heard the ships systems power down, readying for a complete restart, and the frigate grew deathly quiet. For moments joseph stood leaning against the glass making no noise, he was truly alone somewhere in space.
A flash of light lit up bridge, the lights were functional again. The many computer terminals flickered back to life, showing diagnostics of the ships systems. Joseph moved back to the metal cylinder where the silver hologram of jax flashed back into view.
"Our undamaged systems are functioning again joseph…" The AI paused and placed his transparent hand against his head. "…Port side cameras are picking up something….I'm going to rotate the ship to the left so it's in view."
Joseph nodded, took a seat in the vacant captain's chair, and felt the ships engines turn on. The Harmony slowly began to rotate to the left, bringing the object into view of the observation window. A great blue and green orb rolled across the observation window, a planet.
"It seems we may have lucked out Spartan, I think we may have found a new planet." The AI droned gleefully.
White clouds rolled across the surface of the planet. This new world seemed much like earth with oceans and great land masses. But something was different about this strange new world. There were no bright lights of civilization, no dark pools of water where pollution had corrupted the water, and no great grey cities visible from space. This world was clean and fresh, no space age technology.
"Jax, Check for any life or tech." the Spartan said cautiously.
"Sensor array damaged joseph, I'm afraid I can't do that."
The Spartan leaned back in the captain's chair, frustrated at their situation. He looked out through the window at this new world in front of them, watching its rotation slowly and their frigate stood in orbit. It was a beautiful world, green and lush, nothing like joseph had seen before. Rubbing his new hoof through his red mane he groaned and attempted to decide what to do. Jax simply stood with his hands folded in front of him looking at joseph for direction. The bridge grew deathly silent once again.
"Joseph?" the AI whispered silently, waiting for a command.
"Jax…Begin to check the ships inventory of supplies and prep a pelican for decent and show the ships status I want to make sure we are battle ready.” Said joseph as he walked to a computer terminal
“Yes sir”
Hull Status – Holding at 100%
Navigation System – Offline: No contact with sensor array
Communication Systems – Offline: No contact with communication array
Emergency Systems – Online at 100%.Warning: all Life boats are jettisoned
Weapons Systems – Online at 100% - Archer-Pods: online.
Inter-Ship Systems – Functioning at 100%
Reactor- functioning at 100%
Engine Systems – offline
Slipspace drive-offline
"May I inquire to where you are going commander?"
"I'm going to go get dressed." He replied walking out of the bridge.
Jax chuckled and flashed away from the pedestal
