Contents Under Pressure, Part 1
A Fractured Story
Editor’s note: This short story takes place in a fractured canon that is unlikely to be revisited in the future. In this fracture, the Master Chief died by the hands of Chieftain Cathegus on the Ark and the Prophet of Truth successfully activated the Halo Array in December 2552. The story that follows is about a survivor.
Ibis-class freighter Contents Under Pressure
Commercial Orbit, Talitsa, Sverdlovsk system
December 25th, 2552
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate evac. Survivors aboard.
“The Master Chief is dead. The Covenant successfully activated the Halo Array on December 24th, 2552.
“If anyone is out there, please respond.”
The silence following the click of the receiver was suffocating. That transmission coming in had taken from me my last glimmer of hope. No one would be coming to save me.
On the bridge, near the co-pilot’s chair was a life support readout counting down the hours of air and warmth I had left. As a kid born and raised in space, I knew the emergency procedures for this situation: drop a beacon to make my location known, call for help over open communication channels, and ration my supplies.
I was stranded on my family's ship with a limited supply of dry goods, water and dwindling emergency power.
Mom and dad still lie where they fell in the cargo hold covered with tarps because I was both physically and psychologically unable to move them.
Hopeless, scared, and alone, I cried myself to sleep in Dad’s pilot’s chair staring at the pale blue atmosphere of Talitsa.
My family moved around a lot. After getting married, mom and dad started their courier service delivering mail between remote planet-side settlements. After two years of collecting loyal clients and expanding the operation, they had saved up for a down payment on this freighter.
Dad said it's a salvaged Ibis-class, “Mostly after market parts held together with gum and duct tape,” he used to say. “But the bones are original.”
The bottom half of the ship is all cargo space with rolling overhead doors along both sides of the belly. It hangs off the spinal corridor that reaches from nose to tail; the main through-way that connects all of the rooms of the ship as well as the claustrophobic engine and maintenance access corridors along each side. From there, the upper deck dining hall and living quarters are accessible by the stairwell at the end, opposite the cockpit in the nose.
The cockpit is complete with two pilots chairs, an array of computer terminals, and the forward facing view-port. Mom and dad spent most of their in-flight time there. So much so, in fact, that their personalities were decorated all over their respective stations. Dad had recently hung an evergreen wreath on the back of his chair, accented by red bows and silver bells wherever they wouldn’t get in the way. Mom never took down the cobwebs, rubber bats, and plastic skeletons that have been in place since summer.
The Marino family freighter was named Contents Under Pressure. Mom and dad shared that sense of humor. And with that same passion they made this place home.
I was lucky in a lot of ways. Most of the kids I knew had parents that were divorced or on their way to be. But mom and dad always loved each other and were never shy to show it.
Mom was the administrator of the family business. She made the deals, set the schedules, and managed the money. Dad was the operator; Part pilot, part mechanic. My brothers and I were basically occupants for most of our lives. Although they had both fled the nest just as I started taking on more responsibilities like keeping inventory, cleaning the living quarters, and cooking family meals.
Last month we picked up a big contract. Mom and dad were both sort of nervous about it, but I guess the money was supposed to be really good. The words, "early retirement," passed between them often, but not always with the excitement or enthusiasm you'd expect.
At first, that loading day was like any other. We took in a lot of dry goods, irukan mostly, as well as some personal items like clothes and toothpaste, medicine, and weapons. But there was also the knight.
It came in on a composite pallet, standing like some space-age knight-armor statue. It could have been seven feet tall with pale green armor plating on top of a black under-suit with a gold reflective fish-bowl visor. It was machine-lifted into the ship and when it was dropped you could hear the deck plating stress under the weight. The armor didn't fall though. It stood tall and defiant.
Mom described the knight as high-end military hardware that will probably be scrapped for parts. “All of that tech,” she explained glancing up from the cargo bay holographic terminal, “from the armor plating to the power supply on the back is very valuable. Especially in the outer colonies.”
I was told to keep away from it. That in itself is common enough whenever we transport high-value cargo, but the tone with which it was said made me think it might also be dangerous. It was supposed to be our first drop off, so we wouldn't be hauling it for very long.
Between resupplying our necessities and loading our cargo we’d been in system for about a week. Jump day was supposed to be December 23rd. I remember feeling anxious that day, like the air was full of static. And it wasn't just me. Every electronic system on the ship was throwing up errors and causing problems. Unable to get the navigation computer to cooperate, Dad had resorted to writing the slipspace calculations out by hand in his journal.
I was taking inventory to keep busy. We had picked up crates of refined Subanese crystals with this shipment. If you’ve never seen them, they are volatile and dangerous pink glass-like shards with a tendency to follow living targets and explode. Dad actually owns a few alien weapons that use the stuff as ammunition. We’d setup a firing range in cargo just to learn how these weapons worked. This was something we bonded over.
Dad walked into the cargo hold as I finished taking weight of the crystals and began speaking to Mom. “I had to do it manually, but our flight plan is punched into the …” his voice trailed off and he looked around. He looked nauseous. Mom, who was nearby coiling power cable for storage mirrored his sickly gaze as the overhead lights of the cargo bay started flickering.
The hair on my arms stood up. The lights became blindingly bright. Pins and needles crawled up my spine and into my skull. I fell over nauseous and increasingly numb. Then, all at once, the lights went out and the feeling dissipated.
It's funny how you don't notice how much the walls and floor a ship vibrate until the engine stalls and everything becomes still and quiet. It’s unsettling. Although not as unsettling as the distinct thudding sounds of bodies hitting deck plate.
Something happened. Something extremely bad. I panicked. But I couldn't move or do much of anything except cry for help until the red emergency lights kicked on moments later. At which point I saw why my parents had not responded.
I learned later that the surge was likely an indirect consequence of the Halo event. And if I'd been told that at the time, I wouldn't even know what a Halo was. But I’m sure we will come back to that later. Suffice it to say that regardless of how or why, what I knew then was that Mom and Dad were dead. It still does not seem real, but I am alone, adrift, and without power.
I'm not sure why I survived. There are theories floating around, but your guess is as good as mine.
That was yesterday. That strange mayday came in through open communication channels and I’d been listening to it loop when I fell asleep. I was startled awake six hours later by one of my dad's late twentieth century rock albums repeatedly telling me to, "Jump!" over the bridge’s public address system.
The music was so loud, and I couldn't figure out how to turn the damn thing off because all of the bridge controls didn't have power. It was so strange. But it would get stranger still.
I was leaving the cockpit for someplace quieter when I noticed the red emergency floor lights were pulsing; trailing away from the very chair I was sitting in and leading out the door. Curious, I followed the lights.
The music became distant and muffled as I walked along the through-way of the ship, following the red lights as they beckoned me back into the cargo bay. All of the emergency lights in cargo were dead, except for two red spotlights illuminating the nests of coiled power cabling Mom had left and a floor-mounted flood light shining up at the knight armor still standing stoic on its pallet.
What followed was a moment of dumbfounded silence. I had to be going crazy. I was stuck between wondering whether my parents were trying to help me from beyond the grave, or if the ship itself was alive.
"Hello?" I asked the stagnant air.
The red spotlights dimmed and brightened.
“Mom? Dad?”
The lights dimmed twice in rapid succession.
“Who’s there?”
The lights didn’t dim at all. Then, thinking myself crazy, “Blink once for yes, twice for no. Can you help me?”
The lights dimmed affirmatively.
I took a moment of silence to recount the events leading me here: the music, the power cables, and the knight. I recalled what my mom said during loading day and walked around the backside of the knight. At the center of the back plating below the neck and between the shoulders was what looked like a door panel. I’d bet there’s a pretty powerful battery in there.
“I need to jump start the engine.”
Again, the lights dimmed affirmatively. I leapt into action.
I admit there was some apprehension due to my total lack of electrical knowledge, but the communicative ship's emergency lights provided some guidance along that way by spotlighting connectors and flashing warnings before I hurt myself or caused a fire.
After about twenty minutes of running power cable between the engine maintenance corridors and the cargo hold, I stood there with a power cable connector in each hand looking up at that gold faced knight.
I prayed to myself, "Please work. Please work. Please…”
The sweet sound of roaring engines shook the deck again and those nauseating red emergency lights became bright with incandescence. I cried to myself, "Yes! Yes! Yes! I did it!” as I collapsed from exhilaration.
“Well, you helped.” said a voice from nowhere.
I looked up with sudden fright. “Who’s there?” I asked.
My guardian materialized upon the holographic terminal by the rolling door. Manifest in red light stood a one meter tall beautifully fierce dark-skinned woman.
“Who … are you?” I asked. “Where did you come from?”
The holographic woman looked around as if noticing the room for the first time. “I’m not even sure where I am let alone where I came from. However, my name,” she trailed off and paused to think about it. In that moment holographic garb began to blink into existence around her. Like an ancient warrior-queen she was adorned in a jewel encrusted gold collar with matching girdle atop a linen tunic. On her short cut hair rested a crown of cow horns seating a sun disk. And over her left eye she wore an unassuming cloth eye patch.
“My name is decidedly, Amani.” the hologram asserted. “What is your name?”
I stood and approached the terminal as I responded, “Sienna. Or just Si. This is my family’s ship.”
“Well,” she bowed slightly, “thank you for having me.”
We shared a moment of apprehensive laughter like the first meeting of two life-long friends.
“Excellent job, not electrocuting yourself,” Amani said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… or I will be,” I corrected myself remembering my current circumstance. “Now that the engines are running and life support is cleaning the air, all I need to do now is fly this thing someplace safe.”
“Can I help with that?” Amani asked, not as an offer, but as if questioning the possibility. Her attention was then suddenly cast over my shoulder when she asked, “Who’s your friend?”
I held my breath. Amani must have noticed because her expression turned into worry as heavy footsteps clanged on metal deck plating. I spun around to find the knight having stepped down from its pallet, suddenly animated. The thought washed over me, there’s someone in there!
And just as soon as I’d met its gaze, the knight had a mechanical grip on my shoulder with superhuman speed.
I don’t think I really understood the danger I was in until that gauntlet began to lift me off the ground. As it did so, I could see the red holographic determination of Amani reflected in the knight’s visor.
"Si, RUN!" Amani yelled, drawing back on a holographic longbow that materialized in her hands. I know now that she was animating to communicate; that the actions of the hologram mirrored whatever Amani was doing behind the curtain. When her arrow hit its mark the knight’s back plate erupted with sparks. A forceful explosion knocked the knight off balance and I fell free from its grip.
I didn’t hesitate. I sprinted for the bulkhead, passed into the through-way and closed the door behind me.
From the viewport I could see the knight. Its armor plating was shimmering uncontrollably between that sickly green and some kind of reactive camouflage. The reflectivity of its gold visor shifted in an out of transparency revealing unmistakably human eyes that were full of rage.
Who did this to you? Did Mom and Dad know?
Amani fired a second arrow, this time at the nearest overhead door. It swung open and exposed the whole bay to the vacuum of space. All of the unsecured food, weapons, and equipment rushed out the door on a gust of wind, bending and breaking the door as it passed. The knight stood their ground momentarily in defiance, but was eventually pulled out into space as well. Then, to my horror I watched my parents’ bodies follow.
There was no way to retrieve them. I wanted to scream. I probably did.
“We can’t go back in there, Si. Not until that door is repaired,” said Amani over the through-way speakers.
Red faced and teary eyed, I turned and sprinted toward the cockpit.
“What’s the plan?” Amani asked.
“Can you fly the ship?” I choked on the words.
“I can’t say for sure. This is all very new to me.”
I stopped running after entering the cockpit only to ensure the door locked behind me. I took a seat in Dad’s chair and was immediately overwhelmed by the array of buttons and holographic displays that were now alive and blinking with power. Amani shimmered into existence on a side panel. I stared for a moment at Dad’s journal sitting beside her.
“Dad already did the slipspace calculations. He probably input them into the navigational computer.”
“Uh,” Amani hesitated. “Yes! He did.”
Amani probably waited patiently for me to strap myself in. No sooner than the pilot’s harness clicked, all of space turned black and the Sverdlovsk system, the knight, and my parents were put into the rear-view mirror.
Winter-class prowler From the Ashes
Lagrange Point 4, Talitsa, Sverdlovsk system
December 25th, 2552
[NYX]
</ Mission report.</ S-G059 dropped a beacon and was promptly recovered.
</ S-G059 had been armor locked in United Rebel Front custody on Talitsa for approximately 36 hours without outside food, water, or her prescribed cyclodexione-4 and miso-olanzapine. Loss of strategic judgment, susceptibility to aggression, and psychological instability was expected.</ Upon return to From the Ashes, S-G059 had been administered food, water, medication, a psychological screening, and sixteen hours of recovery before debriefing.
</ Under normal circumstances, S-G059 would be given more time to recover from the effects of her internment before returning for duty. However, our circumstances had been far from normal.</ First, the mission objective had not been completed on Talitsa.
</ Second, while S-G059 was aboard the civilian freighter Contents Under Pressure, I sent a fragment of myself into the ship’s systems to prevent its departure. Due to unforeseen circumstances, my connection to that fragment had been severed. That fragment must be collected or decommissioned.
</ Third, we received an open transmission from the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. Of note, the string, “The Covenant successfully activated the Halo Array,” is particularly unsettling. We await further authentication and instruction from the Office of Naval Intelligence.</ S-G059 has returned to Talitsa to finish the primary objective. While dispatched she has been instructed to find information that might lead to the whereabouts of the Contents Under Pressure, which will be pursued as our secondary objective.
</ Until then, I will continue to hail ONI.</ End mission report.Image generated by Microsoft Copilot (2024).