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Retaliation: Chapter One
Posted By: Blue Jaguar<Crazymadsh33p@netscape.net>
Date: 16 September 2003, 2:25 PM
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BHHP REACH September 20, 2705 (0530)
"You thought we were finished didn't you. We have been watching you, your progress is impressive, but you will soon see the true strength of the gods." Lasok kept playing the recording over and over again. He remembered that the Covenant had once been the enemies of Earth, but that was generations ago. No one alive had ever seen a real Covenant, or at least, no one that he knew.
A thought came into his head, "We never actually proved we destroyed the Covenant. There are still 78 Covenant capital vessels missing, they could be anywhere." Lasok's implanted AI said to him. Lasok thought back. He was implanted with this AI at a very early age, which meant he was by now, quite accustomed to it, where as other commanders had never even considered the possibility of having AI implanted into their heads. It really changed the way he thought, and it also made him a ton smarter and quicker. In emergencies his AI would take over body functions and get him out of tight situations, which had saved him more than once in the Civil Wars.
Lasok took the disc out of the
implant on his neck and left his quarters. As he walked down the hallway, he stopped at a data port just down from his room. He inserted another disc, waited 3 seconds for it to download any information, and then put it in his head. He really enjoyed learning. He always had, and anything that fascinated him went into his head.
Further down the hallway was the ships mess hall. "Brother Lasok, good to see you again!" Said Rupin, a friend of his. "So how are things at ONI lately?" He asked.
"Oh you know, the usual, don't ask don't tell." Lasok replied. Rupin had been trying to get Lasok to reveal information for the last 2 weeks. It was obvious something was going on because half of the fleet was mobilized.
"Didn't they ever teach you that the only way to keep people happy is to keep them informed?" Rupin questioned.
"No, giving them information makes them feel secure. Besides, I don't know anything important, I'm not high enough on the food chain."
"You know that's not true, you are the Head Father of the largest ship in the fleet."
It was true, Lasok knew just about everything that was going on, he had no superiors, everyone reported to him. Fortunately Rupin didn't know that.
"Brother Rupin, do you know how much it costs to keep secrets in this army?"
"No, but I feel you are going to tell me."
"More than you could earn in a year." Lasok walked around Rupin and headed for the food. "Top spy in the military and you still have to get your own food..." Lasok grumbled to himself.
"Its all about the cover" His AI replied.
Lasok finished his morning meal and headed for the Officers gym. He walked in and the first thing he noticed were the Spartan soldiers standing in the corner. One of them was talking to 3 others, probably about some exercise they had done. Lasok respected the Spartans and their capabilities, but still would prefer to use Archer soldiers. The Archer program had been developed about thirty years ago, and was designed to enhance the capability of regular soldiers. The project turned out to be too high of cost to cover each soldier, so they just covered OESF special forces instead. The Archer system gave the troops no armor, but they had one heck of a shield system. The suit could track incoming rounds and then emitted a shield pulse to block the round, so that the shield was never actually on.
Lasok jumped on the running track that circled the large facility and began running. He had no muscle enhancements like the Spartans and other soldiers did, but he would gladly take brains over braun any day. He had been up against Spartan III soldiers before, and brains had prevailed when pure strength and stupidity would have gotten him killed.
After finishing his morning run Lasok left the gym back for his quarters. He still needed to take a shower and get dressed, but he only had 30 minutes before the ONI meeting so he would have to hurry.
"Glad to see you could make it Brother Alexei!" The Prime Chief Hawkins said. Hawkins was the commander of REACH, the largest and most powerful vessel ever created by anyone known.
Lasok saluted Hawkins and took his seat at the table. He was two minutes late for the meeting, but no one really cared.
"All right, everyone is here, lets begin." Hawkins paused and looked through his notes. "At 16:00 hours yesterday, we received a message from an unknown source. This ship was the only ship to receive the message, and we have not been able to find out where it came from. It could quite possibly be a hoax, but I would doubt it. This ship has the most sophisticated security systems ever created." Hawkins paused. I believe Brother Lasok has more information on this than I do.
"As you all know our people fought a massive war against a group known as the Covenant. Little is known about them because many records were lost during the Civil Wars. We do know that the original message sent by the Covenant to the UNSC, which was at that time the governing body, went like this." Lasok played a recording of a voice that spoke out "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their weapon." "This tape was recorded about one hundred and seventy-five years ago. We know that many Covenant warships were never found, and I believe that the Covenant may be attempting to invade again."
"That's ridiculous, we have searched every corner of this galaxy for them and have not found a thing!" One of the members cried out.
"Please, contain your self brother Nehrek" Hawkins demanded.
"My apologies Prime Chief, it wont happen again."
Lasok continued. "I believe the Covenant did not originate in our galaxy, and may be from another galaxy. We still do not know who the forerunner are, and why they no longer exist. My theory is that the forerunner came to this galaxy to colonize it, and started the Covenant races, eventually they evolved and after many centuries of no contact with the Forerunner, they began to believe they were some sort of gods. The Forerunner may have sent a message to the Covenant announcing their return, and when the Covenant failed to wipe our race out, they believed that this galaxy was too dangerous to attempt re-colonization. Of course this is all just speculation."
The other members looked at him as though he was out of his mind. There stares were broken by klaxons going off inside the ship.
"All personnel, rebel fighters are attacking, man battle stations! Man your battle stations!" The speaker said.
"All right, we will continue this briefing tomorrow." The Prime Chief said, and then all of the members filed out of the room.
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