The Battle of Earth. Archie had hoped this day would never come -- The Covenant finding their home world. With only the fleet and a handful of Spartans between a purge by almighty aliens and salvation. Archie had considered it, in his quiet moments. What he would do. What he [i]could[/i] do. Maybe he'd pull his standard issue M6G and die gloriously repelling invaders. Maybe he'd commandeer one of the Longswords and go out in a blaze of glory. What he didn't expect was to find himself as new Captain with the old one's brains spattered over his boots. 

Archie's stomach churned and hearing gave out as his brain shuddered at the sudden shift in the status quo. He didn't know if he would throw up or if he would curl into a little ball and die. The only thing he could focus on was the whir of the Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine as it came to life, and the background shouts of the ONI spook that had just killed his only mentor in the world, ordering the bridge crew to shut the jump to slipspace down.

"Captain." Agent V's blue eyes broke his trance. Archie hadn't supposed she'd be capable of something like this. A short woman with mousy brain hair tied back into a loose ponytail, with glasses that always seemed slightly askew. She seemed more like a pissed off librarian than a murderer. But the specks of blood on her ONI uniform was helping reality to set in.

"The Shaw-Fujikawa is midcycle and doesn't seem to be [i]stopping[/i]. You need to do something." Her fingernail stabbed into his chest.

"I... Uh..." The bridge was silent for an instant, the crew waiting to see what their new captain would do. Or maybe they were also going into shock from watching their former Captain's attempt as cowardice suddenly and brutally cut down.

"JJ... Spin us up a return vector." The sound of the world faded into background buzzing once more as Archie took measured steps to the Captain's chair. The noise of the crew became a quiet rumble, and the groans of plasma burns on the [i]Janus[/i]'s armor disappeared from his register.

Reality lurched for a moment. Whatever was happening, [i]this[/i] wasn't a slipstream jump. There was a certain subtlety to slipstream, the gentle rend of spacetime's fabric around you as your vessel entered the space between dimensions. This was something else -- Being violently shunted from one plane to the next, [i]everything[/i] going wrong for just a moment. The air tasted purple and everything sounded like the number six until all the five sense schlorped back to normal.

"I..." Archie pushed himself into the fabric of the Captain's chair, "What...?"

"Sir, Spartan-096 reporting. Green Team is ready to drop -- what's happening up there?" Elise's voice crackled from the dead man's comms.

Vomit dribbled from the ONI Agent's mouth. She pulled herself from the floor. Archie realized that since the jump, almost everyone had changed positions. Half the bridge crew were laid out in bizarre positions, some intertwined with one another like twenty steps into a game of Twister. Maisie ripped the comm from the body.

"Belay that drop, Spartan. Wait for additional orders." Maisie croaked into the microphone. She dropped the device and dry heaved.

JJ's voice pulsed from the center console. "Staff...," his voice and form was obscured by static for a moment, "I don't know how else to put this, but I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."