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Galactic Encyclopedia: The Jovian Moons Campaign by Dark Void
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Galactic Encyclopedia: The Jovian Moons Campaign: Part 1
Date: 5 February 2005, 10:48 AM
Note to readers: This is my first serious fanfic, and I'm basing it off events described on the official Halo Timeline. This is also my first time using the Code.
Entry GE6-765:
2160 A.D.-2200 A.D.
This period in Human history was marked by a series of brutal conflicts between various governments and factions in our Solar system. Conflicts of historical note in this period included the Jovian Moons Campaign, The Rainforest Wars, and a series of clashes on Mars. The Jovian Moon Campaign was critical in the formation of the UNSC and it's branches, establishing the UN as a major power, and proving its willingness to enforce its rule.
As overpopulation and political unrest on Earth increased, a number of new political movements formed. The most noteworthy dissident movements of the period were the "Koslovics" and the "Frieden" movement. The Koslovics-supporters of neo-Communist hardliner Vladimir Koslov-sought a return to the glory days of Communism and the elimination of corporate and capitalist influence, particularly in orbital facilities and offworld colonies.
The Frieden movement was a resurgence of fascism, springing from anti-Koslovic sentiment that had taken root in the Jovian colonies (largely backed by Unified German Republic corporations, frequent targets of Koslovic "workers' crusades"). "Frieden" literally means "peace"-in this case, they believed that peace could be achieved only once the "oppressors on Terra Firma" were eliminated.[Continue reading article] Y/N?
0622 hours, February 19, 2160 (UN Military Calendar)
Io Orbiter 001, Sol System
As Lieutenant Commander Robert J. Cole, UN representative to the celebration taking place, and UN Colonial Advisor, prepared his speech, he paused, thinking about a line in it that simply did not sound right. "This great day in our history represents a mile-stone in our technological advancement and a mile-stone in our history." He muttered to himself, a habit he picked up on the much-isolated tour of duty on the Mars facilities. The line just seemed to repetitive to him, didn't seem to make much sense, but he couldn't think of a better way to his thoughts into words. He had the same problem with people that that he did with paper. He just couldn't connect. Maybe he should've let that AI speechwriter the UN office onboard had offered him do it. No, he said to himself (this time silently), I doubt the damn machine would make any sense anyway... He let the thought trail off.
A brief knock on his office door. A Cadet. "Sir, their ready to start the ceremony. You're expected above at 0700." His message delivered, the cadet closed the door and departed. Robert spent the next 30 minutes overlooking his speech one last time, then headed to Observation Platform 1. He reached the Security Checkpoint, where he received a crisp salute from the On-duty guard, as well as from the off-duty one who sat opposite the other with a hand of cards. The Commander walker up to the checkpoint, swiped his access card, (X-RAY clearance, of course), and continued into the observation deck. There was heightened security due to the Frieden and Koslovic activities on the other terraformed moons.
He looked down at the newly terraformed world, mainly ocean, due to it's former Iceworld status. Io was the last of the large moons to be terraformed, before it came Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Several smaller moons had also been terraformed, or were slated for it soon. The single "Ioian" landmass had been uncovered when they bled part of the H2O off into space, and was in the shape of a backwards, oblong capital C. He walked up to the dais, and took his seat, third left from center, and sat down. From his vantage point, the Obsevation window was on his left, the poduim sevarl feet to the right of him. Before him was the make-shift conference room, put together for the offical "opening" of the new world. A few minutes later,after thery were done the sweep of the room, security let everyone else in, the reporters, the Colonial leaders and advisors, etc, and they took their seats before the dais. His speech was third, before him were nd the Prime Minister of the new Colony, and the Chairperson of the United Nations, in that order.
The Prime Ministers speech started, and she went on about how the brave new colonists from earth were in their ships, waiting for the official, legal order to start colonization. Bull, he thought. Everyone in that room new that those ships were filled with randomly selected people from the lower reaches of society, who were forced to come out here in a failing attempt to curb overpopulation on earth, and that there were already people on the surface who had snuck past the flimsy "blockade" the UN had set up around the approach vectors to the landmass, setting up and planting their genetically engineered aquatic food farms.
After the Prime Minister's speech, which, due to it's length, received little, scattered, applause, it was the Chairman's turn. The Commander was still running that line through his head, thinking of a way to rephrase it, only half listening to the Chairman's speech. About halfway through the speech, the Commander was deep in thought, when suddenly it came to him. I got it! he exclaimed to himself. Just then, the station shook so violently, it threw him, the Chairman, the Prime Minister, and several members of the audience toward the observation window, which took up most of the wall. The Commanders last thoughts before hitting the window, ready for it to smash under the combined weight of several people, were along the lines of Sure, as soon as I get that damn line...
Galactic Encyclopedia: The Jovian Moons Campaign: Part 2
Date: 8 February 2005, 5:15 AM
Entry GE6-766:
2160 March-June:
The Jovian Moons Campaign began. Jovian secessionist attacks on United Nations Colonial Advisors in orbit around the moon Io led to three months of fighting between the UN Jovian military presence and Jovian "Frieden" forces. Though this was not the first armed conflict in our Solar System, it was easily one of the bloodiest, and is generally considered to be the spark of increased friction and militarization that followed. [Continue reading article] Y/N?
0721 hours, February 19, 2160 (UN Military Calendar)
Io Orbiter 001, Sol System, Colonial dedication speech
Robert hit the glass shield, fully expecting to break through it, living a few moments longer before his blood began to boil, and the gases within attempted to equalize the pressure by exploding through his skin into space, leaving nothing but a floating, frozen, debased, corpse.
But that didn't happen. He hit the glass, felt in bend under the combined weight of several people. He hit it hard enough that the air was forced from his lungs. The glass, which he now realized was not glass but ferrofibrous crystal, did not break. He did not explode from the inside, but bounced back off the window, only to discover the gravity had kicked out.
He sped on an upward angle toward the ceiling, and, while struggling to regain his breath, his days back on the older orbiters around Earth came back. The older models had less reliable gravity, and tended to flicker on and off every once and a while, so before you enter a room, you looked around to see angles and obstacles you rebound off of if, and when, the gravity disengaged. It became more than a habit, because a lot of the time your life depended on your ability to do this, so after a few years on the orbiters, it did it not matter where you went, you checked your surroundings. The Commander had done so when he entered the room, so he knew the angle of the roof, and twisted his body to meet it feet first. Already recovered from the first impact, he feet contacted the concave roof, and pushed off toward the door.
He again twisted to meet the floor, ready to make soft contact, meaning he would use his legs to absorb the impact and kill his speed, so he could shuffle along the floor at negligible height, so when the gravity kicked back on, he wouldn't be incapacitated by the fall. He hit, absorbed the impact, flipped so he was parallel to the floor, then used his hands to push himself towards the smaller space of the entrance hallway.
As he was quickly moving towards the exit, he heard a very familiar sound. Gunfire. Close. Then again a few seconds later, even closer. More, probably return fire. Then all of a sudden, it goes quiet. Robert pushed forward off the floor as fast as he can, but he's not aiming for the door, he's aiming for just above the doorframe. He made soft contact just above the door, just as two uniformed men, black with a red swastika, a symbol derived from former Nazi Germany of the twentieth century, walked in. Yes, walked. Must be magnetic boots. The Friedens, he thought. Friedens were simply people who opposed the Koslovic movement. Frieden literally means "peace" which is opposite of the violent Koslovic beliefs. Vladimir Koslovic is a neo-communist who decided it would be better if people he liked ran the Governments, and apparently he was his only friend. He founded and ran the Koslovic terrorist organization, a group of Communist zealots who attack UN- and Frieden-held locations.
He grabbed on to the doorframe and shifted positions to aim at the closer man. He was armed with what looked like standard AR5M assault rifles, except for the odd bugle in the stock. He leapt at the closest one, as the front one began shouting orders. Cole pushed off the wall, aiming at a downward angle, just behind the first man. He pulled up his legs behind him, used tucked them in, and used his inertia to twist around so his feet were the first, and last, thing the man in black would see. He silently floated up behind him, keeping his legs close to his body. He waited till the last possible moment, just as the Frieden started turn his head. Cole's legs snapped out and grabbed the man's head. Using what inertia he had left, he threw his body into a spin. The lack of gravity magnified the Commanders strength several hundred times, and the Friedens's magnetic boots acted as an anchor. The man's neck held for a moment, then snapped with an inaudible POP, and that was the last thing he heard.
Turning his attention to the second man, Cole grabbed the AR5M from the first man's body. Using the dead man's anchored body as a shield, Cole hid behind him, taking aim, but it was to late. The other, apparently noticing his partners silence, had turned around, and seen the head at an odd angle. He launched into a run towards his partner, closing the distance in a few awkward, magnetically-enhanced steps, drew his rifle, and shot into his dead partner, just as Cole shot upward toward the ceiling, then back down, firing as he went, hitting the man only once before the clip went dry. Apparently these men had done quite a bit of shooting before reaching the observation platform. He came down on top of the man, swung the empty assault rifle like a club, missed, and crashed into the Frieden. Recovering quickly, he grabbed for the second mans gun, and attempted to wrestle it out of number two's hand. They struggled together for a moment, then the Frieden pressed his thumb against the bulbous protrusion on the stock, drew it toward him with all his might, then shoved Robert away from himself.
Cole, taken by surprise by this move, looked down at his knew prize, just as it began to glow red, heating up quickly. Realizing what was about to happen, he put a quick burst into the Frieden, then threw the AR5M into the open hallway. Using the reactive force of his throw, he sailed slowly away in the opposite direction, watching the rifle as it sailed into the passageway back toward the security checkpoint. It quickly heated enough so bright that you could not look directly at it. As the first radiation began to leak from the device, the radiological alarms went off, sealing the passageway, and depressurizing it, flushing the device, obviously a mini-neutron bomb, into space, outside the shielded station, where the device, designed to kill with radiation instead of explosive force, detonated harmlessly against the Iron and lead shielding designed to protect against cosmic radiation.
Several hours later, after they had left the isolated compartment via service tunnel, and several "thank you"s from the politicians, "Well done"s from the military staff, and "you've made my career"s from journalists, who of course caught the whole event, from the initial explosion to the nuclear detonation, on holo-tape. There were only three casualties during the attack, the two guards, one on duty the other off, and a politician who was crushed against the wall of a bathroom stall when the gravity kicked out just a moment before the explosion.
Galactic Encyclopedia: The Jovian Moons Campaign Part 3
Date: 18 February 2005, 8:49 PM
Entry GE6-767:
2160 March -June:
[indent ]During the beginning Jovian Moon Campaign, the UNSC was still, by and large, an insignificant military power, and would have most likely lost had it not been for the military genius of one man, commanding and experimental craft with untested weapons. What these weapons were, and who this man was, are still classified, and more information could not be obtained from the UNSC on the matter. [Continue reading article] Y/N?
0800 hours, March 21, 2160 (UN Military Calendar)
UNSC Cruiser Sparta, Io Orbiter 001, Sol System
After the Dedication Ceremony disaster, the colonial fleet had been given permission to land. Cole had planned to go with them, but after the Friedens attack, he had been re-commissioned. He was about to be briefed about why, and where. He was in the UNSC's office, awaiting to be seen by Fleet Admiral Jacob "Queens" Rodriguez. Rodriguez was famous for how he had attained his rank, the in the Queens Incident, which nearly leveled half of New York if, then Lieutenant, Rodriguez hadn't been able to get his squad inside a terrorist held fusion power plant.
[indent ]Even though his appointment had been at oh-seven hundred hours, it wasn't until oh-eight thirty that Rodriguez could see him. Queens' secretary, a slim, attractive brunette obviously of African-American came out into the waiting room, and said "The Admiral can see you now. Please follow me." As she said this, a suspicious, darting figure came out of the Admirals office, taking in his surroundings, and leaving them even quicker, not letting Cole get a really good look at him.
"Thank you," the Commander said courteously, following the secretary, "Who was that man who just left?" he inquired. The woman did not reply, but gave him a foreboding, sort of frightened look. Cole new that look, don't ask questions you know I can't ask , it said. He took the hint, and let her lead him through her office, into the Admiral's.
"Robert, it's good to see you again. How long has it been?" said the Admiral.
"Ten years, old man. It's been ten years. That squad reunion thing the old Marines put on for us a few years after Queens. How have you been Jacob?" The squad reunion had been ten years ago, five years after the queens incident, when Jacob, Richard, and the rest of their squad had infiltrated a terrorist held fusion power plant in Queens, New York.
"I remember that. Those guys were a good bunch of guys," he responded, then his tone turned cold, all business now, "Richard, Something has to be done about the growing terrorist movements, Frieden, Koslovic, and everything inbetween."
"So the UN is finally taking them seriously. It's about damn time." Said the Commander. He had known that the Friedens and Koslovics would become a serious problem from the beginning.
"Yes, they are. And now that that they've finally got that part pat down, they decided to follow through." Jacob said, getting up, and striding over to the observation window, which was behind his desk. It started about waist high off the ground, and went up to the ceiling, and spread from wall to wall. "Come here Richard. I want to show you something." Richard hesitated briefly, then got up and walked over. "You see down there, the ship attached to Docking port 3?" Cole indicated he did with an affirmative grunt, "It's the first of it's kind. Bloodstream Class. And now, Captain Robert Cole, she's all yours."
Stunned into silence, Cole said nothing for a long moment then managed a weak, "Thank you sir. It's a honor." Cole had been expecting any number of things, but this was definitely not one of them.
1700 hours, March 21, 2160 (UN Military Calendar)
UNSC Offices, Io Orbiter 001, Sol System
Richard had taken command only a hour before, and was taking a tour of the ship, being happily provided by the ship's chief engineer, Patrick Connolly. "The Sparta, is class Bloodstream, and is equipped with a new, experimental weapon called a Magnetic Accelerator Gun, or jus' MAC for short. They hurl huge hunks o' metal along a magnetic coil, at speeds of anywhere between 500-1500/Meters per second. The Sparta has two o' these, and a liberal compliment of MKII STS tactical warheads, and a crew compliment o' three dozen, plus a half dozen Marines, and now yerself as well."
"What's her best speed, Connolly? Fifteen, sixteen sectors an hour, maybe?" inquired the new Captain.
"That was what she did 'afore I got ahold o' her, sir. With a moderate number of tweaks and modifications, I can get her up to twenty-one steady, twenty-five if you really want to push her." The engineer boasted proudly.
After the tour of the relatively medium sized ship had concluded, Richard having met the Marine Sergeant, and found him a very agreeable person, learnt about the supposedly 'few' modifications to the engines, he found himself on the bridge. To his surprise a very familiar brunette approached him there. "Alexandria Circumstance, First Officer, reporting for duty, Sir!" The Admiral's secretary.
"Nice to see you again... Alexandria, was it? Good to have you aboard."
"Good to be aboard, Sir. Request permission to dissembark from the station, Sir."
"
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