Halo: And The Horse You Rode In On

Chapters

Not Clear Enough
Boarding Party
Welcome Aboard

Not Clear Enough

"You broke the Cole Protocol!"

"Sir, I-"

"I don't want to hear it Chase! You put Earth in jeopardy! Have you lost your mind?!", the room seemed to shake as the Admiral shouted the words.

Captain Christopher Chase didn't say anything but lowered his eyes down to the floor. One coordinate off... one simple set of navigational codes, one location in time and space he should've jumped to and he would've fulfilled the Cole Protocol's article on protecting the location of Earth. The item he found, the thing that caused all of this, sat on Admiral Toby Daniels's desk in a small brown cloth bag. A small Forerunner data crystal he'd found lodged in the hull of his ship when he was running a routine inspection after the battle for the Ark only a month ago.

"The Cole Protocol is clear. You make no less than SIX random jumps BEFORE returning to UNSC space." Admiral Daniels recited the regulation.

"Have you... read my report sir?" Chase asked, attempting to change the subject.

"I have. I don't care what kind of Slipspace-based BS you THOUGHT you saw, no one else saw it and the A.I didn't record it. You're the only one who saw this "other world" in slipspace."

"Sir... with all due respect, the Cole Protocol's articles never covered the possibility of the war ending."

"That's because the war isn't going to end Chase."

Chase looked up at the answer and furrowed a brow. "I'm sorry sir, I'm not following."

"The UNSC will always be fighting something Chris. Innies, Covies, aliens, Flood, Forerunners, itself. The Cole Protocol is permenant. At least until they find out how to move planets. And when they do, we're all out of a job."

Captain Chase didn't understand. No end to the war? No end to the violence? Just year after year of conflict? He never felt more exhausted. The war against the Covenant had ended one month ago. Humanity had survived, 'weathered the storm' as Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood had said. Chase had been looking forward to retirement and lifelong recognition as a hero and one of the VERY few people who fought and survived the Human-Covenant War. Now those possibilities he'd long anticpated seemed to evaporate into thin air.

"You know what ONI has advised we do about this?" Admiral Daniels asked with a knowing look.

"No sir." Chase birstled at the mentioning of the Office of Naval Intelligence. The dark and mysterious spy service that had provided the UNSC's intel was well known for their ethically questionable methods and practices, not to mention experimentations and secret projects that Chase would rather forget. Many of their operations had been successful, at high costs. Their orders and evaluations carried as much weight as the Admiralty Board, only at least the Admirals were sympathetic and clear when they wanted something.

"They're actually divided on how to proceed. Section One recommends the typical psyche eval and then you be executed as an example. Section Two is recommending a psyche eval and an autopsy and Section Three is willing to accept you as a candidate for their new test pilot program. The first fighters that will fly through Slipsace I hear."

The image of himself being strapped to a missle and being launched into Slipspace forced its way into Chase's mind. His heart started racing and his palms became sweaty as he pictured himself being subjected to ONI's research. Slipspace was another dimension in between the plane they knew of as 'reality'. Traveling faster than light would be impossible if not for Shaw-Fujikawa Slipsace drives that allowed ships to tunnel into this dimension and 'slip' between space to cover vast distances quickly. This realm of space was mysterious though; prone to anamolies, not bound by the 'normal' laws of physics, accidents and strange happenings were not uncommon. But Chase had never seen anything like he saw on the last jump before, the one caused by the Forerunner data crystal on Admiral Daniels' desk. Unfortunately, he'd also been the only one to see it.

"Did anyone have a chance to examine what was on the crystal sir?", Chase asked.

"It's empty. Whatever was on it was wiped out long ago. We've seen similar Forerunner crystals and they have caused some amount of strangeness in Slipspace. But since we're on the subject, if you did see this... "magical world of colorful ponies"... in Slipspace, why would you make another jump without so much as a second opinion? If you noticed this 'anamoly' as you claim, you shouldn't have made a jump at all until you'd found out what caused it. Instead, you thought this information was so important that you skipped your last jump and instead headed DIRECTLY to Earth and put the last bastion of hope for our species to survive at risk." The Admiral said, quoting Chase's report.

"I'm sorry sir. I thought the discovery was vital." Chase said, staring straight ahead at the wall. The discovery of another dimension was vital. If humanity knew it wasn't confined to this galaxy, it could change things, maybe even stop this cycle of conflict. Maybe... maybe if could prove that what he'd seen was real, he could set things right. Or at least avoid getting experimented on by over-eager ONI spooks.

"It makes no difference now. Keep it as a souvenir. Now, onto business." Admiral Daniels said as he handed Chase the crystal in the cloth bag. "Because of this incident, the Admiralty doesn't think you're fit to captain a ship of war at this time. Fortunately for you, we don't have enough experienced sailors to be choosy so your 'fun' with ONI will have to be postponed.", the Admiral said.

Postponed? What did that mean? Was the UNSC really that bad off? Regardless, he was happy that at least for now he wasn't going to be shipped off to ONI. The admiral pulled out a small holographic display from his desk and set it before Chase.

"You're being reassigned Chase. This is your new boat. You'll be taking orders from me from now on.", the Admiral leaned back in his chair.

Chase looked at the display. He'd never seen a ship like it before, not a good sign he thought. "Season's Change, a refitted and customized Relay-class medium cruiser. She's a bit older but she'll get the job done. You take command of her immediately. Crew has already been handpicked by me and you'll be taken her out for shakedown tomorrow." The Admiral said, switching off the display.

"Will that be all sir?" Chase asked, looking up.

"One more thing. Your first order of business is to read this. Your flight orders are in there too." The Admiral handed him a copy of the Cole Protocol. "Admiralty's demanded you make sure you understand the rules this time. Remember this incident Chase. The UNSC doesn't do second chances. We clear?"

"Crystal sir." Chase said with a blank look on his face. He swallowed hard.

"Dismissed."

Chase walked out of the Admiral's office. He was surprised. He was still captain of a ship, not his old command but a boat none the less. If only he could prove what he saw was true, maybe he could get his old command back or at least avoid any contact with ONI. He clutched the crystal in his pocket. Maybe if he took this new ship into Slipspace...

Author's Note

I had no intention for this chapter to be exactly 1,337 words long but now that it does I'm not changing it because I find it too funny and also as possibly a sign that I'm meant to further spoof the Halo universe. My inner Mel Brooks is grinning with delight.

Boarding Party

There wasn't much left of the orbital shipyards over Mars but the UNSC was hard at work rebuilding the navy that the Covenant all but destroyed. Captain Chase realized something: he'd just been given command of a fully crewed ship only hours ago and immediately he'd been ordered to take the ship and crew out for shakedown. Things were happening far too quickly, as if someone had been planning this. Was the UNSC in that bad a shape? All the red tape had been cleared, all the rules had been bent. All the rules except the one Chase had broken.

His uneasiness of the situation only heightened as his Pelican dropship neared the end of the shipyards and he caught the first glimpse of his ship. "Hard to believe that thing's never seen combat huh?" the pilot remarked. Chase said nothing but frowned at his new posting. Season's Change looked like it had sat there for more than a few seasons. The hull was peppered with pock-marks and dents, black streaks crossed every surface in different angles of charcoal black and rust brown. Captain Chase's heart sank.

The Pelican sat down in the starboard hangar bay of the ship. Roughly twice the size of a four-car garage, the hangar had enough space to occupy the Pelican and not much else. The ramp dropped and Chase got his first taste of the ship's atmosphere. The air was stale but breathable. Considering how the outside of the ship looked, he was almost surprised there was enough oxygen. There was barely any illumination as he stepped onto the deck. There was no crew to greet him, no one standing at attention as the captain boarded his vessel. The pilot of the ship didn't say a word as the ramp raised and the maneuvering thrusters flared up, taking the dropship out of the hangar, passed the atmosphere containment field seperating the compartment from space and back into the night. Chase had turned around to watch it leave.

"Hey, are you here for the pizza party?", a voice behind him asked. Chase turned to see a man in a gray UNSC navy uniform, much like the one he was wearing. The man appeared to be eating some kind of candy out of a plastic bag as he peered in at Chase. "Where's the pizza?", the man asked, crunching on a mouthfull of hard-shelled candies.

"I wasn't aware there was a party.", Chase said, more than a little puzzled. He turned his head around to see the Pelican's thrusters fade out of view. He then turned back to the stranger in the doorway, his only indication of life on this ship and apparently a member of the ship's crew.

"What are you here for then?", the man asked after a long, crunchy pause.

"I'm Captain Chase. I'm supposed to be taking command of this vessel."

"Oh, so you're here to oversee the decomissioning?", the crewman asked.

"No, I've got orders from Admiral Daniels to take this ship out for shakedown and-",

The man's eyes went wide with fear and he choked on the candy he was about to swallow. He bent over, grabbed his knees and began coughing hard. He stammered back and gagged. Chase started towards the man to try and help him.

"Sh... shakedown? We're not being decomissioned?", the crewman asked in a gagged voice.

"Uh, no, I was told the ship was fully crewed and I-", Chase tried to explain again.

"This... this changes everything. I've got to tell the doctor!", the crewman shouted in a hoarse voice. He then turned around and ran off down the hallway behind him. Chase peered through the door after him in time to see the man run down the hallway, making random shouts that echoed off the bulkheads. He stepped through the doorway as the man disappeared down the dark corridor.Overhead rectangles casted faint white coloumns up and down the corridor, just enough illumination to see part of the walls on the side and where one was going but not the floor underneath them. Chase walked down the corridor and heard the floor squeak underneath him. "Hello? Is anyone there?", he called as he walked.

He was about halfway down the corridor when a door to the side opened and poured light into the hallway. Two men fell through the door and onto the ground as if one had tackled the other through the doorway. They scuffled with each other and fought on the ground. Chase realized he was witnessing some sort of fist fight and ran towards them intent on breaking up the fight.

"Hey! Stop that! What the hell is going on here- get off of him!", he shouted as he ran down the hall at the two brawlers. They both abruptly stopped fighting and turned to him. He slowed his pace as he got closer to them. They were both wearing the standard grey fatigues of navy crewman but... they were in tatters. Their faces were painted with colored stripes, green, red and black. They wore belts around their heads with various papers tucked underneath them. The cuffs of their sleaves were torn and moved around their wrists, their pant legs had been torn off completely and they wore boots that looked as if they'd been converted into sandals somehow. They stared at him for three silent seconds. Chase could hear his own hearbeat and his mouth hung open at the scene. He involuntarily took a step backward.

"Intruder!", the two men shouted simultaneously. They scrambled to their feet and rushed Chase, grabbing him and hauling him through the door. Chase shouted at them, tried to push them off but they yanked him through the door and into the light of the room they'd just came from. They continued shouting "Intruder!" and "Trespasser!" as they carried him through the door. Chase's nose wrinkled; the men smelled of B.O mixed with engineering chemicals, an oily stench. He was confused, frightened and helpless as he was apparently being taken hostage aboard his own ship and being carried into the engineering section by savages.

The engineering section was a massive chamber in the center of the ship, an almost building-sized structure occupied the center of it and ran from floor to ceiling, the fusion reactor. There were more 'crewman' inside, some walking, some standing, dozens of them in the cramped spaces near terminals and computer stations designed to monitor the ship's various delicate instruments, all of them dressed similarly to the ones who had just hauled him through the door. Small tribal-looking dwellings took up space in the corners of the room that appeared to be made of combat mesh, tents, crates and pieces of metal. Some of the savages were sitting around a fire and there were torches placed at either side of the entrance despite the fact that the cieling lights fully illuminated the room. The savages had all now noticed his presence and had began chanting the same things, "Intruder, Trespasser, Outsider". Chase was now convinced he was having a nightmare.

"What are you doing?! Please, someone help me!", Chase shouted at them. The savages now crowded around him and lifted him by his limbs into the air. Their chanting changed abruptly into another word, "volcano". They carried him through to the middle of the room. High above them, catwalks lined the cieling givng access to the higher areas of the fusion reactor. People stared down at him and shook fists as the mob carried him. The word "volcano" now echoed off the wall.

"What is happening? Put me down! Please someone!", Chase's pleas were drowned out and ignored by the crewmen around him. They carried him up a ramp that in the middle of the section and onto a large rectangular shaft connected to the fusion reactor, one of the power conduits that fed energy directly from the core to the rest of ship. The shaft shook as they approached the ship's reactor and pulled back, exposing the core of the ship directly in front of them. Heat from the core spilled into the room as the reactor's shielding was disabled. Chase looked up and at the mouth of the core in horro as it finally dawned on him what the "volcano" was.

Author's Note

Sorry this one took so long but I've been a bit busy. This story's going to have a lot of ideas that I've had for a long time and I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome Aboard

Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle's library

Twilight wasn't crazy, she was just acting crazy. Spike had to tell himself that now and then in the service of his purple unicorn caretaker, especially when she was driven to do something. He watched from across the room of Twilight's study as Twilight teleported about, calibrating telescopes and writing formulas on her noteboard and desk. She'd been doing this all day and it was now getting into the late hours of the evening. Still, she continued. Spike stood quietly; he knew it was better than to try to intervene. She'd burn herself out eventually... he hoped.

"You, uh, making any progress Twilight?", Spike asked, trying to be supportive. Twilight didn't respond but muttered something to herself, completely absorbed as she darted about the room.

"It has to be there! It has to be there!", Twilight shouted as she eyed through a telescope.

"You're still looking for whatever it was you saw the other night?", Spike asked.

"Of course! I don't know what it was, what it could've been; it's not in any of the books on biology, mythology, native and non-native species!", Twilight trailed off as she flipped through the entire pages of a text book in a single motion. She was the only one who'd seen... whatever it was she saw the other night while they were out stargazing. What had at first been just a nice evening of enjoying the starry night sky had turned into a trip into insanity when Twilight caught sight of something through her telescope while they were out in the field that night. She was convinced she saw something but unforutnately, nopony else had.

"Well, what did it look like? Maybe it wasn't an animal.", Spike suggested.

"Hmmm. Wait! That crystal we got from the Crystal Empire!", Twilight ran over to a small pink crystal suspended in a glass case. She removed the cover and examined the crystal with her magic.

"No...", Twilight said, disappointed. "It was something like this but... but it was flying. And it was on fire...", she said, remembering. She levitated the crystal into Spike's claw and turned back to her noteboard. Spike walked over to the fireplace and tried to imagine the crystal burning.

"Some kind of... a phoenix maybe?", Spike said.

"It wasn't a phoenix... you might be right, it might not have been an animal at all."

Spike looked through the crystal at the flames. "Maybe it was a balloon or a-", Spike accidentally gripped the crystal too hard and it slipped from his claw into the fire. "Uh oh!", Spike shouted to Twilight.

"Spike! What are you doing!?", Twilight ran over to her assitant. The flames engulfed the crystal but it didn't burn. Neither of them saw it but the center of the crystal began to glow.

Refitted UNSC Relay-class cruiserSeason's Change, Engineering Deck

Chase's heart was racing as the ship's fusion reactor got closer and closer. He could feel the heat from the reactor in the air around him. As he was carried by the mob, the crystal in his pocket jostled and fell to the floor. It let out a flash and the mob stopped, some recoiled in fear. He was dropped to the floor quickly by those who were carrying him. Chase stood up as the 'crew' cowered behind him.

"What is going on down here?", a loud voice boomed. Chase looked up to see a figure slowly descending. A man floated down from the cieling using a jetpack. He landed only a few feet away from Chase and the mob. Chase was suprised to see the man was actually dressed in a normal uniform, minus the jetpack. The man's rank insignia identified him as the chief engineer. He was slightly overweight and his skin was pale. His hair was a messy dark brown and his face was covered in stubble.

"Okay, who are you and what the hell are you doing on this ship?", the man asked.

"I... I'm Chase, Captain Christopher Chase. I'm supposed to be taking command of this vessel.", Chase said, panting. He was happy to see someone that at least seemed sane. As Chase explained, the chief engineer pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket and lit it with one of the jetpack's jets. He then casually stuck the end of the cigar in the corner of his mouth.

"New Captain huh? Now that's funny because I got word about a week ago saying we were supposed to be decommisioned. Crew was really looking forward to it. We had a pizza party planned and everything, didn't we boys?", the engineer asked. The crewmen behind Chase and around them echoed a single "Yeah!".

"My flight orders have been endorsed by Admiral Daniels... I'm telling you the truth.", Chase said in exhausted huffs.

"Admiral Daniels? Well, I'll have to confirm this but if what you're saying is true than you're the new captain. Welcome aboard Season's Change.", the engineer said to Chase.

"Thank you... please, could you tell me, who are you and why are these men acting like... like savages?", Chase asked as he retrieved the crystal from the floor.

"Chief Engineer Commander Richard Timmons Shaw and these are my boys. They like to mess around sometimes. I'm sure they didn't scare you did they?", Shaw asked. Shaw walked over and helped Chase get to his feet.

Did he just ask that? "They like to mess around sometimes"?! "They nearly threw me into the ship's fusion reactor.", Chase complained.

"Well, I'm sure they didn't mean it. Did you really mean it boys?", Shaw asked the crowd behind him. They responded with a single, sorrowful 'no'. "What do we say now?" the question was followed by a chorus of "sorry's". One or two patted Chase on the shoulder. Chase was somehow slightly less afraid of the mob that had only moments ago tried to throw him into a firey radioactive death.

"Since you're here, you might as well see the rest of the ship while we get things sorted out with your admiral. Let me give you the tour capp'n.", Shaw said as he began leading Chase outside of the engineering deck. Chase looked around at the 'engineers'. Some waved at him, some even saluted. They went back to their 'tribal' business as Shaw and Chase walked out. Chase shook his head. How long exactly had this ship been in service?