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The Ghost of Harvest: Ch.2
Posted By: Jester<jre333@bellsouth.net>
Date: 26 June 2005, 3:23 am
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UNSC Destroyer Pegasus- Harvest System
John's eyes roamed over the holographic view screen, searching each pixel for some semblance of relief. He found none. Other than the random orbit of debris, nothing had moved on the view screen since the Pelican docked with the Majestic. It had only been five minutes ago, but to John it seemed like a decade. He didn't know what he expected to happen, only that he expected something. He flicked his nervous gaze towards Kelly for an instant.
She stood there, maddeningly calm, eyes closed, and breathing steadily in and out. The captain mirrored her pose, save for his eyes. His watery blue iris's poured over the sensor data that was coming in from the ships probes.
How can they be so calm? John thought to himself. He went back to watching the view screen.
Then what John had been dreading happened. At first it was small, just a tiny blue flare on the aft side of the Majestic. What in the world was that? John scrutinized the display for some clue pertaining to the mysterious flare. What would cause that? Emergency flares are all different colors, but none of them blue. Something's wrong, I can feel it.
Suddenly the flare vanished for a second, and then the [I]Majestic shot forward, her engines ablaze. For the first few seconds, John could only stare open-mouthed at the ghost that was streaking away. The Pelican was ripped off with the ship's sudden acceleration.
"Sir, slip-space rupture off the bow of the Majestic! She's heading straight for it. She'll be through in twenty seconds."
John's protective instinct took over. "Follow them through the hole." John knew that giving orders to the bridge crew was in direct violation of more UNSC rules than he could think of, and he couldn't care less. He would not abandon his Spartans.
"Belay that order crewman. Track the Majestic as best you can. Go to red alert. Power up the MAC's, and load the Archers. I want Longswords standing by in the bay."
Mueller tossed an angry glare at the Chief as he sat down in his command chair. Seething with anger, John barely noticed. He was forced to watch helplessly as the Majestic slid through the rupture in space. The captain stood and directed his crew.
"I want you to continuously scan this system. If anything is out of place, I want to know about it. Keep us at high alert, and give me a random orbit. I don't want to be a sitting duck."
John felt the captain stop beside him for an instant and whisper in his ear.
"Ten minutes, my cabin. We need to talk."
John was left standing there, wondering what he was going to do.
* * *
Captain Mueller stood by his cabin window, wondering what had happened to the Spartans onboard the Majestic He wasn't happy about the situation, but he was doing his best not to lose focus. He still had the lives of his crew to consider, and he wasn't going to put his ship in danger unless there was no other option.
A soft beep from the door alerted him to John's presence. Mueller turned slowly to face the Chief. John just stood there, waiting for the captain to speak. Mueller turned back to the window.
"Chief, what you did up there, I cannot tolerate. You gave my crew a direct order. They need to see that I'm in charge, not you. Confusion among my crew will only result in unneeded loss of life."
Mueller sighed. "Listen Chief, I'm not happy about this situation any more than you are. Here's the difference between us. You do not have this ship and her crew to be concerned about, and your actions on the bridge prove that you aren't thinking logically right now. I have to consider all of these things. I promise you that we will not leave them to die."
"I understand sir."
"Do you?" the captain replied coldly. "You're dismissed."
The Chief nodded, swiveled, and walked out of the room. Kelly was standing there to meet him.
She began slowly. "So, how did it go?"
"Better than I deserve. I should be court-martialed."
"Yeah, well I hear that the brass tries to go softer on the people who saved mankind from annihilation."
This brought a smile to the Chief's face. His mood turned serious quickly again though. "I want to be out there, right now, chasing after them."
"Don't you worry Chief, we'll get em."
* * *
Eric woke to Russ's face less than an inch from his own. Russ's deep green eyes mirrored his own in a second of shock.
"Russ, I never want to see your face this close up again, ever."
Russ grinned and withdrew. "You've been out for a while."
"Really? How long?" Eric asked tiredly.
"About a day."
"What happened?"
"The ship jumped to slip-space. We're not totally sure where to. Me and you were heading up to the bridge when boom, we were suddenly playing human pinball. What really got you was the energy pulse. Whoever put in the slip-space reactor didn't care too much about safety. The reactor let off an energy emission when we jumped. Knocked you flat cold."
"Whoa. Back up, what slip-space reactor?"
"The one in engineering. Totally new. In fact, we keep finding new components on board this ship. The Majestic is starting to look like a modern day cruise ship. We've got a new shielding system, gravity generators, even a reinforced hull. The list goes on. Seems like somebody doesn't want us to die. Yet."
"Trap." Eric said this as a statement, not a question.
"Well, there's nothing we can do at the moment. We've tried to bring her out of slip-space, but so far she's been stubborn."
"Of course there's something we can do. We're going to complete our mission."
* * *
John and Kelly watched as the captain talked with Admiral Nester. A minute later the captain broke the connection, stroked his white mustache and moved to join the two Spartans.
"High Command is sending an investigation team. They'll be here in a week. My orders are to stay here and watch for new developments. I plan to do that. I think though that I can spare our emergency slip-space reactor. I'll have it installed on a Pelican. You two can leave whenever you like."
"Thank you sir. Do we know where the Majestic was heading?"
"Llenski system. It's remote, but no one lives there."
John was relieved. "We've been to the Llenski system before."
"Yeah, last time we were there, we were captured by the Covenant" Kelly said sarcastically.
"That was only a … minor detail." John replied sheepishly.
"We don't have any extra MJOLNIR suits onboard, not any that would fit you anyways. Feel free to raid the armory though. Good luck."
The two Spartans saluted in pristine military fashion, turned on their heels and marched out of the bridge."
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