Chapter 5: Deus ex Machina

-M??.???. Unknown Solar System. Ferrous Mind Core Sanctum-

Legate closely watched as UNSC personnel immersed themselves in the wealth of knowledge he provided, with a particular focus on the exceptional scientists Katarina Ambers and Richard Stanson. Both exhibited remarkable talent, and even without precognition, Legate foresaw their pivotal roles in advancing humanity's technology.

Yet, it was Katarina Ambers who truly captured his interest.

In addition to meeting various standards to become a Reclaimer, Katarina Ambers also harbors a dormant mutation within every cell of her body—a latent psyker, without a doubt. With this confirmation, Legate delved back into the memories and protocols embedded within him thousands of years ago. However, given what he will uncover in the future when he checks the Sea of Souls, he must expedite all procedures.

The failure of communication with the OR-type Ferrous Mind mandates manual activation. Legate must connect both immaterially and materially; protocol acceleration must be executed. However, with his current focus, all these must be postponed. Disconnected from the material universe in his slumber, Legate is unable to gain a full picture of what is happening in the reality where his vessel resides.

Nano-seconds after waking up, Legate immediately reads data from the Immaterium stored in the chronomatrix, calibrating time at an impossibly fast speed, even for the Solar Guardian. Coupled with Katarina's statement about the Covenant, this alone confirms the data he obtains after calibration.

Humanity has been attacked by xenos, and they are in a losing condition.

Initially, the protocol would provide the Reclaimers with war technology once they reached the Coordinator stage. However, the current situation demands a reversal.

Perhaps the mortals now aboard his vessel do not know how long they have been here, perhaps months, but Legate knows the true answer. He also comprehends what is happening outside this place and the various conflicts unfolding. He can sense millions of souls drifting into the Immaterium, be they human or xenos.

Sooner or later, he must inform them about the dire situation facing the UNSC. However, another imminent danger approaches. He can withstand and destroy that threat without issues, yet the upgrades he has made require considerable time for calibration with his physical anchor.

In his limited condition, all he can do is activate some manufactorums in minimum condition to meet the UNSC's production quota in aiding their war effort.

Despite the time and impending danger, everything is still within estimations, and there is nothing to worry about.

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In a small manufacturing room, Katarina observed the fruits of her labor being mass-produced. Three days since its activation, tens of thousands of weapons and nanosuits had rolled off the assembly line. Knowing this was just one room with the slowest production speed, she shuddered at the thought of the ship's industrial power once all its systems were fully operational.

"Looks like everything is going smoothly, Doctor."

"Admiral Johannes, please don't startle me," Katarina said with a sigh.

"My apologies." Johannes replied with a small smile. Both gazed at the manufacturing machines, producing war equipment at an astonishing speed. "Forgive me for doubting you, Doctor."

"No problem, Admiral." Katarina smiled, shaking her head gently. "Everyone had reasons to be concerned."

"All my soldiers love the weaponry here. Some even feel they are on par with Spartans. Wishful thinking for me, but it can be considered reasonable," Johannes chuckled, remembering the various reactions from his soldiers.

"Well, you haven't seen anything yet, Admiral. Everything stored within Legate is deep and infinite. What we discover only barely scratches the surface." Admiration emanated from Katarina, making her grin widely with joy.

"I'll wait and watch over you to ensure nothing unwanted happens, Doctor."

"Of course, you can watch over me for as long as you want. But trust me, nothing will go wrong."

The confidence in her voice was unmistakable as Katarina straightened up her posture. Johannes merely hummed in response, engrossed in overseeing the entire manufacturing process—an awe-inspiring spectacle of machinery displaying a precision beyond current human ingenuity.

"Glad you like it," Legate's voice resonated, causing both mortal humans to flinch slightly.

"Legate, can you stop that?" Katarina stated firmly, an exasperated tone coloring her words. "I don't know why, but I can't get used to that habit of yours."

"My apologies." Although the tone sounded sincere, Katarina couldn't shake the feeling that the Ferrous Mind was concealing his true intentions behind his flawless dialogue.

"Whatever," she dismissed it quickly, redirecting her attention to the manufacturing machine. "At this speed, we can build millions by the end of the year."

Before they could celebrate their progress, an emergency call blared through their communication channel.

"What's the matter, soldier?" Johannes nearly shouted, his adrenaline surging.

"Sir, we have dozens of readings near this planet. It is Slipspace rupture!" The man on the other end shouted frantically, carrying the weight of his stress.

"Slipspace rupture? Whose is it?" Various worst-case scenarios unfolded rapidly in Johannes' mind. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, coinciding with the worsening of his feelings.

"From its size and signature. Oh God, it's the entire Covenant fleet!" The panicked soldier couldn't contain his fear anymore, shouting out the revelation.

Johannes' heart felt like it was being ripped into his stomach upon hearing that. Katarina, who overheard their conversation, also froze with a terror-stricken face.

"How many ruptures are there?!" Johannes shouted, but he didn't get an answer. "Soldier, answ-"

A tremendous vibration prevented Johannes from finishing his sentence. The intense tremors continued, growing in intensity.

"Glassing," Katarina murmured, realizing what was happening.

"Damn. We need to move!" A call came from the older man, but Katarina only looked at him with a furrowed brow.

"Move where, Admiral? There's a possibility that our entire fleet in orbit has been destroyed!" Katarina replied in a high tone. "Legate, what do you detect up there?"

"About eighty ships above orbit. Their sizes vary, with the largest around fifteen kilometers," the Ferrous Mind answered calmly.

"We have to do something, or we'll all die here!" Johannes exclaimed.

"Even if this ship is destroyed, I will not face any destruction. And for you, Reclaimers, I have prepared a way for you to survive," Legate assured them with a warm voice. Somehow, as soon as Legate's sentence finished, their emotions and biological signs returned to normal.

The statement sparked confusion among the mortal humans. Nonetheless, they needed to believe in the ancient AI.

The ground was shackled, trembling as if the world itself wanted to split apart.

_____________________________________________________________

-Above the orbit. Covenant Assault Carrier-

Otan 'Vuhomai, an Elite tasked by the Hierarch to recover remnants of the Covenant-Human battle over the planet Harvest, had spent a grueling year seeking what he was ordered to find.

It turned out to be a piece of data that, at first glance, seemed nothing more than scrapped code. After months of research by the Covenant's brightest scientists, they decoded the enigmatic data. It revealed coordinates for a system on the edge of the galaxy.

Believing this system held a treasure capable of turning the tide of the war, Covenant aimed to secure it before the humans could. Reality, however, proved bitter. Of the one hundred and twenty ships with Otan, only eighty remained due to bizarre anomalies that separated him from a chunk of his fleet.

"These humans have arrived first. What a pity. But it seems they did not bring enough ships to this dangerous system. What stupidity," Otan remarked with a concealed laugh.

"What will we do?" one of his men asked.

"Annihilate those filths. Make none survive." With that command, the entire Covenant fleet unleashed its superior firepower on the unprepared humans. Plasma weapons burned the titanium hulls of UNSC ships, tearing them apart. Humanity's attempts to retaliate were in vain, as their formation had been destroyed, and their battleships reduced to debris.

Otan watched the impending doom of human fleets with an amused look. Before he could fully enjoy the moment, his man shouted at him.

"Sir, we found something on that planet that humans insist on protecting," he said slowly.

"Show me," Otan commanded.

A hologram appeared before him, revealing a particular sign that intrigued him. The place emitted a large amount of unknown energy. When the scale was presented, Otan couldn't hide his surprise.

"What is this? It should not be possible!" he shouted in rage and disbelief.

"It exceeds anything we have recorded. And this enigmatic energy bends all the laws of reality as if it sucked actuality onto itself," he explained slowly, awaiting a response.

"We need to move fast. If these filthy humans acquired anything that lies in that world, the entire Covenant would be at stake. Destroy all of those ships!" he roared, eyes narrowing with severity.

The destruction of UNSC vessels was inevitable as the plasma weapons erupted from the Covenant fleets, mercilessly tearing through their formation.

The bombardment began after the Covenant secured a solid position in orbit. Plasma cannons pierced the atmosphere, scorching the land. Stones melted, and sand turned to glass. The destruction was unfathomable.

Despite the onslaught, the energy signal remained intact.

"How is that possible? We've bombarded that place several times, but the structure is fully intact. Someone explain it to me!" Otan roared as his emotions reached their breaking point.

"We-We don't know. Everything is right, and the locking system is fully online. But when we fired, the plasma beams seemed to miss the target. Every single one of our shots is useless!" came a response in the form of hysterical confusion.

"Fire another round! Don't let those filths manage to acquire anything from that place. I want it to be destroyed!" Anger emanated from Otan's very figure, and his eyes burned with hatred and wrath.

They needed to move fast, and if anything emerged from that place, it would spell doom for all of the Covenant. However, the tension in his body slowly transformed into terror.

"Gods. What is happening?" he murmured, fear evident in his voice.

The world itself was crumbling. In space, it was impossible for him to witness the planet tremble, but what he saw defied his logic. Cracks spread uncontrollably across the entire planet. Something with unimaginable force was tearing the planet apart using sheer power alone.

He couldn't describe it; it was beyond his capability to understand. A black substance emerged from the coordinates, drowning the area in its color. The flood of the endless sea of black spread, slowly descending into the crack, moving like a plant's root seeking water for survival.

Suddenly, the air aboard Otan's ship filled with inhuman screams, a haunting symphony of agony that tore through their souls. The unbearable cries forced his men to their knees, some succumbing to unconsciousness under the weight of the overwhelming pressure. Otan himself groaned, gritting his teeth as he fought to endure the onslaught, a battle against an unseen force threatening to break him.

It felt like an eternity, the relentless screams echoing in the chamber. When the torment finally ceased, Otan staggered to his feet, shaken by the ordeal. With apprehension, he turned his gaze toward the mysterious coordinates.

What unfolded next would shock him to the core.

____________________________________________________

-Moments before-

Despite the impending doom, Katarina found reassurance in the enigmatic Legate. She believed in the AI's power, a force that stood as one of the greatest mysteries and strengths beyond her comprehension.

Now, all she could do was wait.

However, multiple haunting probabilities are plaguing her mind. 

Many recordings of previous UNSC encounters with the Covenant ended in humanity's defeat, and the haunting thought of the entire fleet being obliterated lingered in the solemn silence as they waited.

"Damn it!" Johannes' frustration found an outlet in a punch against the steel wall, his face a mix of grief and anger.

Katarina shared the sentiments, understanding the grim reality as the onslaught continued to intensify. The ground trembled, causing her to struggle for balance. However, this quake felt different.

"What?" she whispered, noticing a unique pattern in the vibrations.

This time, the tremors weren't explosive but seemed to be growing steadily, gaining strength with each passing second. As the vibrations intensified, Katarina couldn't help but piece together the source of this unusual earthquake.

"The ship. Is it coming from the ship itself?" Her deduction emerged more as a question than a firm conclusion.

Then, the vibrations erupted into a cacophony. The sounds of tearing land beyond the ship reached her ears, indicating that something had violently ripped through the terrain.

"Legate, what's happening?!" Katarina shouted, attempting to steady herself amid the chaos.

An answer eluded her, and the ground trembled even more vigorously. The crackling sounds pierced her eardrums, a burning sensation coursing through her body. Suddenly, everything fell silent before the impending disaster, even the ground ceased its trembling, as if erasing any evidence of the previous upheaval.

"What?" Johannes mumbled, rising to his feet.

"Ah, it was a quiet refreshment after a grueling calibration." Legate's voice mused, accompanied by a chuckle.

"Calibration?" Johannes questioned.

"I have completed my upgrade, and now I am fully functional. My apologies for the delay. I will take responsibility," Legate replied in a slightly somber tone.

"There is no-" The ship vibrated before Katarina could finish her sentence.

But this time, the vibrations held a different quality, gentle yet resonant. All the machines surrounding them hummed in response, and hidden mechanisms within the steel walls of the ship began to radiate a soft glow.

Katarina sensed an overwhelming force embracing the ship, propelled by a mechanism beyond mortal comprehension. Trillions of mechanisms shifted and changed in a fraction of a second, a flow of power spreading like a network of pulsating vessels throughout the vessel.

Following this spectacle, an uncountable swarm of nanorobots flooded every nook and cranny of the ship, passing through Katarina, Johannes, and the UNSC personnel present.

"I will transport you to the chamber where I have just renovated," Legate announced. Before any of them could respond, millions of nanobots assembled into a semicircular gate before them. With a pulsating glow, the nanobots forming the gate activated a portal.

Glancing at Johannes, Katarina noticed something in the Admiral's expression. His intense focus on the portal gate revealed that he missed the recent pulsation. Swallowing hard, Katarina took the lead, stepping into the gate. Passing through felt like navigating a sea with relentless waves. After a while, the sensation ceased, and upon observing her surroundings, she found herself in a vast chamber equivalent to a soccer field.

In an instant, Legate displays what's happening around them with a hologram in the middle of the room. It can be seen that the planet they are on now has a gaping wound that stretches across the entire planet. Then from the large crack, he sees the signs indicating countless nano machines entering the planet's mantle, covering the entire planet from underground in an instant.

"What are you doing, Legate?" Katarina asks.

"I am extracting all the minerals on this planet to repair and recreate my physical body. Besides, my creator created this planet only for that purpose," Legate replies calmly. "I have also stopped the attacks above; I could only save a quarter of your total fleet. Forgive me, Admiral Johannes."

"No. What you've done is enough," Johannes replies wearily with a small smile. "I owe you, Legate."

With a humming approval, Legate immediately accelerates the reconstruction of his body. "Then, let's destroy all the xenos in space."

With that, Katarina can feel all the ships recovering, but something is different when Legate shows the schematic of his ship on one of the holograms. The ship they now occupy is about two hundred kilometers long with a structure far more complex than what the excavation team has gathered.

"Katarina!" Richard's voice emerges from behind, making Katarina turn immediately.

"Richard," Katarina greets.

"What is actually happening? We received a distress call from the fleet about the Covenant," Richard speaks between his breaths.

"Covenant forces are coming for us. But don't worry, I will take care of them. Moreover, the reconstruction of my physical body is complete," Legate reassured them, and with a pulse from the surroundings, all panic in the chamber vanished instantly.

Katarina, ever perceptive, felt it all. Everyone else seemed oblivious to the recent events. Perhaps she was different, but assumptions without evidence were a risky endeavor, especially with such limited information.

Suddenly, the ship shook violently, and a shout echoed from the corner of the chamber.

"We're airborne!" yelled one of the researchers looking outside.

As they lifted off the ground, the gaping crack in the planet became increasingly unstable, spewing magma in all directions. Once in orbit, a humming from the ship's mechanisms echoed loudly. A mighty vessel dormant for hundreds of thousands of years had now risen with newfound power.

The ship found itself facing an approaching fleet that slowly directed their cannons towards it.

In the chamber, everyone held their breath, silently waiting for what would happen next.

Dozens of plasma shots directly targeted the ship's hull. Explosions landed on the mighty vessel, attempting to mar its beautiful architecture. There was no counterattack from Legate, creating confusion among everyone on board. But when the smoke cleared, a part of the ship was revealed without a single scratch. Yet, with an unseen command, dozens of Covenant ships exploded with plasma projectile detonations. Legate's data scream resonated, sending a virus into each Covenant ship, proudly displayed on the hologram inside the chamber.

The virus wasn't ordinary; it was a living virus devouring programs and digital objects on each Covenant ship. It didn't stop there, gnawing at engines and structures, rapidly decaying and exploding them.

The entire enemy fleet was annihilated, leaving only one flagship.

The ship was about to make a Slipspace jump, opening a gateway to the Slipspace realm. But Legate, with his impossible power, manipulated space and time, creating a chain of causality that seemed impossible in less than a second. And once executed, Slipspace disappeared, as if it never happened, and indeed, the Covenant ship never made the jump.

Immediately, a one-kilometer-sized cannon appeared in front of the chamber in microseconds. The cannon fired a blue light directly onto the Covenant ship's hull.

In an instant, all time became one for the ship.

The future, the present, and the past collided in unlimited possibilities, colliding every atom with itself endlessly in one space and time.

A shockwave occurred, but this time it was time itself that trembled, creating a quantum wave unraveling simultaneously with space and time.

In the blink of an eye, the ship disappeared. But on the other side, they didn't remember anything.

Katarina held her head, feeling an unusual damage. She remembered there was a ship there, but the detailed image was extremely unclear.

"What?" she muttered.

The cannon retracted back into the ship in an instant, leaving questions for all UNSC members about why the cannon was deployed if not used.

"What did you do, Legate?" Katarina asked, her eyes narrowing.

"I only erased what was unnecessary," Legate replied with certainty. "We don't have much time; Earth is under attack by the Covenant."

The revelation shocked everyone present. Their faces paled, cold sweat pouring from their bodies.

"In that case, we have to get there quickly. But, a Slipspace jump is impossible to reach in time," Johannes muttered with a sense of despair in his tone.

"That's if we jump following space and time. How about we walk without involving space and time?"

"What do you mean?" Katarina asked.

Legate didn't answer but immediately flew to one corner of the system, taking all remaining UNSC ships with him. When they arrived, Legate activated an identification code, creating a continent-sized circular gate in front of them. The portal opened, emitting an ethereal-colored light that transported them to a realm impossible to see.

"This way, we can reach Earth in a matter of seconds. Welcome to the Webway."

With that, they entered the portal and found themselves in a giant labyrinth that knew no size or space.