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A Single Motion: part 4
Posted By: Arthur Wellesly<arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com>
Date: 6 April 2003, 11:13 PM
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A Single Motion: Part 4
Reach, UNSC Military Complex
ONI Secure Bunker
2000 Hours, February 21, 2524
Captain Michael Stanforth walked away from a very promising meeting in the ONI intelligence room that examined an unusual amount of hostile activity on Sorento III. Of course, for Stanforth, his true goal did not lie in discussing such matters but lay instead in subtly asking for a promotion. The Joint Chiefs had all understood his request and had responded kindly with promising words. He was confident he would have a promotion in both fields he worked in.
Stanforth was an agent for the Office of Naval Intelligence. He held a high rank in ONI and in the military. As he well knew, the flow of information between the navy and ONI was not exactly steady. Nobody liked ONI, or trusted them for that matter, and often information took days to reach them, and even when it did it was always fragmented and not the entirety of the story. Agents like Stanforth were placed all around the military in high-ranking positions to ensure ONI got everything they needed. There was a price, however, of getting dual salaries and large amounts of power. He played a dangerous game. ONI was supposed to analyze information, not spy on other factions within the military. If Stanforth was discovered spying on the navy, he would definitely lose his job and possibly go to jail.
But this suited him just fine. He was careful and confident he would not get caught.
As he stalked down the hall towards the elevator that would take him out of this building, he was stopped by the sound of running feet and by someone calling his name. Turning around he caught sight of Julia Wagner, a Joint Chief of ONI. She stopped just in front of him and paused to catch her breath. "May I help you, ma'am?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
She smiled at him and brushed a loose string of hair from her face. "Congratulations," she said, passing him the yellow folder she held in her hand. "The Joint Chiefs didn't need too long to consider your request. Your promotion has gone through. You are now a Joint Chief. And you should be made a Rear Admiral by the end of the year."
Stanforth was so happy and excited he almost shook, but he kept his face calm and reserved. "Should?" he asked with a smirk.
She continued to smile at him. "I can still have that revoked, you know," she said, tapping the folder that was held limply in his hand. She then turned around and said, "As much as I'd like to continue this flattery, we have more important business to attend to."
Wagner walked back down the hall and Stanforth followed her. They made several turns around the twisty hallway and eventually ended up at a large pair of double doors.
"Eye scan please," an AI sounded from the speaker overhead. Wagner leaned forward into an indent in the wall and opened her eyes wide. "Confirmed identity. Please enter, Ms. Wagner."
She nodded in satisfaction and walked forward as the doors parted for her. "Sit down," she commanded, gesturing to a simple metal chair in front of a small table. As Stanforth sat, he examined the room he was in. Just like everything in the ONI bunker, it had cold, metal walls with flickering lights lining the edge where the ceiling met the walls. Along the sides of the rooms were bulky computers, flat-screened monitors, and large filing cabinets built right into the walls.
It was to one of these cabinets that Wagner went to. She pressed a button and the drawer opened with a slight hiss. She bent down and picked a folder out from the bottom. She then proceeded to walk to the table where Stanforth was sitting at and took a seat opposite to him. She wordlessly dropped the folder in front of him.
Stanforth didn't look at its contents. "What I am supposed to see?" he asked.
Wagner ran her fingers through her hair and heaved a deep sigh. "There are some things that are known only to Joint Chiefs of ONI. Everyone who now becomes one is entitled to know a secret guarded by ONI more closely than any other we have, and believe me, that's saying something, as you will soon find out. I must tell you, however, that this is completely classified information. That means we're not here and this never happened. Understand?" Stanforth nodded. "Good. Then I'll begin," she said, snatching back the folder.
"Back in July 2004 in the old country of the United States, an unidentified light streaked across the skies of central America. It landed in the state of New Mexico. Military authorities at the time dispatched a squad of soldiers to the site. This is what they found." She flung a picture at him. It showed a large, purple ship that had plowed through the earth, for it had obviously been going at tremendous speeds when it landed.
"Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?" he asked, dropping the photograph.
Wagner looked at him oddly. "No," she said simply. "They engaged in hostilities with a pair of aliens that exited the craft," she continued, handing him two more pictures. "Those are the two aliens... dead, of course." Stanforth examined them with growing conviction. "One of the American troops started the firefight in a misunderstanding. The little one took out eleven elite soldiers instantly in a wave of plasma." She frowned. "That was five hundred years ago. We still have not been able to harness plasma in a reasonable sized weapon.
"A couple days later the soldiers entered the craft and killed several aliens, including this one." She handed him yet another photo. "This, we presume, is a Prophet."
Stanforth looked at her with a confused look on his face. "What evidence do you have of this?"
"About a week after the crash, the American government received a transmission from these aliens. Since then, the video of that transmission was somehow lost... or purposely misplaced. In any event, the message was preserved." She slid a piece of paper across the table to him.
Stanforth picked it up wearily and read it. Wagner watched as his eyebrows raised three times through the short message. "Hmm," he murmured. "They seem to be quite religious. What the hell is the god's cudgel?"
Wagner shook her head. "We have absolutely no idea. Some theories have been put forward, but all they are only speculation. Anyway, what is important is what the scientists studying the transmission at the time found out. In the background there were large amounts of script. This script included these aliens' language, numbers, and even a communication of location... some sort of complex star comparison. This is a copy of all the different letters and numbers." She handed him small palm pilot computer. "This computer contains all the letters we have obtained as well as their meanings." Stanforth looked surprised at this. Wagner laughed. "We've had five centuries to interpret this data, Captain. The AI's most recently working on it have told us they've revised its accuracy to about 90%." She shrugged. "Not bad." Stanforth snorted. Wagner looked at him severely. "You're to memorize that entire language," she told him. He groaned heavily. "Ah, the prices we pay for promotion," she said with a small chuckle.
Stanforth was still trying to comprehend all this info. He couldn't believe that humans had already met aliens so many years ago, and that he was one of the few people in the entire human race that even knew about it. Wagner saw his struggle with a look of understanding. "So, is the alien ship still there?" he asked.
She nodded. "Indeed, it was too large to move inconspicuously. The Americans built a base around it. The area at the time was dubbed by the media with a certain amount of humor 'area 52'." She looked with amusement at his blank expression. "It's a joke you'll get in the future. It's still affectionately called that."
Stanforth opened his mouth again and looked as though he was about to ask something else, but Wagner held up a hand. "No, please, no more questions. There'll be a meeting tomorrow for all the Joint Chiefs, you can ask your questions then. Oh, and Stanforth," she said as he was about to turned around. "Despite your dual promotion, you'll still be required to be our agent. In fact, it is more important now than ever that you are."
"No problem," he said enthusiastically. He surprised himself by realizing just how much he liked the job.
Wagner walked him out of the room and sealed the door with another scan of her eyes. She walked silently beside him for a while and then abruptly turned and entered a room without so much as saying a word of farewell to him. Stanforth sighed but continued walking anyway. He had a lot to study... and a lot to take in.
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