Samuel's Story

April 10th, 2550, 23:03:19.

The 5th of November silently cut through slipspace, maintaining its speed as it shot through the galaxy. The bridge was silent, dark, and dusty. Thick clumps of dust floated through the air of the bridge. To save energy, the artificial gravity had been deactivated. In fact, most of the ships devised had been deactivated to conserve power for the engines as they propelled the ship through slipspace. The blast-shield's were lowered to prevent any space debris from breaking the class. Even the ships AI, Samuel had been put into a state of hibernation. The only light in the entire bridge was the lights of a digital clock on the main console. 1:4:20:19:10 read the number. It was the time until the crew was to be woken when they arrived to earth.

Suddenly, the clock's digits spun until they locked in place, and stopped. 1:4:20:00:00 Then suddenly it changed again. 1:4:00:00:00 Once more, the clock spun, and locked in place. 0:00:00:00:00 The bridge suddenly came to life once again. The gears of the blast-shield's turned, and lifted the heavy metal plates off the glass. The control panels lite up, and the low hum of electricity zipped through the ship, and the engines started to hum deeper and deeper as they slowed through the slipspace rift. Finally, the rupture split open and allowed the ship to normal space.

The cryo-deck was frozen solid. The entire room was freezing cold, filled with a total of 20 cryo tubes. Only 19 of the tubes were being used. The deck's lights lit up, and the high pitched hiss of the cryo chambers heating up filled the room. Inside the captains chambers, stood a single cryo tube. Inside the tube was the captain, Andrew Spaar. 'Activating wake up programs.' Stated the ships computer system. Inside the tube, Spaar took a deep breath.

From inside Captain Write's room, her own tube hissed to life. Allowing her to take her first breaths... It was as if, the ship itself started to breath once more.

Andrew's eyes were heavy. After being in cryo for a month, the hardest step of waking up was opening your eyes. After a moment, Andrew opened his eyes with a deep sigh he looked around the tube, and found the release. Unlike the other tubes, Andrews tube was down flat on the ground. Because of back problems he had ordered it that way, because the stress of staying on it for months could cause further damage to his back. The best logical answer was to lie the tube flat, so while in cryo his back didn't worsen.

With a grumble and a sigh, Andrew popped the window of the cryo tube, and lifted himself out of it. Slowly he turned his neck to crack it both ways. Cryo Protocol... He thought to himself as he checked each joint in his body. Legs, check. Thighs, check. Chest, check. Shoulders, check. Hands, check. Knuckles, check. He looked up once, then down once, then checked from side to side. From his cryo tube Andrew walked to his closet, putting on his uniform in no time.

Both of the captains chambers were connected to the bridge, so both of the captains could arrive within moments of being needed. After lasing up the final straps in his boots, Andrew unlocked the airlock to the bridge. Taking slow steps through the door, still trying to adjust to being awoken, Andrew walked through the seemingly endless airlock. Finally, he reached the end. After typing in his authorization code, the airlock slid open with a soft hiss. Taking his first step into the bridge, the lights, consoles, monitors, and projectors lit up.

The bridge itself was relatively large, based on the size of the ship. It was a large octagon-shaped room, with a massive sphere of plexiglass at one end to see outside the ship. Stretching into the sphere was a triangular-shaped cat walk, which hung over the bottom part of the glass sphere. A large panel was in the center of the triangle, which acted as the command station with 4 other stations surrounding it.

Walking through the command station, Andrew cracked his neck once more before reaching the station. 2 spherical contacts straddled the middle of the station that glowed a light blue on the edges. Placing his hands on both contacts, Andrew spoke loudly with a deep firm voice. "This is captain Andrew Spaar, ID# 2345/B3. Activate AI unit-01, and run a ship-wide diagnostic"

After a moment, the console responded. Welcome, Capt. Spaar. Initializing AI unit-01, designated 'Samuel'. Ship diagnostics report: Engines, stabilized. Shields, online. M.A.C, online. Outer defenses, online. Cryo deck's, awakened Comuni-

Andrew touched his hands to the contacts again to shut the computer up. "What is our location?" The computer was silent for a long moment before it replied. Unknown.

Andrew was confused. How did the computer wake the crew without arriving at earth? Their was one way to know. "Lower blast-shield..." Andrew muttered to himself. Slowly, the gears of the massive iron blocks turned, and lifted the shield. Where ever they were, it surly wasn't earth. The planet he was looking at was burnt red, with massive hexagon carving deep into its shape.

The computer spoke up again: AI unit-01 online. Touching his hands to the contacts again, Andrew spoke this time in a deeper more serious voice. Samuel, what planet are we looking at...?"

Samuel

Holotank Status: Online...

AI Unit-O1 Status: Booting... initializing... Online....

Avatar Status: Online...

A bright blue light pulsed from the center of the holotank before flickering and morphing into a humanoid shape. Seconds later, that humanoid shape was defined as a young man with dark hair. He wore virtualized clothing that seemed as though he was a civilian. The A.I moved his head to look up at the Captain. "Hello Captain Spaar." he greeted after being offline for so long. His words were politely spoken, which might be a little weird coming from his Avatar. But even after being off for a great while, Sameul immediately searched through the UNSC's list of known planets and looked for one that fit the planet's description. After only a few seconds, Sameul replied wtih his response to the Captain.

"I-I have checked the entirety of the UNSC's list of known planets."he began, and something was wrong with his audio. It would probably be assumed that the hibernation was the cause of this, and after some active time, the kink would fix itself. "This planet is not in that list. It would seem that this planet has not been discovered by any UNSC forces, and is therefore unknown."

Briefly, the console flickered and Samuel's avatar lost any defintion. This lasted for only about a half-second before he returned to normal.

The Spartan in blue only got a few minutes of relaxation before the Captain of the Ship's order blaired through the comms. At least the ship wasn't destroyed or otherwise disabled while they were having their beauty sleep. Conway stood himself up and stayed there for just a moment as his stomach began calming down. Damn did he hate this. Around that time, he was approached by Alex with technical issues with his helmet.

Dalton took the helmet and turned it around, glancing at the back of it. Ah, there it was. The back of the helmet. He raised his fist and hit the back lightly. "Davidson, I'm no techie. Find someone who is." Dalton ordered, though not in an annoyed or otherwise displeasant tone. Not yet at least. "After we report to the bridge." he then added as he began out the armory, taking his helmet off as he did so. Now he saw nothing with his HUD on, but rather simply, his own eyes. That was good every once in a while.

Shortly after, the third Captain arrived at the bridge with two others who had also arrived. Of course, out of them, he showed the most respect by not only raising his hand to his head in solute, but speaking calmly and professionally. "Sir." he said with his unyielding glance locked on his Captain.

---

"Yes sir." came Samuel's computerized voice in acknowledgement. Nearly instantly, the A.I found the Spartan-II's cryo tube and began the sequence to force it open. In Miranda's room came the hissing of the Cryotube as it began awakening her, finally. The A.I, after making sure the proper programs to intiate the release were running, looked to Spaar.

"Sir, the cryogenic stasis tube for Spartan AP3X, Miranda Write, is online and defrosting as requested."

Samuel

A.I's didn't ever show signs of fear, at least not due to aggression. Had that not been the case, Samuel'd probably have wetted his circuits due to the sheer boom coming from the nude Spartan's mouth. But oddly, he only heard the second demand, not the first, which is why it took him a minute to respond. There was no holotank immediatey next to Miranda, only one on the desk at the corner of the room, so Samuel worked from there, appearing in a small flash of light.

"Hello, Captain Write." came his virtualized voice. He glanced right at her. "Diagnostics show that the 5th of November is running without any malfuctions, but we have come out of hyperspace just outside of a planet not known by the UNSC's databases." he quickly summed the situation up without digressing on matters unimportant to her, nor elaborating more than he need to. She'd probably prefer the Captain's full rundown over his own.

C-C-Captain Spaar has requested that all Spartan Personnel head to the bridge and is eagerly awaiting your presence." he added with an monotone voice. "Further inquiry can be made there."

Samuel's avatar in Write's room flickered off and he now reappeared at the holotank next to Spaar.

"Captain Spaar, Captain Write shall be here shortly." he relayed. "I would take a preemptive action and think of an explaination for her before she reaches us."

Samuel

As the ship shook violently from the attack, Sam's holotank flickered and shut off temporarily, leaving them without artificial intelligence for only a brief second. When his avatar returned not even minute later, it lacked its defining feature, appearing only as the outline of the man he was supposed to be. With great distortion in his voice, he spoke. "It-it-it appears as though we have been hit." it stated, knowing this fact was obvious. "Sensors do not-not-not know what has engaged us-us-us. Please wai...."

He shut off, but didn't turn back on.



*Smack*

*ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*

While the 5th of November quaked viciously under the effect of the attack, Dalton thought himself pretty fortunate that he was wearing his armor, as something, he didn't see what, would've hit him in the head otherwise. The immediate area around him glowed bright with a golden color as the barricade between him and damage was restoring itself to full operational capacity. Dalton managed not to fall on his ass as the ship shook, either, and glanced up at his fellow, male captain. "Spaar!" he called less formal, but the situation dictated nothing less. "We're just mindless grunts until you give us something to do. Your orders?"