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Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 1
Date: 15 April 2003, 3:53 PM

Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First



1330 Hours, August 9, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
In Orbit Around Chi Cheti IV, UNSC Military Complex, mining colony



       Captain Caitlin Alice Young was incredibly impressed with what she saw onboard the Silent Night. The ship was a Ticonderoga-class cruiser complete with three meters of titanium-A battleplating with four near the back at the engines to prevent a core explosion. It had forty Halcun guns capable of firing six hundred 50mm rounds per minute on each side accompanied by two Magnetic Accelerator Cannons and one on the bottom. To top off its arsenal, it had one nuclear shaft per side with three SHIVA warheads for each. She was built for war, this one.

       What excited her the most, however, were the ship's propulsion systems. The Fusion Reactor Core was able to generate enough power that waste energy was automatically directed to necessary areas, most often weapons systems, to improve their destructive capability. The Shaw-Fujikawa generator they had was even more impressive. It was able to generate a multi-dimensional bubble with far better dynamics than with the standard models she had encountered. The result was that they could travel 1.5 times as fast than most ships in slipspace and with twice as much precision.

       One last thing of note with the ship that impressed Captain Young was the AI. Unlike most ship-grade AI's, Vulcan was constructed specifically for the Silent Night. He knew all of the ship's unique points, its strengths, and its weaknesses. There was nothing or no one else in the galaxy that was better suited for the job.

       Young had already made the announcement that everyone should prepare themselves for cryosleep. Only a handful of engineers were going to take week-long shifts at staying awake and maintaining the Shaw-Fujikawa generator, accompanied only by Vulcan. The senior officers were also staying awake for a while to see the ship off, and then they, too, would join their crewman in the cryochambers.

       Young sat on her chair on the bridge, strapped tightly in to keep her seated in micro-gravity. Her bridge officers were similarly seated in their chairs, typing arbitrarily on their computers, testing the ships' systems, but all anticipating their captain's final order.

       A simple message from Stanforth appeared on her personal view-screen by her chair: a green checkmark. Young nodded to herself and then opened a channel to the engine room. "Douglas! Is everything ready down there."

       Over the roar of the engines an audible, "Yes, ma'am," was heard by all.

       "Mr. Smith," she said, addressing the navigational officer, "take us out."

       "Aye aye, ma'am," he said enthusiastically.



0945 Hours, September 19, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Unknown location, beyond UNSC official borders



       Captain Young stepped out of the cryo-tube, tripping on her way out as she coughed out a long string of cryo inhalant and without a word she swallowed it again. She was up before all the other senior personnel by about fifteen minutes just as she had told Vulcan. She liked to be up and about just before her ship came out of slipspace. What many crewmembers didn't know was that she frequently came out of cryosleep to check on her ship. It wasn't that she didn't trust her capable engineers or Vulcan, it was simply that she hated being idle and without worries in a cryo-tube while others were working around the clock just outside the walls of the room.

       No, she thought as she began to put on her uniform, that wasn't entirely true. She didn't fully trust her new engineering team or Vulcan. She had long ago learned not to be blindly trustful of new people. She hated change, and it didn't fit her personality to leave her ship in the hands of people who hadn't proved themselves to her yet. To do so would be naive, and the captain was anything but that.

       She chose her best looking uniform and she carefully pulled down her black sweater over her nicely groomed hair and she smoothed it out to look perfect. She clipped on her numerous medals and campaign ribbons. She was not normally so vain, but she decided it would be best to intimidate her bridge crew and earn their respect early on. She hoped, as she struggled to attach her Silver Star to her uniform, that she could return the favor.

       She stepped out of the spinning cryo-bay into the stationary hall beyond the door. Her stomach lurched as she began to float towards the ceiling. She leaned forward in the middle of the hallway and pressed a small red button on her metal boots. She then gripped the walls and forced herself down towards the steel floor and her magnetized boots instantly clung to it. As she walked down the long hall, passing a team of engineers who stopped to salute, she realized that walking was easier down this hall - it didn't feel like someone tried to pull her foot down each time she lifted her leg. She stopped for a moment and took this in. The navy has even issued superior boots to the crew. She wondered once more what was so important out here.

       Captain Young made her way to the "elevator" shaft. Young enjoyed going in the shaft. Since elevators were useless in zero-gee, ship builders instead constructed long, hollow shafts connecting all the decks of the ship. Protruding bars and indentations on the cylindrical walls allowed the crew the propel themselves up or down, whichever way they wanted to go.

       Young bent over and disengaged her magnetized boots. She pressed her feet one last time against the steel floor and pushed herself out. The shaft was empty so she decided to hang suspended in zero-gee for a moment and eventually pushed herself up.

       The captain made several more turns after exiting the shaft and at last arrived at the empty command deck. Actually, it wasn't quite empty - Vulcan stood on a short, glowing pedestal near the primary view-screen. The AI wore a crumpled, crimson tunic that left the right side of his chest bare. He had dark grey hair, almost black, with a curly beard of matching color. He wielded a massive hammer in his unnaturally tanned hand and was surrounded on all sides by a raging fire.

       "Ah, captain," he said warmly from behind the inferno, "I was expecting you."

       "Indeed?" she said tiredly, devoid of interest. "The status report was sent to ONI?" she asked.

       "Of course, captain. They responded only by saying they want you to send them another report the moment we enter normal space and for the first two days they will expect a report every two hours, then daily." He paused. "We will be entering normal space in seven minutes, captain."

       "Wake all personnel, including the Marines," she ordered, and Vulcan immediately went to work, data figures scrolling furiously up and down his eerily translucent figure. "It's time we stretched our legs."

       All over the ship, cryo-tubes opened and the crew of the Silent Night began climbing wearily out to the sound of Vulcan's voice over the ship-wide COM system. Everyone drowsily put on their uniforms, only half-aware of everything going on around them. As they re-swallowed their cryo-inhalants, however, the command crew and Marines gradually remembered the purpose of their mission, and everyone hurried in their preparations, eager to see what had brought them all the way out here.

       The senior bridge personnel were all soon gathered on the command deck and saluted Young with a crispness that pleased the captain. They were all relieved to see that it was spinning so as to simulate gravity - most bridges these days did not include this feature. Nevertheless many of the men and women strapped themselves out of habit... and just in case.

       "Captain, we are decelerating," Vulcan announced almost impatiently as if he were doing something else at the moment. "We are now entering normal space. Visuals will be available in ten."

       Sure enough, the view-screen showed the customary orange-red boiling of space as the transdimentional bubble broke away and fused with normal space. The glow died down and the captain saw a large, radiant sun nearby, far larger than the distant stars that dotted the blackness beyond.

       "Vulcan, that's a little too close to the star than I'd like to be," captain Young said with irritation. She had no need to explain herself - everyone on the bridge, including the AI, had heard about ships leaving slipspace and reappearing inside a sun or a planet. The energy field surrounding the ship interacted with the foreign atoms or energy of normal space and caused a massive nuclear reaction, instantly killing everyone aboard.

       "My apologies, captain," Vulcan responded coolly, no longer preoccupied, "though I feel I must remind you our new Shaw-Fujikawa generator allows us to navigate slipstream space far more accurately than average ones. I thought I would save us some time by moving us in as close as possible."

       Young clenched her mouth shut furiously. She had completely forgotten about the generator's capabilities and now her AI had humiliated her in front of her bridge staff. She noticed with extreme annoyance that her communications officer froze, leaned back in his chair, and raised his eyebrows.

       "Thank you Vulcan," she said in what she hoped would sound like an impassive voice. "Mr. Smith, bring us closer to the star." He gave his acknowledgment and Young immediately turned her attention back to the AI. "Are there any s-class planets in this solar system?" she asked, referring to planets capable of supporting life.

       Vulcan paused for just a moment and then said, "No. I'm reading four planets but all of them have high concentrations of methane, helium, and sulfur, and all of them are far too large to be s-class planets." He paused again. "Okay, I'm accessing records of this solar system," he announced. "All of these planets have been viewed with gamma telescopes. There is one, the biggest planet, that astrologers have named Threshold. They viewed a strange anomaly here somewhere between its moon and the planet. It was a large circular object that they viewed as black. They could tell it was there because it blocked out starlight behind it. Somehow it absorbed all incoming gamma radiation. UNSC geologists opted to send an ship to explore the phenomenon but the navy wouldn't let them."

       "So that's likely where we're supposed to go," she said thoughtfully. "Vulcan, transfer the coordinates of that planet to Smith, and then Smith," she called, now addressing the navigational officer directly, "go there immediately."

       "Aye, ma'am," he responded, and the Silent Night lurched as the ship changed its direction slightly towards the black anomaly.

Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 2
Date: 21 April 2003, 12:30 AM

Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 2



1032 Hours, September 19, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
In orbit around Threshold, Gas Giant beyond Official UNSC borders



       "Vulcan, what the hell is that?" Captain Young asked.

       The Silent Night had recently arrived in orbit around the purple gas giant "Threshold" which turned out to be like any other planet besides the fact that it had a higher than average amount of ammonia in its atmosphere. What amazed everyone, however, was a massive ring construct in orbit around Threshold exactly halfway between Threshold and its moon that Vulcan had decided to name "Basis" for the time being.

       "The ring is 10,034.9 kilometers in diameter, 22.3 kilometers thick and 289.7 kilometers wide. These dimensions stay precisely the same all the way around to within 3 millimeters. The lower atmosphere contains 78% Nitrogen, 20.9% Oxygen, 0.9% Argon, 0.03% Carbon Dioxide, 0.0000018% Neon..." he paused. "Suffice it to say it is easily capable of supporting human life. The ring makes a full rotation every 21.93 hours. The outside curve is made of a metal as of yet undiscovered. The inside curve houses the atmosphere with an assortment of the same metals assembled in intelligent patterns. Most likely structures. The ring's habitable inner curve is made up of 61% water, 17% forests, 6% desert, 3.8% plains..."

       "That's quite enough, thank you, Vulcan," Captain Young interrupted him. "Perhaps my question was misleading. What is this construct? Who built it?"

       "I don't quite know yet, captain," he said thoughtfully. "However given the fact that we are almost 1,300 light-years from the edge of the UNSC's official borders, I find it difficult to imagine that humans built a structure of this magnitude with no nearby source of useful materials and with no apparent purpose and without detection from the media or other military factions. It would take millions of workers to build this, and you simply can't keep something like that a secret for very long."

       "Thank you, Vulcan," Young answered testily, "but I have already arrived at the same conclusion. Can you give me any hardcore, non-circumstantial evidence that would prove what we are looking at is an alien construct."

       "The fact that most of the metal making up the ring is completely unknown on all our records is a fairly clear indication," Vulcan said mildly, "though I think maybe you should have a talk with ONI."

       Young nodded. "Yes, I believe I shall." She stood up and switched on the mike. "I want a meeting of all senior personnel in the conference room ASAP." She turned to Vulcan as a number of bridge officers got up and left the command deck. "I want you to join us too, Vulcan," she said to the AI.

       "Yes, ma'am," he said, and his holographic image seemed to get sucked down back into the pedestal from which he was projected.



       "I think it is alien," said Gary Brown, the ship's first officer, about an hour later. "It is absurd to think we built anything on this scale. It took twelve years to build the space station around Chi Cheti 4, and this is thousands of times bigger. And right in the middle of nowhere, like Vulcan said," he exclaimed, indicating to the AI made to look like the Roman god of fire.

       Vulcan nodded appreciatively. "I'm afraid I must agree with Mr. Brown's analysis, captain," he said coolly in his synthesized voice. "In a galaxy with about a three hundred and seventy billion stars, it is not ridiculous to say we are alone. In fact it would be ridiculous to say we are not alone."

       Captain Young opened her mouth to reply, but to her ferment, the god-like AI raised a hand to silence her. "Message received from ONI, captain," he said respectfully to rectify the error he had made in showing impertinence to Young. "It is a video transmission from Admiral Stanforth. Do you want me to upload it to your retina?"

       The Silent Night was equipped with the latest gamma message receiver. It a recent discovery, it was found that text messages, audio transmissions, and even video recordings could be sent via gamma radiation. The incredibly powerful waves could cover a distance like 900 light-years in about a half-hour, which was a great relief to everyone gathered for the hasty meeting.

       Young shook her head in answer. "No, I have no secrets to keep." Shook gave a quick look at Vulcan, and the AI nodded. Vulcan had already checked the text message that came with the video, and the gesture was a signal that the transmission contained no classified information. "Okay, Vulcan, upload it to the vid screen."

       The screen flickered momentarily with a burst of static, and then Admiral Stanforth's face appeared, seeming to Young as if he were much older than when she saw him just about two months prior. "I have received word that you have reached the objective. I have also received a telescopic photograph taken from the Silent Night as well as specifications provided by Vulcan, and I must say, even we weren't prepared for what you discovered." His eyebrows raised as he said this. "As I understand, the ring's environment is capable of supporting life, and, oddly enough, its artificial gravity generator, however it works, has been set to provide earth-normal gravity. So, in conclusion, your mission is to land on the ring and investigate it. Explore everything of interest and record your findings. We are still expecting hourly status reports for the first two days." He paused and ruffled some papers. "Ah, yes. ONI is trying to convince the Navy to send a handful of carriers filled with Marines and scientists. The time for subtly has passed. We had not expected to find something like this, and we need more bodies out there - with or without detection. Nevertheless, the results of their efforts will take weeks of convincing and preparation, so you'll be on your own for a while. Stanforth out," he said finally, and his image disappeared from the screen.

       "Excellent," said Colonel "Stony" Neal, not without a certain amount of excitement in her voice. "You can count of the 105th, ma'am."

       Young smiled at her pleasantly. "I know I can, colonel," she said. She wished to get on the colonel's good side. She was the CO and it looked like she needed the full cooperation of the marines on this mission. "So, Colonel, how should we proceed in doing this?"

       Neal leaned forward and placed her hands on the table. After nearly two months in a cryo-tube, it felt good to do what she was paid to do again. "Well, ma'am, I'm going to need some pictures of the ring's surface, however I'm going to want all 850 of my Helljumpers down there with both scorpion tanks, all the LRVs and HRVs, as well as the recon bikes."

       "Why do we need all of that down there?" Young argued. "We haven't monitored any life activity on the surface."

       "No, ma'am, but this was almost certainly built by aliens, and we shouldn't take any chances," the Colonel countered. "Even if it's not... why not bring everything down there? Secure the area and make sure it's safe for special ops to investigate."

       Young nodded in concession, not bothering to pursue the matter and figuring the Colonel was right anyway. "Alright, Ms. Neal, we'll do it your way. How long until you and the Helljumpers can be ready?"

       "If we start right now, ma'am, it shouldn't be more than an hour," she replied.

       "Right then, let's get underway. You're dismissed," she said a moment later, as if in afterthought. As everyone stood to leave, Young pressed a button on the small computer on the large table in front of her and opened up a COM link with the bridge. "Mr. Smith, take us into low orbit with the ring. It's time we found out what the hell it is."



       "Alright, ladies and gentlemen," said Captain Griffin, the commander of the ground crew to Halo, "we're finally gonna get our asses of this floating bucket! We're landing on that ring down there so special ops won't piss their pants when they run into something unexpected." There was a small murmuring of laughter. "Okay, let's move! On the double!"

       The 850 Marines broke their tight formation in the cluttered docking bay and sprinted towards the awaiting D77-TC "Pelican" dropships. Only A and B companies were able to make it into the five awaiting Pelicans, and it was a tight fit. The other six companies would have to wait for the dropships to make another trip. What truly dominated the bay, however, was the C299-TC "Lions". It was about 25 meters long, and the Pelicans had to stay put for a moment in fear of crashing into the large craft. It carried both of the scorpions the Silent Night brought with them, plus an assortment of LRVs, HRVs, and supplies for the base.

       The other Marines back out of the Bay and behind the closing blast door. A few moments after all the doors to the bay were securely shut, the massive 40X40 meter doors of the shuttle bay shuddered open and thousands of tiny ice and dust particles that had collected in the small cracks around the two meter thick coverings exploded in an impressive spectacle of dancing flecks of white light. The six carrier ships then propelled themselves out of the ship and sped silently in the vacuum towards the ring's alien atmosphere.

Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 3
Date: 21 April 2003, 12:33 AM

Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 3



2025 Hours, September 19, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
On Halo's surface



       It had been 10 hours of roundabout trips from the Silent Night to the surface of the mysterious ring-world but finally all the 105th Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, the "Helljumpers", plus their vehicles and equipment had all made it safely to the ground. The Marines had been carefully placed after Colonel Neal had examined an assortment of maps made by Vulcan. She had eventually chosen a slightly sloped hill with cliffs on the west and north sides leading to a sheer 250 meter drop to the blue ocean below.

       The Marines had already dug in, forming the standard defensive marching camp to provide them with cover should an unexpected enemy arrive. The "standard camp" consisted of two ditches, the one in the front one and a half meters deep, and the secondary one, one meter deep with three meter high steel and concrete barricades to keep approaching enemies at bay. Beyond this was a network of trenches and more barricades surrounding and going through the tents that dotted the ground. In the back was a M808B "Scorpion" Main Battle Tank, entrenched into the ground. The other tank was also inside the perimeter, but it was on constant standby should an emergency outside the camp arise.

       Lastly, the ten Heavy Reconnaissance Vehicles and twelve Light Reconnaissance Vehicles were all outside the base's large perimeter and many were already loaded up with Marines to get ready to move. The plan was to secure a 10-kilometer radius around Alpha Base to make sure no surprises were waiting for them. Then they would go to practically randomized areas around the ring and begin investigating whatever seemed interesting. They were just waiting for the order from commanding Captain Griffin.

       They didn't have to wait much longer. "Let's get moving, ladies and gentlemen," the captain's harsh voice said over the universal frequency. "You know your orders... go go go!"

       The M12 LRV "Warthogs" sped ahead of the slower M25 HRVs, going a steady 180 km/h over the rugged hills of the area they were in. There were disadvantages to having such speed, however. The Warthogs provided little cover while the ironically named "Jaguars" were big and bulky with plenty of armor and full covering. Also, while the Warthogs had a maximum capacity of three soldiers, the Jaguars could easily accommodate five and up to seven.

       First Lieutenant Takahashi was sitting in the passenger seat in one of these Warthogs, his gun sitting idly on his lap with the safety on. He was relaxed; no sign of life had shown itself so far and the Silent Night had the whole area on surveillance far above, so if any troop movements came about, he would know about it long before the actual danger presented itself. Right now his main concern lay in scanning the area with his heat sensitive visor and listening in on the radio frequencies. Nothing important was happening right now, and no messages were addressed to him.

       Right now, Takahashi and his two Warthog convoy were to go to a large structure located approximately nine kilometers to the south. Already, he and his team could make out a spire of this building in the distance as they rapidly closed in on it. "Jesus Christ," he said, leaning over slightly to the driver, Joel McPherson, "It's enormous!"

       "It is," he said through clenched teeth, trying to keep the Warthog steady as it bounced from one hill to the next.

       It was only a couple of minutes later that the two Warthogs arrived at the objective. They all stopped for a moment to stare at the structure in awe. It stood about 100 meters tall, dwarfing even the impressive hills and natural elevations that surrounded it. It looked to Takahashi like the installation was disappointingly drab, constructed of a dull, grey metal that reflected little light. Nevertheless, strange symbols were carved deep into the walls of the graceful building, which seemed physically impossible at points where the base was thin and the spires massive. Takahashi figured there must have been something more there than the eye could see. Beyond the twin spires was the curve of the odd ring as it ascended up into the heavens. The first lieutenant was startled to realise it was the first time he had noticed this particular scenery since he landed on the surface a number of hours ago. He forced himself to pay more attention.

       Everyone hopped off their respective vehicles and approached the alien structure, guns now at the ready, spooked by this obviously non-human building. "Anyone see an opening?" Takahashi called out, lifting the visor attachment from his helmet out of his eyes.

       There was a pause as the six Marines spread out, and then Sergeant-Major Mary Hurst called out, "I found one, sir! Over here!"

       The Helljumpers ran over to where the gunner was yelling. Indeed, there was a small entranceway just large enough for a human to walk comfortably through. It seemed out of place in this immense structure. Mary entered first, snapping around the corner with her gun at the ready, and then she lowered it and signaled for the rest of the fire team to enter with a simple hand motion. They walk cautiously into a small room with the same ornate patterns plastered along the metal walls. There was one ramp, and it only led down. "Looks like there's only one way to go," Takahashi risked, sure there was no one anywhere near. "I guess we can't go up into the spires."

       The makeshift fire team made their way down the ramp onto a small platform, then down another ramp and another small platform. It went down for about 100 meters and then they at last emerged into a vast cavern. "Holy hell!" McPherson uttered, his oath echoing a thousand times against the curved walls of the unnatural cave. The gigantic hollow was shaped like a half-sphere with a reflective glass platform extending about five meters from the wall. It provided a walkway around a huge hole in the center that took up most of the cavern's 500-meter diameter.

       Takahashi slowly walked forward toward the hole. The platform on which he stood was translucent, but it reflected much of the bright light that illuminated the room overhead making it impossible to see what the hole below housed. As he inched his way towards the edge, he suddenly gasped as he looked down. The shaft he looked down must have extended for kilometers. The bottom was lost in a cloud of hazy mist, and blue crystal-like objects that dotted the circular walls all the way down eerily lighted the darkness.

       "Henley!" he called to the communications NCO behind him. "Get alpha on the radio! Tell them we'll need AAVs if they've got any to spare!"



0645 Hours, September 20, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Cavern under building near Alpha Base



       Captain Griffin entered the cavern silently, still taken aback by the enormity of it all, but prepared for it by the accounts of the many Marines who had already been in here. He had actually requested to come here and personally hear the reports from the Marines who had explored the shaft with the Autonomous Air Vehicles. He had asked him not to give any specifics until he was actually there.

       "Greetings, sir," said Mitchell Proule, the technician responsible for the fifty million dollar vehicles. He approached him and snapped a smart salute. "I won't dwell on pleasantries, sir, I'll just get right down to business. A group of Marines was sent here to investigate and secure this building, and they found this cavern at 2035 yesterday. They immediately called in for my AAVs. We got here shortly after at around 2200. Ever since then we've been sending waves of the little robots down their to investigate. I believe there is one down there as we speak."

       "And what have you found?" the captain asked shortly.

       "The main shaft, what you see here," he gestured down into the hole, "goes down about twelve kilometers. It then opens up into a large half-spherical cavern almost identical to this one which has a number of smaller shafts branching off from it which go down another additional five and a half kilometers."

       "So why are there still AAVs down there now if you know all that?" Griffin asked.

       "Well, sir," he began, walking the captain around the curved platform, "there are two reasons." He stopped in front of a metallic, meter long robotic looking device that was flat on the top and curved on the bottom, which made it lean somewhat unsteadily on its side on the glass floor. A shaft about a third of a meter in diameter ran through the top and out the bottom of the robot with grating on both sides and a large fan in the middle. Similar looking shafts, though smaller, dotted the small robot elsewhere. "This is our class-D AAV. It is the lowest class of AAV available and the only kind we have. It has a limited flying time of an hour and a half and only a speed of about thirty kilometers per hour. It is simply not designed for expedition, and certainly not on this scale. Reason number two is that along the twelve and five kilometer stretches there are a number of sub-shafts leading elsewhere."

       "Have you found out what the purpose of this shaft is and where it leads?" Griffin asked.

       "No, sir, only theories and guesses," he said. "One is that it provides a form of transportation across the whole ring. Another is that it is meant to store things, and we have evidence of that, to stray to your second question. Although we haven't exactly determined where the shafts leads, we have found a number of rooms along the sub-shafts, some with locked doors, some with unlocked doors, and some, strangely enough, with open entrances that looked like they had their doors forcibly torn off."

       At this, Captain Griffin raised his eyebrows. He had a bad feeling about this place, and he sensed others did too. "Keep me appraised, lieutenant," he said to Proule. "I don't care if it seems trivial to you, report to me if anything happens. Besides," he said, taking a sweeping glance of the massive cavern, "I doubt we'll run into anything trivial on this bloody ring."

Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 4
Date: 28 April 2003, 6:59 PM

Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 4



0647 Hours, September 23, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Structure on Halo - Distance from Alpha Base: 8,251 km



       James Edmund and Ceilidh Weller clambered out of the hovering Pelican and ran off towards one of Halo's mysterious buildings. As they approached the relatively diminutive structure, the Pelican roared off in the opposite direction, heading back towards Alpha. As the two soldiers walked down a ramp on the front of the building, it unsettled them both to realize they were now the only humans for possibly hundreds of kilometers on an abandoned alien ring-world. Their uneasiness increased their caution, and with a single look, they both raised their weapons.

       Vulcan had monitored a new type of energy waves emitted from this location. It had never been recorded before on the Silent Night's computers, and so the two unfortunate Marines were forced to come here in this barren, scorching desert to investigate what seemed like a trivial matter. James, the ranking officer of the two, had requested that more Marines be assigned to the task. But, like them, Griffin thought little of it anyway, and offered the explanation that they were already spread too thin along the ring's 9 million square kilometers and they needed every man and woman they could get.

       "What do you think we'll find, sir?" asked Sergeant-Major Ceilidh Weller impassively.

       "Probably nothing," Second-Lieutenant James Edmund murmured, noticing suddenly that his weapon was still raised.

       They continued their descent further underground, slowly and with caution. "Well, what do you think that new energy was all about?" she asked.

       Edmund looked at her thoughtfully. She had a pretty Irish accent that he found very attractive. "I can't say for sure, but we are on a mysterious ring-world. Anything is possible, I suppose. Remember those huge blue plasma beams that came up from that building every half-hour? Maybe this is just like that, except it shoots up at larger time increments."

       Ceilidh seemed to relax a little at this. When the at last reached the bottom, they were both surprised. "This wasn't what I expected at all," said Ceilidh.

       They both expected to enter yet another cavern with a large shaft through the middle of it. Instead, they entered a small platform with nothing on it. On the left and right side were two ramps that led down an extra four or five meters. Edmund sighed and said, "I'll take right and you take left."

       She frowned for a second and said, "Yes, sir."

       James saw this and brought down his mike from the side of his helmet. "We'll be in constant radio contact with each other. I don't want any surprises."

       "Yes, sir," the sergeant replied.

       James walked down the right ramp and into the semi-darkness it housed. It was too dark to see perfectly, but too light to use night vision. This made the lieutenant very uncomfortable. "What do you see?" James asked as he passed through the oddly shaped door and into a long room.

       "I see a very long room with lights along the top of the walls and a bunch of holo-panels near the floor on the walls" she responded. "In the center of the room there is a large cylindrical beam with flashing lights on it. On the center there is a gap and a ball of what looks like sizzling electricity."

       "Copy that," he acknowledged, just making sure she was seeing exactly what she was seeing. This alien construct seemed to be made up of patterns. He looked at the "sizzling ball". That couldn't be the new source of energy. He'd seen that before. He looked at the ceiling. Two oddly placed holes were on either side of the beam. He could see nothing in them, just darkness. Probably more shafts, James thought to himself.

       "Right, well, it looks to me like another empty room," James said over the COM channel. "Let's get out of this hole." He was only too eager to leave this lonely place where shadows lurked and moved in eerie dances.

       "Roger that" she responded, her voice indicating that she clearly shared his eagerness to get out.

       James turned around to leave, taking a snapshot of the beam with his camera on his helmet, when suddenly he heard a strange hissing sound that was all to familiar to him now. He looked at the door through which he had entered and he saw that two double doors had sealed the door closed. Odd, he thought to himself with a frown, I didn't even notice any doors when I came in. He approached the doors and expected them to open for him, but them remained tightly shut.

       The lieutenant sighed impatiently. "Hey, Sergeant, could you come to my position and try to open this Goddamned door?" he said into his mike. He waited a moment but no answer came. "Weller!" he shouted, but still nothing. He looked around the dimly lit room. He was becoming increasingly nervous. "Sergeant Weller, answer me right now!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, both into the mike and at the door.

       Silence.

       He heard an odd humming noise emanating from the holes around the beam. He cautiously approached them when suddenly he heard the loud buzz of an electric current. Immediately following that, the first pair of lights near the ceiling went out. Edmund's eyes opened wide as the next pair went out and then the next. He sprinted to the end of the room, trying desperately to keep with the dissipating light as if it were a lion's maw coming up behind him to swallow him. At last he reached the far end of the room, and he pressed his back against the wall.

       The last pair of lights went dead.

       Edmund raised a shaking hand to his helmet and brought down his visor over his eyes. He remembered with relief that he had night vision. He scanned the room in its now green glow, and he caught movement near the hatches when suddenly everything went black. The words BATTERY OVERLOAD flashed in read on his visor, and he moaned with despair.

       Edmund searched hopelessly for his flashlight among his many pouches, knowing full well he didn't bring it because of his NOD. His knees buckled and dropped to the floor, his shaking hands protecting his face from an unknown and unseen enemy.

       A loud scream echoed shortly in the confines of the mysterious room.



       "LT, come in," Weller cried franticly. She had been pounding her fists on the metal doors that had locked Edmund in for six minutes now. Her fists were now bloodied, but she didn't noticed and wouldn't have cared if she did. She had tried to signal in reinforcements, but for some reason the entire COM network was down. There was absolutely nothing she could do but wait, and as a soldier, this pained her greatly. If only she had brought the C-12...

       Without warning, the door opened with its customary soft hiss, surprising Weller to the point she almost fell face-forward once the double doors had parted. Once she was in, she raised her MA4B Assault Rifle to the ready and slowly walked forward in the direction of the mysterious beam. "Lieutenant Edmund, sir?" she called out nervously, hoping to God he would answer. But on this alien construct, God did not hear her prayers. The room remained silent but for the odd crackling sound of the sizzling ball.

       She moved to go around the wide beam of flashing light. It obstructed her view of the back wall, the only place she had not looked for her missing CO. As she passed it with her flashlight on her weapon, she took a quick look at the rear wall. There, near the center, was Edmund. Sergeant Weller was so horrified she couldn't even make a sound. She gazed at the corpse: his stomach and throat was sliced open and massive amounts of blood and gore leaked from the awful wound. Ribs stuck out in every which direction from his mutilated torso. Strands of intestines also protruded from the gruesome corpse, cut off at some points as if they were purposely removed.

       Weller bent over and vomited all over the floor. She felt horribly sick with a sense of hopelessness. Suddenly, she felt a hot, burning sensation on the small of her back. She opened her mouth to scream, but it was cut short as she noticed with sudden despair that her entire body seemed paralyzed. Her assault rifle dropped from her limp hands and the attached flashlight smashed on the hard metal ground, slowly flickering out. She stared at the ceiling a moment longer until the lights overhead also dimmed and finally shut off.

Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 5
Date: 28 April 2003, 7:01 PM

1133 Hours, September 23, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Structure on Halo - Distance from Alpha Base: 8,251 km



       Captain Griffin noticed the stench of blood almost immediately as he entered the large room. He had already received terrible news from Captain Young, and now he discovered that two of his Marines had been brutally slaughtered. The room was alive with activity, with about eighteen men bustling about, examining everything. He noticed with some distress that there was one pale Helljumper coated in a layer of blood. He reached the end of the room, and found out what all the fuss was about.

       He felt bile in his stomach begin to rise as he saw the first corpse, a woman. Her stomach was sliced open vertically with a large cavity there and in her chest. It seemed oddly empty. The second was a man - he had a horizontal incision on his stomach and an interconnecting one from his chest. Both corpses were extremely gruesome, some of the worst cases he had seen in his thirteen years.

       "Good morning, sir!" said a man behind him, disturbingly pleasant. "I'm doctor Lewis." He was dressed in a white lab coat of sorts with flecks of fresh red blood on it. He was slightly round in the stomach, and Griffin recognized his as the ship's doctor and pathologist. He noticed with a raised eyebrow the seemingly jovial smile the man wore. Although he did not know this man, he had met men like him. They had to put themselves in an entirely different mindset to deal with the awful things they did - such as the issue at hand. If he did not, he would probably go mad.

       "Good morning, doctor," he said.

       "Right, well, let's get right down to business, sir," he said, gesturing to the prostrate form of the dead woman. As a ship's doctor, he held no official military rank, however it was customary to address officers as "sir". "Her name was Ceilidh Weller, sir. Irish," he said as an afterthought, as though it were necessary. "One vertical incision down the middle of the torso. Her heart, stomach, intestines, right lung, part of her esophagus, and some of her ribs were all removed." He frowned. "As were her female reproductive organs, sir."

       "Removed?" Griffin repeated, alarmed and horrified. He noticed with discomfort the woman's breasts had also been cut off.

       "Hmm," he replied casually, "plucked out from the wound."

       "Jesus Christ," the captain muttered to himself.

       Doctor Lewis did not reply to the oath. "As you can see, there are two pinprick sized holes right on the small of her back." He turned the corpse over to show the captain.

       "What the hell are they?" Griffin asked.

       "That, sir, I will tell you in a moment." Lewis bustled quickly over to the second corpse, this one a man, with his hollowed out body propped against the back wall. "This man had two incisions that joined it the middle and made it peel out. All the same organs were removed. And as you can see," he lifted the dead man's limp right arm up from his body, "there are the two identical pinprick wounds."

       Doctor Lewis removed a small hand held computer from on of his many pockets. Two small rectangular chips protruded from its top. "These are the two Marines' CNI transponder chips. The autopsies have obviously not been carried out yet, but I believe I can give you a pretty good idea as to what happened using these.

       "I would conjecture that Lieutenant Edmund entered this room first. After all, his heart stopped beating before Ms. Weller's at approximately 0701 hours this morning. However, we also noticed something weird at about 0655. His heart rate spiked from eighty beats per minute to one hundred and twenty five beats per minute in about a second. After that it immediately plummeted to about thirty-eight beats per minute. That is consistent with some sort of debilitating chemical injected into the bloodstream. To test this we took a sample of his blood. About ten parts per million contained an unknown chemical substance. I believe it paralyzed him."

       "Oh my God," Griffin whispered. "Are you saying this man was alive for six minutes as his organs were removed?"

       Lewis nodded. "Yes, sir, it would seem so. You'd be surprised what the body can withstand... especially with chemical aid. Ms. Weller had the same chemical in her, however she died eleven seconds after the same heart rate symptoms experienced by Edmund at 0702. She barely suffered at all.

       "Allow me to hypothesize, sir. The Marines split up an investigated both rooms separately. Edmund was paralyzed and eventually killed. Weller came to investigate and then she, too, was killed by whoever, or whatever, was in this room."

       "You're even considering that one of my Marines was responsible for this," Griffin asked furiously after hearing the "whoever" part. He was already nauseous and angry at the loss of his soldiers in such a horrible and helpless fashion, and the smallest thing set him off.

       Lewis shook his head. "Sorry, sir, allow me to rectify. I've seen many murders before and I can safely say none of them were alien. I'm not exactly experienced in that. Besides, we downloaded all CNI information from the Silent Night and the closest Marine to this position was five and a half thousand kilometers upspin."

       Griffin did not apologize. He didn't see the need. "So we're not alone on this ring?"

       "No, sir," Lewis responded, "no we're not."

Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 6
Date: 23 August 2003, 1:51 PM

Note from the author: I feel my long absence needs to be explained. I went to Italy just before school ended, which made my last days at the cursed place total hell. Then I went on another vacation in the summer, but I must confess that a large chunk of my inactivity has been due to pure laziness. I hope people will still read my stories and subsequently comment on them.

       Oh, and also, if you haven't read the rest of my series thus far, I suggest you do so. To really understand the story you'd have to read the series A Single Motion as well. It's definitely a lot of reading, so if you don't like it, don't bother.

      Enjoy the read.

1600 Hours, September 23, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Onboard Silent Night - Conference Room


       "You're all probably wondering why I called you here today," Captain Young said to her assembled bridge officers. She didn't say anything for many moments, but instead leaned heavily on the oak table before her with her head down. The obvious sense of unease and perhaps fear emanating from their captain was evident to everyone in the room, and many shifted uncomfortably in their seats. So far the Silent Night's crew had seen only two emotions from Young: anger and a cold sense of confidence. To see here like this was highly unusual.

       "It is very difficult for me to relate this disaster to you all," she continued slowly, at last raising here head and looking at them all. "Before we left, I'm sure you all heard about the tenth fleet heading out to investigate the lost contact with Harvest and the disappearance of the Argo?" Everyone in the room nodded. It had been all over the news. '...the largest assembled fleet for the purpose of warfare since the "Watts Crisis"', the news had said. "We all assumed it was pirates, or insurrection. We were wrong."

       "As of 0800 this morning, I received a coded message from Admiral Stanforth basically stating that the Harvest Crisis was caused by some sort of alien vessel, equipped with technology far in advance to our own." Everyone gasped. They had all undergone "First Contact" training and heard the rumours of extremely odd transmissions being picked up from the outer rim, but they thought it was all ludicrous. "ONI has decreed we are to remain here until the UNSC has dealt with these recent developments. They feel it would be too dangerous for us to head back to human space now, and in addition they fear we might lead these aliens here." She sat down and folded her hands on the table, signaling that it was now an open forum.

       Instead there was silence. They first had to take in the sheer enormity of the news. At last it was weapons officer Karen Caladon who voiced everyone's concern. "What if the UNSC can't deal with the crisis?"

       "How the hell should I know?" she snapped impatiently at her. Caladon instinctively recoiled back in her chair in the face of her captain's anger. Young was well known to be surly, but usually her anger was of a condescending nature, whether it was dealing with the incompetence of a crewman or with the ship's impudent AI, Vulcan. But this was different; it was the irrational anger of one who is in a predicament she can't comprehend and cannot confront. "The UNSC has proven themselves capable in the past," she continued, her surly tone still clear in her voice. "The crisis will be resolved." She looked around the table at all the officers. "Any other questions?" she asked.

       Everyone remained silent, though Young guessed their minds were teeming with questions and the only reason they did not voice them was because they did not want to fuel their Captain's bad mood. Young did not particularly care. They could probably not ask her anything she had not already asked Stanforth.

       Young did not tell them that Harvest had been destroyed, rendered uninhabitable by orbital bombardment, and not one of its three million citizens had been spared. It was part of the reason that she was so angry, and she did not see the need in telling her crew just how superior these aliens were.

       After the silence endured, they all expected to be dismissed, and were vaguely surprised when Young declared she had more bad news. "Our expedition of the ring's surface has been encountering some problems. Two of the Marines exploring another structure were killed, their corpses mutilated." The only one present who did not express their shock was Colonel, who had heard about the incident earlier.

       At once the conference room erupted into questions, speculations, and exclamations of horror, the fear of their captain forgotten. Young swiftly brought her fist down on the table and demanded order. "You're doubtless all wondering who committed this atrocity, though it may shock you to know the truth. At 1100 hours, Dr. Lewis had Vulcan analyze all of the Marines' CNI transponder chips, and he found that the closest Marine to the sight of the deaths was over five thousands kilometers away. No human committed this act." Young knew this was a lot to tell hers senior officers in a single conference, though she also knew the need for these men and women to be briefed on recent developments.

       Again the room descended into chaos, everyone asking their questions and voicing their opinions. Young once again called for order. "Speculation at this time is pointless," she said coldly, regaining her composure from her previous outbreak. "However for now, we can assume that we are not alone on the ring down there. Which is hardly surprising," she added, "as so many of you were quite adamant that the construct is not of human origin." She smirked absurdly at their chagrin. "We will reconvene pending additional information. Everyone will now return to their station."

       The room quickly emptied, some angry at their captain, all knowing questioning her was pointless. Young followed her senior officers out of the conference room and walked her way down the hall to the bridge. She entered the bridge and demagnetized her boots, for the spinning bridge had close to earth normal gravity. Strapping herself into the captain's seat, she ordered her navigational officer Richard Smith to maintain normal orbit around Threshold.

       "Uh, ma'am," her sensors officers, Daniel Ford, said hesitantly, "I'm getting some very strange readings."

       "What do you mean, Mr. Ford?" Young asked.

       "A moment ago, ships sensors detected a large collection of small objects heading our way at a rapid speed... wait, there they are again! Now they're gone..." He looked thoroughly confused and embarrassed at apparently wasting his captain's time.

       "What the hell is going on here, lieutenant?" Young asked impatiently.

       While the communications officer stumbled for a response, Vulcan flickered up from his pedestal next to the main screen. "I feel he must verify Mr. Fords report, captain," he said coolly, directing her anger away from the yellow navigational officer. "I have had time to analyze the reports. The first consisted of sixty-five objects approximately one meter cubed. The second detected seventy-three such objects and the third counted eighty-four. All were going faster than our orbiting speed of ninety-thousand kilometers per hour, and seemed to be closing on us."

       Before Young could say anything, Ford quickly said, "They're here again, ma'am, three kilometers off our starboard side and closing."

       Young said nothing for a moment, but just waited, for three kilometers could be covered in mere moments. When nothing happened, she asked Ford to report.

       "Sensors are no longer picking up the anomalies, but I am detecting a slight external hull temperature increase on deck eight, sector three."

       "Vulcan?" Young asked slowly, wondering if the AI had additional information.

       Whether he did at that time Young would never know, for suddenly the whole ship rocked violently, and though everyone was strapped in their seats, they were still considerably jarred. Young pushed her disheveled hair out of her face and pulled herself back upright in her chair. She noticed gradually that the warning sirens were blaring, and the bridge was filled with flickering red light. "Report!" she shouted over the din.

       Vulcan, the only one who had not been affected by the sudden movement, was the first to respond. "Hull breach on deck on, origination: sector three. Blast doors closing."

       "What the hell is happening to my ship, Vulcan?" she asked the AI accusingly, as if he were somehow to blame.

       "I believe, captain," he said coolly, "that we are under attack.

Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 7
Date: 23 August 2003, 1:53 PM

1620 Hours, September 23, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Onboard Silent Night - Bridge


       The sudden decompression in deck eight had spun the Silent Night like a toy in space, but since the blast doors had closed, the ship had become stable. Nevertheless, nearly two hundred men and women had been on deck eight when the incident occurred, and most were now dead. Luckily, as deck eight did connect to the engine room, the air tight checkpoints there had averted a total catastrophe.

       On the bridge, however, it was still chaos.

       The ship's communications officer, Kate Savage, who had been unusually inactive due to the nature of the mission, was now earning her pay. "I receiving dozens of injury reports due to sudden jolt, captain," she called to Young. "One hundred and eighty-nine men and women dead on deck eight, but the engine room is intact. All systems functioning normally."

       The suddenness of this attack from an unknown enemy had caught Young momentarily off-guard, and she had no time to think. "Vulcan," she cried to the AI, "what do you suggest?"

       "Our enemies, whoever they are, just cut through two and a half meters of titanium-A battle plating, so I would assume they can cut through a blast door. I would suggest depressurizing all of deck eight, to avoid any more accidents due to decompression."

       Young nodded to Ford. "Do it," she ordered.

       Out of the starboard side atmosphere leaked into vacuum, but it was done slowly and carefully, and its effects were barely felt. "Depressurization complete, captain," Ford said. As relatively new recruit, he had surprised himself by keeping a cool head in such dire circumstances.

       "Ms. Savage, please open a channel with Colonel Neal for me, then advise the Marines on the surface of our situation," Young ordered. Kate acknowledged the request and Young had Neal on her personal COM station. "Colonel, I want you to take your Marines and all non-essential personnel to all the airtight checkpoints on decks seven and nine, and report whatever you see to me."

       "Yes, ma'am," came her response.

       Young quickly opened a ship-wide COM channel, which she could do herself at her station. "This is your captain speaking," she said slowly and calmly, wanting to reassure her crew that was no doubt in a panic. "I want all non-essential personnel to report to Colonel Neal and grab some weapons at the nearest armory. We have been boarded." Young turned her attention back to the bridge crew. "Mr. Ford, do we have any cameras functioning on deck eight?"

       Ford, who had anticipated the question, had already accessed the cameras. "Yes ma'am," he said. "Would you like them on the main screen?"

       "Yes, lieutenant."

       "Aye, ma'am."

       Pictures flickered to life on the main screen. There were four cameras, but the one on the top right was the telling picture. A perfectly formed square, three meters by three meters, had been cut in the Silent Night's two and a half meter thick hull. In through this gap came a swarm of some sort of robotic machines, hovering just above the ground. They were approximately one meter long, wide and tall. They were an elaborate design, with a complex network of metal plates and assorted tubes, and at its bottom, near the front, protruded a stubby metal rod with a red light on the front of it. It was constantly swiveling about, as if it were the machine's eye.

       More and more of the robots entered the ship. Young was confused and mesmerized by there images, but she had no time to ponder them. "Colonel Neal," she said through her COM station, the link still open, "there appears to be a lot of robots entering through the gap on deck eight. I recommend using explosives."

       There was short pause, and then a somewhat confused, "Yes ma'am," was heard.

       There were two airlock checkpoints on both deck seven and nine, plus a single entrance into engineering. Knowing full well the significance of engineering, Colonel Neal, one of the few Marines left on the Silent Night took four Marines plus about fifty ill trained crewmen, who fumbled with their assault rifles and held them awkwardly. Neal just hoped it would be an easy victory, but she thought it most decidedly would not be.

       After hearing Young's caution on something about robots and how explosives were recommended, she considered sending a crewman to bring more rocket launchers, but her motion sensors suddenly lit up with movement just beyond the door, so she decided she would have to make do with the explosives she had. She also realized that the robots would have had to have gotten past at least one checkpoint already to be here, so she gritted her teeth and warned the shivering crewman of their position.

       "Here they come," she said, and at that moment the engine room door began to glow, and then a large middle section peeled back as if it were mere tinfoil.

       Out of this hole came dozens of robots, hovering a meter or two above the ground. The Marines, although slightly taken aback by this, nevertheless immediately fought back without hesitation, but the crewman, who had only basic training in combat, didn't fire right away. Those who did gather the courage to open fire immediately saw the futility of firing 7.62mm bullets at flying chunks of metal. A few rockets took out one or two of these alien robots, but very soon the slaughter began. The machines formed a ragged line and sprayed the room with some sort of red plasma beam, cutting through the barricades and metal boxes like a hot knife through butter. The men and women were sliced apart by the precise beams, and the clatter of automatic weapons fire soon came to a halt in the face of such an onslaught. There was nothing left of Colonel Neal's squad left except gruesome body parts and charred flesh.

       After their enemy was dealt with, the robots turned to the right wall of the engine room and once again opened fire.

       Young had watched the first checkpoint dissolve with astonishing speed over the ship's cameras. She had then seen them quickly some down the hall to the engine room. She had considered telling Neal to run, but the robots had come so quickly, it would have been a pointless endeavor anyway. She had watched with some relish two of the robots fall to the Marines there, but they were all killed soon enough as well. Then she watched with some confusion as the robots began cutting a hole on engineering's right wall, but understood soon enough.

       "Brace yourselves!" she cried to the bridge crew, and sure enough an immense shudder ran through the ship.

       "Engine room decompressing, captain," Ford announced. "Blast doors closing."

       Once the venting atmosphere cleared, a large hole, ten meters long and three meters high, had suddenly appeared in the engine room's hull. "They're slowly making the ship uninhabitable, starting with engineering," Vulcan mused thoughtfully, gazing intently at nothing, evidently accessing the camera system himself. He turned suddenly to Young, his "eyes" once again in focus. "Recent encounters have shown that our enemy is intelligent, well armed, and determined to destroy this ship. Without the help of the Marines, resistance has become pointless. We should abandon ship."

       Young stared at him uncomprehendingly. She knew he was right. The best she could hope for was to slow down these machines at the cost of everyone aboard the Silent Night. But it had all happened too fast. She couldn't give her ship up without a fight. "I cannot leave, Vulcan. Not yet."

       "Captain, the robots targeted engineering first, now they'll come here," Vulcan argued calmly, but nonetheless hurriedly. "We have to go now!"

       "No, Vulcan, you misunderstand me," was all she said. She flipped up the mike on her station. "Crew of the Silent Night, this is your captain speaking. Abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship. Head to the nearest escape pod section onboard. The Marines on the ring will pick you up once you activate your distress signal. Take only what you must, grab some weapons if you're near an armory. If not, don't waste any time. That is all."

       The bridge crew wasted no time, despite their astonishment. Lieutenant Savage contacted the Marines on the surface and told them to be ready for the crew that was about to land on the surface. First Mate Gary Brown prepared Vulcan for transport, taking out a small box with crystal lining, but just before the AI disappeared from his pedestal, he gave his captain a grim nod, understanding her sacrifice.

       Then suddenly, the bridge was empty. Every instinct she had screamed at her to leave the bridge, but she stayed and activated the self-destruct sequence, setting the timer for two minutes - long enough for the escape pods to get away... she hoped. She couldn't risk setting it any higher than that.

       She then ran to a cabinet near the back and retrieved a rocket launcher, sealing the door to the bridge while she was there. As she waited, she glanced at the camera pictures still on the main screen. One showed a brave group of crewman and a single Marine staying to give the others the time they needed to evacuate the Silent Night

       It wasn't long before the door began to melt away, and Young destroyed the first robot to enter, giving her a few precious seconds. She glanced behind her - twenty seconds to go. They couldn't disable it now. She fired the second rocket and waited for the end.

       The men and women aboard the escape pods saw their ship explode in a huge fiery ball, and only then realized their captain's sacrifice, as well as their hopeless position. The nuclear blast soon cooled to leave nothing but the blackness of space and the quiescence of vacuum.

       Silent Night...

Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 8
Date: 29 August 2003, 3:40 PM

0300 Hours, September 24, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Alpha Base - Command Tent

       Captain Griffin had received the transmission from Kate Savage saying the ship was being evacuated, and when he asked why he had gotten no answer. It wasn't long before he saw one or two escape pods glowing red above Alpha base. He sent a group of Marines in the M25 HRVs to pick up the men and women in a nearby crash site, but mostly it had been a slow rescue of Pelicans shuttling back and forth from across the ring's 30,000 kilometer circumference.

       The evacuation from the Silent Night had been anything but smooth. There were many crewmen who had broken limbs, two men even broke their backs, but nevertheless there had been no fatalities. However, it did take almost half a day to rescue the scattered and stranded survivors, and it wasn't until early morning that the entire crew of the Silent Night's had been brought to Alpha Base.

       As more and more people arrived at the Marine fort details of the reason for the sudden evacuation gradually emerged. Many had crazy tales of robots, of futile last stands and of the ship self-destructing. Griffin refused to believe any of it until the senior officers of the Silent Night met with him, though he could think of no explanation for why all these men and women would lie or somehow be mistaken.

       At last, at 0300 hours, the ship's senior officers met with the Marine commanding officers. They convened at the Command Tent near the back of the base. First Mate Gary Brown was present, as well as Kate Savage, Karen Caladon, and Peter Smith. The Marines officers present were Captain Tom Griffin, Captain James Baxter, and Lieutenant Robert Hill. Joining the men and women at this meeting was Vulcan, his iridescent figure, smaller than it was on the Silent Night illuminating the dark tent with a flickering, eerie glow.

       Captain Griffin, now the officer in command of all humans on the ring, rose to begin the meeting once everyone else was settled in their makeshift chairs. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began slowly, "we are gathered here to discuss the events leading up to the predicament which has brought us all here together on the ring. I have heard differing rumors as to these events and have told my men to disregard them. I wish to hear the official story from the ship's senior officers. Mr. Brown, why don't you begin?" It sounded like a request but Brown acknowledged it as though it were an order.

       Brown stood up. He began to relate the details of everything that had happened aboard their ship. He began steadily enough, speaking quickly but distinctly, but when he got to the part about Young's death, his voice quivered momentarily and the bridge officers all lowered their heads. None had particularly like their Captain, but they had all respected her and had grieved for her sacrifice, even though they did not fully understand it.

       Brown was over very quickly. Captain Griffin was thoroughly surprised at all this. At first he didn't know what to say, but he managed a short question. "Do you wish to add anything else?" he asked, mistaking Brown's brief account of the tragedy for his obvious daze or equally evident exhaustion.

       "Things happened really fast aboard the ship," he explained. "I left no detail out."

       Griffin just nodded for a moment at nothing in particular, then suddenly snapped back in his chair and scratched his head in anger. "So we're trapped on this goddamn ring with no hope of the UNSC coming for us?"

       Lieutenant Savage nodded. "The evacuation of the ship was very sudden and the Captain told us to bring only what we must. We were not even able to salvage the gamma antennae, for all the good it would have done us. But that does mean we can no longer contact home."

       The tent was silent for a moment, everyone grieving their sorry situation. No one knew quite what to say until Commander Caladon at last broke the silence. "What I want to know is why did the captain blow the ship? Why didn't we just evacuate and leave the ship for those bloody robots? Surely a couple of floating machines wasn't worth her life."

       Vulcan replied first, which was appropriate for he alone had the answer. "When the robots made it to engineering, they did not proceed to blow the core using their beam, however the were reckless in carving out the ship's hull. A ship with that many holes in it can't go into slipspace - when they reentered normal space, the hull would crack. So clearly they did not want the ship. And why care if you sacrifice some of the robots? It's not like they're people.

       "Unless," he continued, "each one of them is valuable. Obviously whoever made them isn't here anymore to replace them and they must have some sort of function. By destroying the Silent Night the captain must have hurt them badly." He shook his head sadly. "She understood that."

       "But why send so many?" Captain Baxter asked. "Surely if they are so important then the thought of the ship destroying them all would have crossed their minds."

       "They probably did," Vulcan conceded, "but they figured they could get to the bridge and stop it from self-destructing. But several groups of crewmen plus the Captain herself stayed to slow them down, ruining their plans and destroying them all."

       "They underestimated our resolve," Griffin growled.

       "What are your plans for us now, Captain?" Brown asked.

       "Well, right now I'm going to recall all Marines to the base, then I'll have to expand this fort's perimeters to house our extra guests. I'm sure you're all tired," Griffin said generously, "so you may now return to your tents and get some sleep. I will handle all matters on the surface from here on out."

       Gary Brown nodded his assent. On the Silent Night, Griffin answered to Brown, but with only basic combat training and little knowledge of battlefield tactics, it went without saying that Griffin was in charge. Brown also took the subtle hint he was dismissed without the Captain actually saying so. Griffin wanted to spare the First Mate any embarrassment by being ordered by on officer technically lower in rank.

       Once the ship's officers had all left the tent, Griffin dismissed Lieutenant Hill and turned Vulcan's pedestal off. Once he, too, was gone, Griffin rounded on Baxter. "By God, Jim, but what a bloody horrible Goddamned shitty mess!" He pounded the cheap plastic table before him with his fist so that his coffee mug fell and a few loose pieces of paper floated gently to the ground. "Fuck! We're fucking stranded here with two thousand souls and they're all bloody damned!"

       Captain Baxter would have smirked at this violent outburst after acting so calmly and rationally with the ship's officers, but tact dictated otherwise, so he said without tone, "Yes, Tom." In the ten years the two men had known each other, they had become close friends, despite the eight years age difference and the higher rank due to seniority. In the decade they had been together Baxter had also learned the best way to ease his superior's fierce and erratic fits was to say as little as possible and say it without tone. "We're in a bad way."

       Griffin's head snapped up and he glared at his friend furiously, as though this comment was meant to offend him. "'In a bad way?'" he mimicked, his voice condescending. "'In a bad way?' Of course we're in a Goddamned bad way! We're stuck of some bloody alien ring far from home with no hope of rescue! And now we've got a thousand more people to worry about. Christ! We're on the edge of a Goddamn cliff, we can't accommodate that many more. We'll have to move! Damn your eyes, Jim." Griffin had been up pacing about the tent during this tirade, but now he sat back town again and held his head. The camp was indeed packed, and Griffin guessed some of his ODSTs were listening to his rant.

       "It's not promising, that's for sure," Baxter said monotonously.

       Suddenly Griffin sprang back up with more bad news to complain about, ignoring his friend's attempts to placate him. "And now we've got an armada of murderous bloody robots flying about destroying our ship and mutilating our boys!"

       "No, sir, you are wrong," said Vulcan, unexpectedly rising from his pedestal to once again drench the tent with his eerie light.

       The fact that Vulcan had been listening in on a private discussion and had been impertinent to him did not register in Griffin's mind in the face of such an odd statement. "Wrong?" he asked, dazed at being pulled suddenly from his tirade. "What do you mean? Wrong about what?"

       "I do not believe it was these 'robots' who killed Sergeant Ceilidh Weller and Lieutenant James Edmund," he explained. "I have thoroughly analyzed the video taken of these machines and the only instrument that seemed to be evident on them was the beam emitter close to their front. That would cause burn wounds, and no such wounds were reported to have been found on the two Marines."

       "Well, what did it, then?" Griffin asked, confused. Suddenly he became angry. "If you're insinuating one of my Marines..."

       "I am suggesting nothing of the sort, Captain," Vulcan answered coolly. "Indeed, proof dictates such a thing would be impossible. I am suggesting that perhaps there is another class of robot on the ring. But I fear it is something far more sinister than that."

       Captain Griffin felt a chill creep up his spine. "Such as what?" he asked with a certain degree of trepidation.

       "As to what it is specifically, I cannot say. Perhaps this construct's designers have not left yet? Or maybe something else. I really can't say without further evidence."

       Baxter quietly reminded Captain Griffin, who now thoroughly sobered and chilled to his core, that there were still Marines elsewhere on the ring. Griffin nodded to himself, and then went over to a portable communications center placed along the back of the tent. He walked over to it and opened a universal channel. "All Marine teams on the surface, return to Alpha base immediately."

       Alpha, Bravo, Charley, and Eagle teams all checked in. "Captain Baxter, how many teams are out right now?" Griffin asked, already knowing the answer.

       "Five, sir," he responded, realizing the significance of the number.

       Griffin nodded. "Five," he repeated dumbly to himself. He picked up the microphone again. "Delta team 34, come in please." No answer sounded. "Delta team 34, please respond!" he shouted, as if talking louder would somehow make them respond.

       The tent remained silent.

       "Send four of the pelicans to pick up Alpha, Bravo, Charley, and Eagle teams with six men escorts. Ready the C-299 for two HRVs and one hundred fifty men. Where is Delta team situated?" he asked Baxter hurriedly. He was moving quickly, picking up handfuls of ammunition and reading his assault rifle.

       "In a small forest, approximately three and a half thousand kilometers downspin."

       "Then that's where we're going."

Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 9
Date: 4 September 2003, 6:28 PM

0440 Hours, September 24, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Forest's Edge - 3,500 kilometers from Alpha Base

       The C299-TC Lion hovered a foot above the surface. The two HRVs were dragged out and the one hundred fifty followed soon after. After all the men were safely out, the Lion took off, flying circles above the forest with its large array of weapons ready to defend the men on the ground. The pilots tried to see what was going on in the forest, but the canopy was too thick. Even their heat vision was of no use.

       "Those bloody trees are giving off huge amounts of heat, Captain," one of the pilots reported. "It's just one big red blotch."

       "Roger that," Griffin murmured in awe. He was not unduly surprised. He had never seen trees like these, even on this alien ring. They were short - only about as tall as a pine tree on earth, but they were thick and with an abundance of leaves on their top. What was most unusual about them, however, was that at their center was a large bulbous growth that glowed eerily in barely lit grove.

       Griffin flipped down his mike from his helmet and called for Delta team to check in. There had been times when long range communications were ineffective on this ring, but unfortunately, such was not the case here. The frequency remained silent.

       Griffin heard a roar of engines above that drowned out even the Lion, and though he could not see it, he knew that the single surviving Longsword fighter from the Silent Night had joined the transport craft in its protective overhead circle.

       "Stay close to me," Griffin whispered into his mike, as if someone was listening. He, Captain Baxter, and Sergeant Warren were leading the way into the dark canopy. Their guns were at the ready; Warren and Griffin with their assault rifles, Baxter with his preferred shotgun. "Everyone bring down their night-vision," he said, bringing down his own visor from the front of his helmet. There were soft clicks all around him as his Marines did the same. "Be ready for anything, men. Delta team still isn't checking out."

       No one responded. There was something eerie and oddly awe-inspiring about this glowing forest. Shadows flicked among the foliage, but every time someone looked to see what it was, it was gone. There was also a noise; soft, barely audible, but always present and impossible to ignore. It was a slithery, liquid sound, almost as if someone was slurping some water. At last an uneasy private voiced everyone's concerns. "What the hell is that noise? I've got a really bad feeling about this."

       With this, the COM network was suddenly alive with concessions, everyone saying this forest was cursed and was no doubt teeming with aliens. The battle-hardened sergeants, of which there were more than would normally accompany a squad of this size, went around the line and cuffed all the soldiers who so much made a peep, cursing at them and telling them that if they didn't quit whining there'd be no alcohol rations tonight. Eventually the talking subsided, but Griffin felt obligated to say something. "I don't want anyone to make a sound," he whispered quietly, his normally gruff but friendly voice tainted with an unusual level of asperity, "because if there are hostiles in the forest I want to surprise them, not the other way around." After this there was silence, though whether it was his speech which silenced them or the thought of no rum on this Godforsaken ring, Griffin had no idea. He assumed it was the latter, for the racket caused by the Lion and the Longsword had no doubt given them away already.

       Until now the trees had been pretty thin and scattered on the ground, but the Marines were now in the thick of the forest. The starlight and the moon were no longer visible above the unusually thick canopy. Even the glow of the trees oddly seemed to illuminate nothing of their surroundings. The few Marines who had not yet donned their night vision visors now did so.

       Griffin was getting increasingly nervous. He was constantly whispering into his mike for Delta team to check in, even though all hope of that happening had long faded. He had never put too much weight into people sensing they were being watched or followed without being able to produce evidence proving such, but he had that distinct feeling right now, and it frightened him. It took all his restraint not to scream out and force whoever it was to reveal themselves.

       Suddenly, of to Griffin's left, he heard a loud scuffle and he imagined he heard a muffled scream. Such noises seemed to be rampant in this forest, but this one made him more nervous than the others. "Is anything going on our left flank?" No one answered, and he was prepared to ignore the odd sounds until a loud scream sounded again to the left, followed soon by the soft clatter of an assault rifle firing. Only a few rounds got off before it suddenly stopped. Griffin called a halt. "What's going on? Who fired?"

       "It was Private Murray, sir," a sergeant in the left flank answered, "but I can't see him now." He was silent for a moment or two until he suddenly began to swear. "Jesus, but what the fuck is that?" He began to fire and the nervous men that surrounded him followed in kind. Everyone was firing now, the dull, methodical thumping of the military grade shotguns joining the cacophony of the crackling automatic weapons, and in the midst of it all screaming reports of some sort of zombie-like alien creatures.

       Griffin had no need to hear the reports. He, too, was in the thick of things. Swarms of small, head-size, tentacled parasites came pouring from the darkness, so numerous and packed so tightly together that in looked quite literally like a flood of pale green and yellow blobs. Griffin had initially set his assault rifle to fire controlled, three burst volleys, picking off small groups of them, though he soon realized that subtlety was not in order. He fired in full automatic spray, fifteen bullets a second, into the grotesque flood of alien parasites.

       Unfortunately the parasites had the ability to cling to vertical objects, for they came raining down from the tress, dropping onto their human victims, thrusting their needle-like penetrator into their new hosts' back or neck, paralyzing them and forcing them to serve them for the remainder of their lives. One such alien came within inches of Griffin's face, before bursting in a cascade of green blood, gas, and flesh. It didn't take long for Griffin to realize their situation was helpless unless they escaped the confines of the forest, where the enemy could come from any direction without being visible until they're on top of them. "Get out of the forest!" he screamed frantically, backing up quickly.

       Most Marines understood they were surrounded, and retreated in a manner which reflected this knowledge. They edged hurriedly towards the open plain and salvation back to back with fellow soldiers, both firing to cover each other. Griffin walked back to back with Captain Baxter. This was a fairly efficient tactic, but the chaos was soon increased by the introduction of another fearsome creature. It was a humanoid - indeed, it appeared to be human, though horribly transformed. It was the same pale green coloration of the small parasites and its limbs were gruesomely twisted and bent, with its right arm mutated to provide a wicked looking claw at one end. Its torso was split open along the stomach and chest, with ribs sticking out in grotesque directions, and what looked like one of the parasites in this tear, though it seemed much smaller. Griffin guessed, with a sudden sickness coming over him, that these zombies were the remnants of the missing Delta team.

       One of these monsters leapt high into the air, aiming its body at a group of two Marines. A terrified soldier, his eyes seemingly crazed by the horrors of what he saw, fired about thirty rounds into the ghoul's chest and expected it to fall to the ground in a jumbled of twisted limbs and spilt blood. Instead it just kept on flying, apparently unaffected and unimpressed by the man's attempts to kill it. When it landed, the sharpness of its claws and the weight of its body decapitated the Marine and shredded his body. Griffin's eyes widened in the face of such invincibility.

       The trees began to thin, but more of the zombie creatures joined the fray, picking off the previously efficient two-man teams in brutal long ranged jumps. The occasional shotgun round blew the torso out of one of the flood warriors, but the success ratio of the zombies to the humans was unsettling. Griffin and Baxter had so far proven and effective team, Griffin liberally spraying his MA5B assault rifle at the parasites while Baxter dealt with any of the flood warriors. They always joined their men and had more experience in fighting than most of the Marines, save for a few of the oldest Sergeants, and thus they faired better than most.

       More men fell even as they left the forest, victims of the surprisingly fast tentacled parasites or the near invincible, high jumping zombies. The Lion was hovering about a foot above the ground just twenty meters from Griffin. He and Baxter abandoned their ponderous two-man retreat and sprinted as fast as they could to their salvation. Two snipers were on the back of the craft, sniping at the small parasites, but their limited fire had little effect on this mob.

       All the survivors were now sprinting unheeded from the edge of the forest, now outrunning their tentacled foe. When they reached the Lion, most of the exhausted and frightened men literally dove onto the transport deck. Griffin and Baxter waited just outside the entrance, laying down covering fire for the few soldiers who has still not made it, and when nothing was visible but the flood of the grotesque aliens, they too jumped aboard and screamed for the pilot to get going, his assault rifle still blazing. He then contacted the Longsword pilot and directed him to bomb to the forest.

       "Friendlies?" the pilot ventured after he had received these instructions.

       Griffin gazed out at the forest, which seemed to be teeming with the aliens. No more gunshots sounded. "All friendlies are aboard the Lion, Gary. Blow them the hell away."

       The Longsword came out of the night sky, strafing the forest's edge with a salvo of four missiles. They were tipped with incendiary plasma; all of the parasites and zombie aliens were instantly vaporized. The Longsword circled around for another attack, this time bombing the forest's center. The glowing trees erupted into flame, guaranteeing that any alien still there was now dead.

       But, as Griffin lifted his NOD visor to let his eyes return to normal after witnessing the bright explosions, he couldn't help but wonder if by doing that he only killed his own men.

       But that question would have to wait. For now, there was a lot to discuss.

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