First Contact - Part One
Posted By: Lord Spark<guiltyspark_410@hotmail.com>
Date: 5 March 2004, 12:01 AM
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Ensign Sanders was just sitting down at his moniter, for his morning shift, when the long range sensors picked up several ships headed towards Harvest. Normally this would be no cause for concern, there was alot of traffic to and from Harvest these days, but there was no sceduled transports to arive on Harvest for another two days, and certainly none of this size.
Sanders looked down at the screen again to confirm he wasn't mistaken. Ther was around two dozen ships, of large size, headed toward Harvest at high speed. He decided it was time to notify the captain.
He fliped a switch to turn on the ships com system, and then opened a line to the captain,s room. The captain didn't like being disturbed while in his room, but this was a special circumstance.
Sanders cleared his throut and said, "Captain Naper, this is ensign Sanders. I now you don't like being disturbed, but I'm picking up unscheduled ships aproaching our vecinity."
Sanders waited for a reply but none came. He was about to speak again when the captain's voice came over the com system, cutting him off.
"I'll be up in a moment ensign," said Captain Naper. "Untill then continue monitering the ships."
"Aye aye captain." Sanders switched the com system off and looked back at the screen. The ships were now five hundred kilometers away and closing. Whoever they were they were in a rush to get here.
The door the bridge opened and an elderly looking man stepped onto the bridge. At seventy three years old Captain Naper was the oldest person in charge of star ship. Some claimed he was to old to effectivly serve as captain, but even in old age his skill as a captain was only surpassed by a few men. Instead of retireing years ago, he had instead requested a transfer to the relativly peaceful Harvest system. His request had been aproved and he and his ship, The Advent Justice, had been stationed here ever since.
Captain Naper walked over to ensign Sanders and looked down at the screen. "So what have we got ensign."
"At least two dozen large scale ships, moving at high speed tooward Harvest. They are currently four hundred kilometers away. At their present speed they will arrive in one hour and forty minutes."
The captain closed his eyes for a moment before giving a reply. "Send a transmission over the UNSC encoded freqency. Those ships are way to big to be company owned cargo ships. Ask them to identify themselves, and give a reason for their unanounced visit. If their not UNSC ships then there's something strange going on."
"Aye aye captain. Sending message."
Sanders activated the long range comunication aray, then began the broad cast. "Attention unidentified ships. This is The Advent Justice. Please identify yourself, and explain your unscheduled visit, over."
After thirty seconds, when no reply came, Sanders repeated the message. When no reply came Sanders turned to the captain and said, "There not responding sir. It could be their comunication equipment is out."
"On all two dozen, I think not. If their receiving the message then their ignoring it." Captain Naper thought for a second then said, "Tell me, are they within viewing distance of scope."
"Sanders looked at the screen and said, "Yes captain, they just entered viewing distance. One moment while i position the long range camera."
The captain waited while Sanders typed in the necisary commands. "All right, that should do it."
The captain looked up at the screen just as it flicked on. What he saw took his breath away. If these were UNSC ships, they were a class he had never heard of or saw.
The ships were a bright purple colour and had a very organic look to them. The ship was shaped in a way the captain had never even thought of.
Sanders had had the same reaction to the ships as the captain had. He turned and looked at the captain, expecting him to explain it to him, but all he saw on the captains face was confusion. He turned back to the screen now very scared. He had never known the captain to look confused.
Captain Naper finally recovered himself enough to speak. "I want all personel to their stations. I don't now who those ships belong two but it certainly isn't any human ship.
As Sanders began to inform the rest of the ship's crew of what was going on he thought to himself if these weird looking ships could really belomg to an alien species. Surely not, they had to be just some top secret prototype the UNSC was working on. In his mind though he new it wasn't true. The only question was were they friendly or were they hostile.
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