Halo: The Silent War

Chapter 2 - Departure

September 9th 2546, Aboard UNSC Saumselig, departing Earth orbit, Sol System

Cage had a restless sleep he was tossing and turning as the bed in the bunk was too hard for him, he was kept awake by the constant drone of the engines at the rear of ship his whole body felt sore from the strains it went through on the way up into space. Cage climbed the ladder and set his feet on the cold floor, Braiden was gone and his bed was neatly made he must've gone to breakfast. He walked over to the single window now letting in weaker sunlight than the day before, he spied Earth a pale blue dot ever growing paler and smaller. Stars twinkled brighter than Earth, some were red, blue or green but most were just white shinning in the dark. Cage got ready and went to the mess hall.

Cage's head was fuzzy like he had a slight hangover and it hurt to remember the way to the mess hall, the bright LED lights that lined the halls were to bright.

"Toby," Cage spoke with little energy, "show me the way to the mess hall."

"Certainly sir," the AI replied. Green lights appeared in recesses in the skirting of the hallway, the floor had a slight green hue to it. "Follow the lights sir."

"Thanks Toby," Cage followed the green lights to his destination. On the way he met many of the crew members and some of the bridge crew he saw the day before. They all wore grey suits, not too dissimilar to his own dress uniforms, seems like Captain Cooper didn't get the memo about the dress code. Cage walked through many bulkheads until he came to the biggest bulkhead of them all, the green lights ended here. Cage went through the doors into the mess hall. The mess hall wasn't as big as Cage expected considering how big the ship was. Along the back wall were food dispensers which dispensed a porridge-like gloop, protein re-sequencers that arranged amino acids into structures that became edible to humans and a drinks dispenser. Metal tables lined the hall in a column of ten in three rows, each table had a bench either side with a two meter gap between the benches that created highways in which the crew members travelled along. Cage walked to the back wall and grabbed a bowl, a plate, a cup and some utensils. He filled the bowl up with the gloop put some eggs and bacon from the re-sequencer onto his plates. He filled his cup up with a green coloured liquid that was apparently a smoothie of some sort.

Cage turned around and noticed Braiden , Captain Cooper and another man sitting with them, he made his way over to their bench being careful not spill his breakfast nor bump into any of the crew members. He eventually arrived at the bench.

"Good morning cobber!" Exclaimed Braiden , "you look like shite mate."

"Feel like it Braiden ," the both laughed. Cage sat down in front of the captain. "Captain do you suppose what this gloop is?" Cage pointed at the bowl of the stuff,

Before Jim could answer, the unknown man spoke, "everything the body needs but not what it wants," he extended his hand across the table, "the name is Lieutenant Daniel Olatundi." Cage shook his hand and noticed the black man had a firm grip; Cage could see small scars across his knuckles. "I'm the pilot of this vessel."

"I didn't see you on the bridge yesterday, I'm Cage"

The four men ate their breakfast. Cage didn't find it particularly appetising or tasty. Daniel was right about the gloop, it tasted as bad as it looked. The bacon and eggs tasted somewhat like the real thing, the re-sequencer couldn't quite perfect the taste of real food and the green drink tasted as expected, green. The four men sat around while the mess hall emptied as the crew went about prepping the ship for slip space travel. Jim and Daniel told stories of strange encounters in the vacuum of space, Cage told the men about his time at university and designing the drills that were in the cargo hold and even Braiden managed to tell them about his training with the Colonial Marines. After about an hour all four men were laughing and joking with each other. Cage was starting to feel like he had a family again.