Loot Crate/Transcriptions/Atriox and the Banished

The Fire's Wake

SEVERN PYLON
JACARANDA NORTH
82-B GANYMEDE
21 JUNE 2557
0550 STANDARD

CLASSIFICATION: PRIORITY ONE ALPHA

OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
AFTER ACTION REPORT Q74S296-LR

//FORWARD RECON DEPLOYMENT
//FROM: ATTENDING AI TURKISH
//URGENT//TO: DIR. H. BARTON

“THE FIRE'S WAKE”

PREMISE...

AAR snap-feed submitted by TRK 2165-0, see full report for details. Expedition to stellar coordinates near accretion disk around KORINTH PRIOR. Arrival Date JUN 8 2557 at 0221 hours MST.

First contact with anomalous debris found in orbit around K-type dwarf at 0354 hours. Commencing exploration aboard ONI prowler TAUROKADO.

Target: SPIRIT OF FIRE. APOLLO on standby.

DATA TRAWL...

0410// Initial scans show disk is composed of 94% naturally occuring materials. 4% confirmed Forerunner materials. 2% untraceable.

0419// Detritus size spans vast spectrum. 9% nearing scale of small lunar satellites, 84% roughly the size of Taurokado or smaller.

0659// Sensors detect low-level shielding sporadically surrounding structures of Forerunner origin. Codified as “SITES” hereon.

0924// First contact with Site 012, entirely protected by a dissipative atmospheric shield. Artificial gravity is extant.

0928// Breaching field. No sign yet of UNSC Spirit of Fire.

1005// Apollo deployed to surface of Site 012, approaching structure.

1008// Structure accessed. Apollo confirms Forerunner origin, details appear homogenous to Class-6B configuration from Onyx ”SARCOPHAGUS”.

1242// Apollo recovering data through passive sensors. Initial scans indicate this was a docking site for war vessels, housed within an artificial planetary body. Findings validated by extraneous debris: ultra-resilient fibrous mesh exclusively of Forerunner origin.

1330// Interaction with engineering conduit at Site 042 provides key details. Original installation was Shield 0459, formally known as the ETRAN HARBORAGE. Original name is loosely translated “TROVE.”

1415// Survey continues apace. Site 029 found to contain holographic armature schematic. Dreadnought classification: “SOJOURNER.”

1452// Caution taken by Apollo at Site 021. Residual evidence suggests contaminant vestige of FLOOD PARASITE. Shield world self-compromised?

1516// Human materials recovered from Site 037. Battleplate consistent with Phoenix-class hull. Evidence suggests Spirit of Fire presence.

1620// Suspicion confirmed by hull analysis. Recovery of war materiel registered to Spirit of Fire. Zero evidence of survivors among debris.

HOSTILE ENGAGEMENT...

1642// Scans detect foreign battle group. Covenant presence confirmed.

1650// Hostile fighters en route, Seraph formation. Enemy engaging.

1654// Apollo deployed via F41s. Direct attack on hostile targets.

1702// Apollo dispatches first wave, second wave approaches.

1710// Second wave eliminated. Apollo falls back to Taurokado.

1714// Taurokado releases sensor buoy B89-7. Slips per protocol.

FINAL EVALUATION.

97% probability that the accretion disk was once an artificial sphere which served as a docking port for warships and a shield world.

72% probability that it encountered a “recent” Flood outbreak of some nature. 6% probability that the sphere's destruction was related.

99% probability that Spirit of Fire arrived at the shield world site.

12% probability that Spirit of Fire survived the world's destruction.

98% probability that the Covenant will attempt to recover technology from the field. Recommend discrete asset denial or counter force.

Isabel to Bossman

\\FROM: UNSC AI ISABEL (ALIAS \\INTRASHIP COMMS\NEWACCOUNTS\AI\ISA 1307-2)

\\TO: BOSSMAN (ALIAS \\INTRASHIP COMMS\CO\01730-58392-JC)

\\SUBJ: BAD NEWS. GOOD NEWS!

Captain,
As requested, I've conducted my initial evalutation of the Spirit of Fire's manufacturing and support capabilities. No surprise, the ship's compliment of arms could use some… attention. Being offline for three decades will lead to a few missed upgades, I suppose. I'm still sorting out the ship's factory control AIs and I'm a bit out of my element without access to Joint Planning and Execution System data at the Lamb station, but I do like a challenge.

BAD NEWS: SYSTEM UPDATES ☹

Mandatory security patches and portal updates are backlogged. I have 82,810 Critical System Updates and 1,201,924 Optional System Updates scheduled. I'm still assessing which are compatibled with the ship's architecture improvements since the last documented overhaul, but I should have all updates finished within 16 hours. I'll let you know when they're done.

GOOD NEWS: FACTORY MODULE CRITICAL REPAIRS COMPLETE

Assembly Lines 1-5 have been reactivated and I am reviewing their tolerance and inputs. Line 6 is being retooled and will be offline for 244 hours. Fortunaltely, thanks to SNA 1292-4's impressive housekeeping, it should be fairly trivial to get you up and running with the latest specs and upgrades to a variety of manufacturing processes. The Contingency Support Plan implemented by Serina has made this process a lot smoother than I anticipated, despite the age of fabrication and machining core-blocks in this Module. There's still some refactoring to be done, but load-balancing and agile reconfiguration are my specialties.

BECAUSE I HAVE TO: COMPLIANCE No surprise, but the Spirit of Fire crew is decades out of compliance with UEG, UNSC, and MILSAFE safety regulations. Now, you know as well as I do that all the policies in the Orion Arm won't do us a damn bit of good if we end up facing the business end of Atriox's mace. That being said, I've set aside some cycles to generate new signage and pamphlets for the crew. Please review, as this will help get everyone back up to speed on the basics. You know… when we're not being shot at.

Systems assessment - Spirit of Fire

SYSTEMS ASSESSMENT - SPIRIT OF FIRE

UNSC Spirit of Fire, CFV-88, Exitus Acta Probat, Phoenix Class 2473

Sir, I've summarized the major modifications and architecture changes made to the Spirit of Fire while we were in cold storage. We're still going through the logs and sending teams to sweep each compartment, but so far we haven't found any discrepancies that will impact our readiness. Serina did us proud with her work on the old bird, let's put it to good use. — LCDR Alys Vallum, Chief Engineer (CFV-88)

SLIPSPACE DRIVE: INACTIVE
Isabel has confirmed we lack the capability to construct a new SFTE core even if we had a complete manufacturing template-which we don't. Sorry, Captain.

BERTHING: LIMITED
Three of the four atmosphere scrubbers in berthing compartments 1-5 are inoperable. We cleared out but the 45th Marine Regiment have moved in, claiming it's an upgrade to their current accomodations.

COMBAT BRIDGE: ACTIVE
Serina's upgrades to the fire control matrix and trunk lines provide 50% additional bandwidth.

MAC ARRAY: LIMITED
The fire control system continues to suffer diagnostic faults. Recommend extreme caution in using the MAC array.

FACTORY MODULES: INACTIVE
The robotic factory lines are warming up and on-schedule for full reactivation. My techs say the usability and safety improvements Serina and Isabel have made are substantial, but that's not my area of expertise.

HANGARS: ACTIVE
All backlogged maintenance of our Pelicans and Darters has been completed. I've moved some of the spare dropships out to the deck park until we have time to crate them up.

HERONS: ACTIVE
All ten of our D-20 Herons will be ready for deployment once we get their reaction mass tanks topped off.

OBSERVATION DECK: ACTIVE
Serina cooked up this new lab setup while we were on ice. These facilities are not in our maintenance plans and only Dr. Anders knows what half of these scanners and lab modules are even supposed to do.

SENSORS: LIMITED
The good news is that we have sensors online. The bad news is that every time we go loud with active wide-area scans the Ark's Sentinels flag aggressive. Visibility beyond a three light-second radius around the installation is minimal.