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Absolution: Chapter IV
Posted By: Havok<detoxpunk@hotmail.com>
Date: 30 July 2004, 3:55 PM
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ABSOLUTION
CHAPTER IV
The airlock emptied onto a platform which projected a few thousand feet over....nothing. The edge of the platform melded with the air. The powerful spotlights trained outward past the end of the walkway didn't even come close to penetrating the all encompassing darkness. Several scientists scuttled about, immersed in their own problems. At the end of the platform were several viewing telescopes that were powerful enough to peer into the monstrous space.
Dr. Halsey strode to a hastily erected pressure building. The Spartan and Corporal Whol took up posts at the entrance. Once inside, she unlocked her helmet and pulled it off of her head. The "air" outside was not breathable. It was something resembling a vacuum, although trace amounts of some unknown element was present.
She downloaded the preliminary reports onto her glasses. The next hour was spent sifting through reports. The findings, even this early, were incredible. The planet was, in short, a gargantuan nanotech construction facility. Built by the Forerunner, there certainly had to be more drifting around in the galaxy. Many operations had been put on hold in order to find and capture as many of these floating factories as possible. Letting the covenant get their claws on one was explicitly out of the question.
The scientists had seen all there was too see literally minutes after the first telescopes had been brought down. The cavern was empty. Devoid of life, objects, even dust. The perfect nanotech working space. The main scientific push at this point was to find the control room. Several smaller hollowed out mountains were at this moment being searched by marines assisted by ONI scientists.
Once the control room was found, work could begin on finding out just how to work this planetary machine. When and if they got this nanotech factory working, they could delve into its secrets, secrets that could almost immediately make all threats posed by Covenant weaponry virtually nonexistent.
___________________________________________________________
A white coated scientist huddled over a microscope, watching with barely contained excitement as electrons attracted to each other and bonded. Bit by bit, atom by atom. The samples taken from both holding tanks were doing their jobs, unimpeded by lying dormant for millennia. Ever so slowly, an object began to form. The scientist sat riveted to the eyepieces for almost two hours. Finally, sleep overtook his excitement, and he left the electron microscope for the safety of his bed, five feet away from his workstation. When he awoke in the morning, he would have something amazing for Doctor Halsey.
_________________________________________________________
Fire team Charlie was on yet another mission. After two weeks of fruitless searches for the control room, this tunnel had the least promising look. After descending elevator shaft after elevator shaft, they had come upon a corridor that stretched for kilometers. Worn out and weary, they had been most surprised when they discovered the end of the corridor. The walls pulled away, and the ceiling stretched higher and higher above them. The massive door that stood in their way seemed to be the answer they were looking for. As the lieutenant approached the door, a green light pulsed and chimed softly. Slack jawed; he reached for his mike and keyed it.
"HQ, this is Fire team Charlie. We've found it."
__________________________________________________________
Colonel Heines stood on a raised platform and watched the hustle and bustle around him. Lab coats blurred around him, electronics sparked and warmed to life, he blocked out the commotion and concentrated his attention outside the enormous bay window that dominated the front of the control room. Even though there was nothing to look at, it was still beautiful. The vast emptiness reminded him of being on a warship in the deep of space.
"Ok, I think we got it! Translation algorithms up! Here we go..." the flurry of motion seemed to halt all at once. The spotlights were turned off, and now the only lighting in the large room was the glow of the holographic Forerunner controls.
"All right, let's see...." The scientist looked first at Dr. Halsey, and then at Heines. "What...what should I tell it to make?"
Heines turned around to face the man. "What are the options?"
"Well, this facility seemed to be geared mainly toward shipbuilding...though I can make virtually anything I tell it to."
The Colonel turned back toward the window and clasped his hands behind his back. "Let's tell it to make a space fighter."
"Ok, translating...entering data....done." The scientists looked up from his display. "Nanoconstruction commencing....now."
Everyone became deadly silent as a subtle blue glow enveloped the huge space. A space opened in the "ceiling" of the cavern, and the optics built into the bay window zoomed in millions of times to show the substrate that would begin the construction process. The minute substance was drawn to the center of the room by some invisible force, and then slits opened on both sides of the cavern. A light mist sprayed into the space, one from the positively charged holding tank, one from the negatively charged one.
The mist washed over the substrate, and the optics in the window showed an object beginning to form. It began slowly at first, but then the mist became more dense and focused. The assembled scientists and guards looked on in absolute wonder as layer after layer of solution formed around the growing object. And then the object began to gyrate and twist so more of the substrate formed on certain places. And gradually a shape began to emerge. Other slits in the walls of the cavern opened up, disgorging different solutions to form the different components of the craft. The process began to speed up, and the object grew increasingly complex.
The slack jawed wonder turned into downright drooling envy as the mists finally slowed, then halted completely. The blue glow in the chamber brightened, and the finished product was bathed in a cleansing light. The Forerunner space fighter was one of the most alien looking ships the assembled crowd had ever seen. The nose of the fighter was needle sharp, which formed into a sleek looking low slung cockpit. The wings curved gently forward and down, and looked as if they could be used in atmospheric conditions as well as space. The body of the ship was very aerodynamic, yet seemed large enough to house a formidable array of weaponry. The tail arched gracefully up at a slight angle. Behind the tail, where the exhaust should be...there was nothing. In fact, it looked as if the fighter had no engine at all.
The fighter rotated in the void, and drifted toward one of the many protruding platforms. It set down on one devoid of scientific equipment. After a few moments of silence, the scientists seemed to snap out of their trance. Several flat out took off back down the tunnel, their escorts jogging after them. Colonel Heines turned and slowly made his way back to the elevator shafts. HQ definitely needed to know about this right away.
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