The Exiles:A New Power

The Concordat

Some weeks had passed since the UNSC Forces had set up camp on the planet below. All the while, the fleet itself maintained a continuous patrol pattern as not to wake up with Covenant jumping in after them. While the Admiral was aware that the Covvies with their advanced Slipspace drives would've gotten here days or even weeks ahead of'em, it paid to be precautious about the possibility of your old enemy returning from the pits of hell to finish you and your people off.

He sighed, looking at the desert-covered orb below them. The ships were currently stationed in geosynchronous orbit above the twilight zone of the world, so they could clearly see the dark area as well. Faint lights glowed in the clouds near the equator of the plan, where the UNSC research division had set up a base of operations to study this new AI, Latana, and the secrets of the Concordat.

He eyed a report from the Doctor and her Research and Development teams down below. Thumbing the tablet to turn it off, he stood to his feet and walked up to the reinforced windows of the Supercarrier's bridge, his mind asking the sea of stars ahead countless questions to which he would hopefully receive answers from down below. He hummed, then said, "Latana, status of the fleet?"

"At one hundred percent, sir," The AI replied, "Slipspace drives have been ready to go for two weeks, now. Science and exploration crews have also mapped local stars and provided coordinates for multiple areas of interest."

He sighed. He'd spent too much time worrying about below. Turning to her, he ordered, "Tell the Prowlers in the fleet to depart. Random jumps and keep stealth on. Cole Protocol remains applicable in regards to the location we are currently at. Our fleet's going to need to keep itself on the down-low, no matter where we are..." He sighed, again, then turned to face the windows, "Speaking of. Any theories from our eggheads?"

"Various, ranging from a Slipspace anomaly that caused us to slingshot to a different galaxy straight to the wacky, like being in another universe, sir," She replied. With a flick of her wrist, she brought up the numbers on one screen in front of the Admiral, then stated, "I ran some calculations in regards to the possibilities and... Well, as you can see, they're all equally likely."

"You're telling me it's possible we're in some godforsaken alternate universe?" He inquired, "If yes, why haven't we jumped to the Earth of this universe? Why haven't we just... I don't know, emerged near home? And just what sent us here, if that's the case? That anomaly hadn't been there before, had it?" And all he got as an answer was a shake of the head. The man sighed deeply, then rubbed his face.

This was going to be a clusterfuck to parse through. He could just feel it. "I understand..." He replied dejectedly, then thumbed his datapad. May as well get to reading the other R&D Reports that the doctor had been leaving. Plopping himself down into his seat with the tablet in hand, he added, "Tell the Prowlers to report directly to the Moscow. Every single detail of their system-wide scans."

"Understood, sir. Already relayed. Prowler ships are heading out in various directions as we speak and preparing to exit the system," She replied, then hummed and said, "I have a feeling we may be facing a lot of work in the coming few months, sir. I just got a new package of data from the planet and have sent it straight to the lab, but if the Doctor's writings are to be believed...? We may have access to a semi-sizable database of alien technology stored within the Monolith."

"... Prepare a rundown for me. When is the doctor coming back aboard?" He inquired, standing up.

"She should be on her way for her break. The devices she inquired about in her report are being requisitioned from storage for her lab," The AI replied. She then pulled up several holoscreens around her and started parsing through the information. Outside, in the darkness, they could see the winking lights of Prowler engines departing for the dark void beyond. The sun of the system shined to the left of the warship.