Everything is Fair in Love and War

Chapter 7 - Into the Gate

1800 May 13 2010 [Local Calendar]
Captured Confederate Battlecrusier
Dark space ~ 15LY from Earth

I had all of the refugees stamped as part of a medical exam that I had my men perform. With this I had 825 unnamed mainly tier 1 captures with a handful of tier 2 mixed in. Then there was this:

QUEST!
RESCUE FROM OUTER SPACE!
A NEW FORM OF THREAT IS HERE TO DEAL WITH THE INHABITANTS OF EARTH! SAVE AS MANY AS YOU CAN!
SAVE THE MAIN CAST OF HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD:
TAKASHI KAMURO - 1/1
REI MIYAMOTO - 1/1
SEAKO BUSUJIMA - 1/1
SAYA TAKAGI - 1/1
KOHTA HIRANO - 1/1
SHIZUKA MARIKAWA - 1/1
ALICE MARESATO - 1/1
BONUS OBJECTIVES!
SAVE SHIDOS GROUP:
YUUKI MIKU - 1/1
TSUNODA - 1/1
KUROKAMI - 1/1
MIURA - 1/1
TANIUCHI - 1/1
KAWAMOTO - 1/1
SAVE THE TAKAGI ESTATE SURVIVORS:
SOUICHIRO TAKAGI - 1/1
YORIKO TAKAGI - 1/1
CIVILIANS - 825
SAVE RIKA MINAMI - 1/1
SAVE SARAH KERRIGAN - 1/1
REWARDS - POCKET APARTMENT(x2)
BONUS REWARDS - SWEET HOME(x2), LIFE'S A BEACH, 1 CREDIT FOR EVERY 5 UNNAMED CIVILIANS SAVED(+165 CREDITS)

With this, I just got myself a pocket world, how the hell did that happen?

THE BEGINNING OF YOUR POCKET WORLD IS A REWARD FOR YOU BECAUSE OF HOW QUICKLY YOU ADAPTED TO A CHANGED ENVIRONMENT AND YOUR INGENUITY IN DEALING WITH A DIFFICULT SITUATION.
-ARCHDEITY OF ETERNITY

...
...
...
Well, there are many sayings about giving a gift horse an in depth dental exam, or more accurately not to.
I quickly dish out some extra credits for some additional stuff for my pocket dimension. 50 for an expansion, there's not much in the way of air space for larger ships with just Life's a Beach, but now we have plenty of room.

0800 May 14 [Local Calendar]
Pocket Dimension

While my ships were still sorting some things out, I decided to take a lay of the land in my dragon form so I could get a bird's eye view and see what to do with the land I now administer. Unfortunately I can't just spawn a city in here, I might be able to do so when I'm purchasing a new expansion, but not on land that is already there. That led me down a rabbit hole but ultimately I came to a realization.
Starcraft has modular housing, or at the very least simple cost effective housing. It was mainly made apparent by the Agrian colonists in the Starcraft 2 campaign when they moved to a new planet, most notably on Haven where they had been there at most a few months but more realistically probably only about six weeks and they had a large number of housing units strewn around.
And guess what database I have now. With my officially claiming the battlecruiser, the company's catch-a-ride ensured that, with the exception of structural and cosmetic damage which was even now being dealt with by a team of Huragok, it would be brought up to the standards of the company. Meaning that I now have the complete Terran database at my disposal.
Looking over I do note that the Space Port currently has two large landing pads, it would probably be best to set up the housing on the far side of the port so that when the ships are needed we can launch them pretty easily. Perhaps I could build a UNSC style barracks for a police station and assign a platoon or two from the Full Moon's marines at least until the civilians get on their feet.
Nodding to myself at my current objectives, quickly I shift my wings and glide 15 kilometers in what should be a northern direction, it's hard to tell in a demiplane with no real poles to use for magnetic navigation. As I coast along a gentle air current, I eventually watch the grasslands give way to a brief stint of cliffs, bluffs, and sand before quickly passing over open ocean. Flapping my wings a few times, I'm surprised at how relaxing it feels to stretch like this.
Before long I see my destination. An island is sat amongst the blue, circling the island it looks like two slightly ovoid shapes placed wide side together forming a distorted figure eight. The interior of the island has many cliffs that rise high into the sky, as well as some lower natural paths through the cliffs leading to three separate open areas large enough a pelican could land rather easily. One of these openings has a concrete platform that extends off towards an arch leading onto a cliff overlooking the beach that leads up to a cliff side house that looks suspiciously like the houses that you run through at the beginning of Halo Reach.
My own private island, and I basically have the Combat Evolved multiplayer map Death Island only without all of the forerunner buildings and whatnot. I alight on the concrete landing pad before I shift back into my human form and walk down the paved path to my home.
Walking along the cliff I can look out over the blue water that extends from the west side of my island. I smile at the calming sound of waves crashing against stone as I step onto the wooden semicircle platform extending out over the beach that is the porch for my house. Looking into the blue one more time I turn and head inside, sliding the curved door to the side as I step into the circular building.
This living room area looks rather homely, warm, and inviting. Far better than anything I could come up with myself. As I walk further in, I walk behind a couch that is facing a TV that's placed against the right wall. To my left is a kitchen with an island surrounding one of the supporting pillars, the cupboards were a dark gray and had a beautiful white marble countertop. Walking even deeper in I find a door that leads into another circular room that seems to be built into the cliff face itself, at regular intervals around the room are more doors, stepping into one I find myself in a bedroom that is rather bare but looks move in ready. The lack of windows is probably a fire code violation but this is a pocket dimension, who cares?
Nodding to myself again, pleased with what I've found out, I pop out of existence here and return to the new ship.
———
Reappearing on the bridge of the battlecruiser, I step forward into the hive of activity that has come now that I've had a chance to get the cloning system operating. "Alright, talk to me. How are we doing?" I ask the open air looking around.
The central terminal lit up with orange holographic light as a woman stood there. Her fiery orange hair hung down to about her shoulder blades framing a peach orange face. She stood there in a jumpsuit that was reminiscent of Cortana with darker coding acting to maintain her modesty.
This was Vega, an experiment if you will. (A/n: If you want a reference image, search "Vega conflict ai", this character is an oc and I am just using her image as a reference.)
After we had gotten to safety and had had a chance to stand down for a few hours, I decided to have a chat with Cortana as she was a wellspring of information. In that conversation I had a thought. In Halo: First Strike, Cortana came into contact with a Covenant AI that made use of a duplication program, which she stole. To my knowledge she should still have it, she just never used it because of the fact that cumulative errors would lead to corruption, and guess what defense I got not so long ago. After asking her about it she confirmed that she did in fact have the code, and after some more discussion we decided to try it.
Vega is a rather sterilized copy of Cortana, she is not quite as humanized as Cortana, but that's the point of the experiment, to see if she can develop her own personality matrix. For now though she's little more than a UNSC "dumb" AI like Dot from Reach or Virgl from ODST. Capable of giving information and coordination, but highly lacking in complex problem solving and other skills that would push her into the realm of a "smart" AI.
"Sir, the ship is ready to move on your order." The AI reported in a voice with very little inflection.
"Very good, hail the Full Moon." Without any kind of verbal acknowledgment the comms system activated. "Full Moon, this is Sierra 104. Serina, it's about time to land. I'll take this one in first, after 90 minutes you follow us in. You should be able to instinctively know how to access the pocket dimension. I say again, give us a nine-zero minute head start. How copy? Over."
"Sierra 104, this is Full Moon. That's a solid copy, wait nine-zero minutes and then follow you in. Full Moon out."
Nodding once again, I focus. I can feel my connection to the pocket world and with a tug and a force of will, I drag myself and the ship across the divide. "Vega, take the helm. Guide us to the smaller of the two landing areas." I say, staring out the window. The feeling of this is far different from the feeling of flying over the land myself. Not bad, just different. "Cortana, be prepared in the event that Vega needs assistance."
Thankfully it wasn't necessary, Vega landed the ship with textbook efficiency. "Begin offloading SCVs, have them begin construction of civilian housing one kilometer past the space port structure. Tell them that they have the liberty to get creative with the designs so long as structures are sound, and won't fall apart if you sneeze too hard." I order, turning from the main view screen.
Walking through the corridors of my new ship, I head towards the main cargo bay in the belly of the ship. As I walk I eventually become aware that I have a shadow. "Can I help you, Sarah?"
Over the past few days Kerrigan had taken to following me around and observing me, if I had to guess I'd say that it'd probably be something along the lines of her wanting to get a feel for me. After I had explained the stamp to her and had told her about the situation I was in she had let me stamp her, probably thinking that she could fight off any negative effects of the stamp.
Her response however made me pause. "I want to help you on the ground in your next jump."
Stopping in my tracks I turn to look at her. "Any particular reason?"
"No." Was all she had to say about that.
Nodding, I turn and continue my walk. "I was considering taking a team with me at the beginning anyway." I say as I exit the corridor onto a narrow catwalk in a massive and cavernous space. I lean against the railing and look down at the activity below me. Crates of materials were being moved around and the refugees were gathering what few belongings they had. I could see, amongst the throng, a head of pink hair that was in close proximity to a head of lavender locks. They appeared to be talking animatedly with an older couple who looked stern.
"Who were you going to take with you?" Kerrigan asked as she stepped up to my left, pulling my attention back to her.
"I had the Chief and Noble Six sorted, with either asking you or Doppel to be our fourth." I reply.
"Aw." A dejected voice came from my right. To the surprise of neither me nor Kerrigan, Kasumi uncloaked, leaning her back against the railing looking at me. "What? Are you already tired of me?" She asked in a tone that was just sarcastic enough that I wasn't sure if she was actually hurt by it or if she was just being her regular petulant self.
"No Kasumi." I say, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her so that our right hips were pressed together. Looking her in the eye I continue. "I will never be tired of you. It's just that the situation in that world will be highly militarized, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable or put you in a position where your sticky fingers will get yourself or the rest of us in trouble. Not yet at least." I say before giving her a brief kiss.
"I- I see..." She was so easy to tease if you knew what buttons to press. For instance she didn't really care about anyone showing appreciation for her body. Slap her ass and you get your dick groped in the middle of the mall... I know this from experience, but once you get into anything romantically intimate in a public setting she turns into this blushing mess. It's absolutely adorable. "Well if that's the only reason then I guess it's alright for me to be benched." She said with a beautiful blush on her face.
Kissing her again, I release her and turn back to Kerrigan, giving Kasumi the moment that she needed to cloak and escape. Kerrigan had a conflicted expression on her face, like she was jealous but she didn't want to admit it. From what I knew about her life she had only been in a relationship with Raynor for a few months at the most and must be trying to stay true to him while her stamp was changing her feelings about me. "So, do you think that you could follow my orders in the field?" I ask her, deciding to let her sort through her own emotions.
The focus returned to her eyes as she stood to attention and snapped a salute. "Yes sir."
"Very good, could you please get Six and the Chief and meet me outside in two hours?" I ask the ghost.
Giving me a nod, she pivots on her heel and walks away, leaving me to stew over how I'm going to handle the next jump.
———
The two hours had passed and a few things had been taken care of. Firstly I spent three whole credits to get the paper trail for Sarah, Six, and the Chief. Modifying the paper trail to match the story I came up with was easy, running it by Cortana to make sure it was airtight? Not so much. That took up an hour and a half.
Our new backgrounds were that I, Commander Frederic Drake, the Chief, Master Chief Petty Officer Joan Gray, and Noble Six, Lieutenant Seni Noble, are all part of a NAVSPECWAR program called Project Orian. The program was designed to create the next generation of special forces using experimental chemical augmentation. The program was a failure and we three were the only successful participants.
Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan was also the survivor of a sister program called Project Ghost that was more focused on training people for the CIA and other intelligence agencies for assassination and deep cover assignments.
After both programs were deemed to be failures all staff, research materials, and left over augments were killed and lost in a fire that was subsequently covered up by the US government as most of the research and experiments were extremely illegal to the United Nations.
All four of us had been reassigned to Stargate Command so that any backlash from our status being divulged could be explained away as us being humans from another world.
Truth be told the loss of all materials was rather flimsy but we couldn't find any better solution, and besides that the paper trail only rewrote memories, and documentation both digital and physical.
Once Serina landed, I took the three women and flew them to our private island. When we got there we found the house just as I had left it earlier this morning.
"Okay, so here's the story." After taking all of five minutes to fill them in on the closest thing to the truth that we could share. "Alright, any questions?"
The now officially named Seni raised her hand. "Uh yeah, the hell is Stargate Command?"
"Excellent question, one that I probably shouldn't answer. It's classified as top secret. Need to know. You know the drill Si- Seni... damn that's going to take some getting used to." I say, pointing to her and whispering my last comment to myself. "Anything else?"
Looking around the table all I see is a group that was ready to move on and get this job started.
"Alright, prepare to jump."