“Captain,” says Commander Hayes as he enters the bridge, moving closer to Samuel before saluting. The cast on his arm was removed recently. Modern science could cure broken bones in just a couple of days. He was thankful, as with the technology of this world, it would have taken months before his arm became useful again.

  “Commander,” Samuel salutes back before continuing. “How well did our guest take the news?” As soon as he lowered his arm, Ethan passed forward a datapad which Irons quickly skimmed through.

  Shaking his head, he replied, “Not well, Sir. She thinks we are all delusional.” At first, he was against this—trying to get the cooperation of a criminal—but once it was expined to him, he realized her importance. Learning that, Ethan tried his best to maintain cohesion at the base, working to alleviate the burden from the Captain’s shoulders, but it was a lot more difficult than he had anticipated. With no enemies around, everyone was just on edge, worried about what was to come.

  Irons shrugged, “I don’t bme her. But the sooner we get her to agree, the better.” Scrolling through the datapad, he saw a significant jump in personnel getting into fights and breaking the rules. There was even a report about a pirate radio station commandeering one of the highband emergency channels. Samuel just shrugged and set it aside as he had something far more important in mind. “Lieutenant, connect me to the Icarus. I need to speak to our ONI officer.”

  Lieutenant Commander Price’s fingers danced over the communication console, bouncing their signal to an overhead satellite before it finally reached Mars. “Connection established, Captain.” Nathan smiled, proud of that. ‘Icarus’ was his. There were numerous other suggestions for the mothership’s new name, but eventually, they stuck with that one—a fitting name for a vessel that lost its jump drives.

  Soon, Lieutenant Kane’s image appeared on one of the bridge monitors. “Captain, I wasn’t expecting your call so soon.” She was scheduled to make a final report regarding the ship, though they truly found nothing—no traps, no aliens, no pathogens, nothing. Once Calliope was able to take hold of environmental controls, she made a thorough sweep of the ship’s entirety numerous times just to be sure.

  “It’s okay, Lieutenant, this is about something different.” He paused and tried to formute his words in his head. “Not long ago, Calliope told me about her progress with the Icarus. And hopefully soon, it’ll be fully operational and we’ll have a mobile shipyard to work with. But as you can imagine, even if we could make more ships, the Prometheus only has enough people to man a dozen frigates.”

  Era nodded in agreement. If they truly had been sent to the past, they could utilize resources more efficiently and create better ships. However, without the proper numbers, it would be a very small fleet, not enough to turn the tide.

  “Lieutenant, I’m calling to discuss what to do with Professor Reed. I know we don’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to her, but in order to prepare against the threats out there, we will need more people. To fill up our ranks and train more sailors for our ships, we’ll need someone who is an expert in culture to train envoys that we would send out. Her expertise is a lot more useful to us right now, instead of being thrown in a jail cell for stealing some files from an organization that doesn’t exist yet."

  Kane was a bit irked by that statement. ONI operatives were known to work so deep in the shadows that, at times, they continued to work even when their mission was no longer valid. Even with all the evidence showing her that ONI no longer existed, Era simply refused to acknowledge it. “Why are you telling me this, Captain?”

  “I want your approval on this, as she is your prisoner.” Not wanting to enforce his authority like before, he continued, “And even with the stigma of being a member of ONI, I want to trust you and in return, please trust us.”

  “Of course they had to send a message to the capital!” Annoyed, Encai groaned as he pondered what to do next. The cargo ship carrying the letter had long sailed away. Even if he ordered the fastest ship to intercept it, it would reach Sri Lanka before the vessel was ready to sail. He groaned even louder, grumbling all the while.

  “Your Grace, according to Maester Lluden, a trip from here to the center of the African continent would take about three months, maybe more,” reported Scribe Yuvan.

  Encai rubbed his hand thoroughly against his face, trying to contain his anger. Three months. That was far too long for his liking. If he postponed this, however, he’d be in even more trouble. It would take about a month and a half for the letter to arrive home. Assuming the Order dismissed Maester Seykins’ findings, they should receive a reply in the same time frame. However, if his discoveries sparked fervor within those old men, the Emperor would hear about it, and not long after, an Inquisitor would be on the way.

  If they found out that he did not do anything, he’d be audited and branded as incompetent or a coward. Nobles were only second to the Maesters in terms of knowledge and intellect. The first aristocrats were envoys, ordered by their forefathers to learn more of the outside world. Those who accomplished this task were granted nobility and tasked to ensure what they had learned would bring a boon to the empire.

  As the empire hungered for new cultures and knowledge, more and more envoys were sent out, bringing back fauna and flora, terraforming entire isnds to mimic faraway nds in order to learn more. It was a golden age… until the aristocrats realized that new envoys were a threat to their power. They used their positions within the nobility to block any new expeditions, even attempting a coup. The Empire, like all the rest, had ‘growing pains,’ and once those were culled, only people with a direct connection to royal blood became nobles.

  Nowadays, nobles are the ones sent whenever there is a new discovery, to either try to understand it or to establish new ties with a newly found civilization. A bargaining chip or a repceable pawn. Perhaps even a casus belli if Encai is lucky. Maesters are simply far too valuable for such tasks.

  “Prepare for an expedition,” he says in the most ckluster voice. It means provisions for at least six months. Doing the math in his head, it’ll be a convoy of about a hundred and fifty people, with about forty of those being warriors and the rest auxiliary units, servants, and other noncombatants. This includes animals—horses and pack mules to carry them around, their luggage, or emergency rations if need be.

  The terrain is perilous, and even with their best maps, the roads are barely established, meaning they’ll have to cut through jungles and cross open pins without any ndmarks. Towns to resupply at are few and far between; this journey would be a total nightmare.

  Scribe Yuvan makes a note of this on her clipboard as Encai mutters to himself. He remembers seeing a wheeled machine back in the capital. If only the Empire would open up their boratories, perhaps he could cut his travel time to mere weeks. What’s the point of hoarding knowledge if all you ever do is keep it to yourself? Tinkering with the best science under their mountain while the people of the inner provinces are still living in rural farming vilges.

  “Have the Captain of the Guard choose my escort.” He groans as he can feel his coffers getting lighter by the second. “I also need to prepare people to maintain this territory while I’m away.” A steward, a chancellor, a casteln, a bailiff, and various other advisors and officials. This is turning into a further headache. Luckily for him to get this all ready would take some time. “Am I missing anything else?”

  “General Athos asks if one of his knights be allowed to come along as an observer, Your Grace.”

  Taken aback by this, he asks himself, "He knew?" But then again, if one knew how their system works, one could easily deduce what would most likely happen next. “Who is he sending?”

  “Ser Ianor, Your Grace.”

  “The Marksman…” Encai shook his head. Though he highly doubted the old man would send someone to kill him, having someone of Ser Ianor’s skill could prove useful. “Anything else?”

  “Maester Seykins also wishes to send one of his students to follow along and act as your scribe during this expedition, Your Grace.”

  “Huh, what if I like this new scribe more?” Encai teased.

  “Your reputation is already so low, Your Grace, I doubt any additional rumors about you would make a difference.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “This is insane.” For the past few days, more and more locals had gathered inside the walls. Although security was not really affected by this, as the warriors were keeping their side of the base well organized, there were so many. Even animals were now brought into the mix, with the locals already setting up pens for them. Professor Reed only now realized the changes they had made to history by just helping others.

  “And here I thought you would be thrilled about this,” Major Rodriguez said. He was briefed about this not long after they returned from their previous excursion. He didn’t really understand it; that’s what smart people are for. But everyone in this base had lost family, and with Earth about to get its fair share of gssing, this time travel shenanigans might possibly be their deus ex machina.

  “Living in the past and learning more about it is a historian’s dream, but our very presence here is altering its course, making everything I know worthless by the minute,” Olivia retorted. She disliked uncertainty. History was fun to learn about because it was rarely changed, and the facts had already been verified and recorded by intellectuals of the past.

  “Just think of it as a new chapter, and you are in the front seat to watch it,” Victor smiled at the doctor before an ODST leaned to his side, whispering. He quickly turned his attention, seeing the Captain and the rest of the senior staff making their way closer while riding a Warthog. Victor quickly signaled all the Helljumpers to regroup on him, pcing themselves in evenly spaced rows and columns before the vehicle stopped before them.

  Chief Kasongo Nyembo watched the warriors cd in bck crisply salute in unison as an older gentleman dressed in white stepped out of the vehicle. Their Chieftain, he thought to himself. Seeing a thousand great warriors revere this lone man made him feel intimidated. Initially, he wanted to increase their number inside the walls. He was desperate for a dialogue. His pride would not let him appear weak. He thought going through the camp’s supplies would finally let them meet their leader.

  But it didn’t work. Even with Prometheus’ dwindling resources, a couple hundred more people wouldn’t have made much of a dent considering how much supplies the vessel carried. With the looming threat just outside the walls, endangering their nd, the Chieftain had no choice but to act, even if it meant swallowing his pride and earning the ire of his people.

  A table was set up under a lone tent in the middle of the field. On one side sat the ODSTs, armed with their battle rifles. On the other side, the tribesmen’s encampment bustled with women, children, and warriors standing about in disarray. Kasongo’s advisors still disapproved of him seeking a favor from an ODST to meet the Captain.

  “Professor Reed, gd you could make it. I hear you’re our transtor today? I understand even our native speakers are having trouble,” Irons said, affixing his hat onto his head as he surveyed the other camp.

  “I speak twenty-three nguages, ‘Admiral’. But shouldn’t we be... I don’t know, trying to find a way back rather than... whatever this is? This is ridiculous,” Irons still preferred to be called Captain out of tradition, though he reluctantly accepted a different title for the negotiations. higher positions after all meant strength.

  Samuel shook his head as they approached the table. Irons sat down, waiting for the tribesmen to send their representative, while Olivia positioned herself in a chair to the side, ensuring she could hear both parties clearly to transte.

  “It's mostly because we can’t, Professor. Our best theory is to replicate the event that brought us here, but that means capturing a Covenant Syfon-pattern assault carrier. Prometheus simply isn't equipped for that,” Samuel expined. Amidst the crowd, Irons spotted their Chieftain making his way towards the tent, fnked by two warriors. Samuel rose and extended his hand to shake Kasongo’s, with Reed interpreting the gesture.

  Soon, both leaders sat down for the discussion.

  _____________________________________________________________

  Transtion is going smoothly. She didn't know why she tried such a brute force method before. Using media left in the hard drives, she tried to make sense of their nguage, running it through the Covenant transtion program, but those came up empty. There are tons of archives in the ship’s systems, but she doesn't know what all of them mean, figuring things out mostly through context clues.

  Perhaps it was because she was too busy? With dumb AIs slowly coming online, she can now give full attention to her primary task. She wondered at first why the Admiral had Apollo make them instead of her—did he not trust her? Later, she realized it was because the other construct was bored. Trapped in a beached ship, barely able to do anything.

  Still, the dumb AIs proved useful and began handling minor operations onboard the Icarus. That’s when she realized she was doing this the wrong way altogether. This vessel had an AI of its own at one point, meaning she could have just used its logs to learn. It took about a month, but eventually, there was a breakthrough. She celebrated by throwing a Warthog out of the airlock.

  It's out there right now, floating in space. She learned how to access the ship’s foundry and uploaded UNSC schematics into its database to see whether it could build using UNSC specifications. As a trial run, she constructed a Warthog, which she accidentally bumped with one of the crane arms, sending it hurtling out of the ship. At its current speed and trajectory, it would become a mangled mess once it crash-nded on Mars. Whoops.

  But now the real work begins. She orders resource harvesters and mobile refineries to begin mining mineral-rich asteroids. She makes note of any heavenly bodies supposed to be discovered during this era, ignoring those rocks for now as she doesn’t want the astronomers back on Earth to cause a ruckus.

  Some of these machines are also sent to Mars, nding near rich ore deposits. She needs to build up the Icarus’ storage hold, making sure it's all prepped and ready once the Admiral decides to make more ships. Technically, she could build ships now, go rogue, take the Icarus for herself, keep every system aboard fully automated by AIs, build her own armada, and conquer the gaxy!

  But as, the seven-year limit of an AI would make such a fantasy pretty short-lived. Sighing, she now has to do the tedious task of redesigning every control surface on the ship, ripping out the old ones and installing UNSC-compliant control boards. The engineers would have to deal with most of that; she would just make the consoles in the foundry once the blueprints become avaible.

  Although maybe she should repce the missing docking bay door first.