The first encounter between two cultures is the beginning of a unique history, written by the interaction of their differences and the appreciation of their similarities.
???, August 6th, 2045. 09:13 AM
Jameson's right leg didn't hurt anymore. In fact it was like it wasn't there at all. He groaned. Did he have a spinal injury?
"Lieutenant Colonel?" A young voice tentatively asked. Jameson opened his eyes and stared upwards. A clear sky gazed back at him, the sun present at the edge of his vision partially blocked by shadowy pillars- no, people. A crowd of blue and tan uniforms was gathered around him; unfamiliar, strained faces looked down. Jameson felt some relief when he spotted Staff Sergeant Henry, his close friend, in the group, uninjured.
"Hol- holding my funeral a bit too early?" No one laughed, just staring at him with grim expressions. Now seriously concerned, he spoke to a white-helmeted medic, "What happened?"
The medic's face was grim. "Do you want the good news or the bad news, Lieutenant Colonel?"
The forced smile disappeared from Jameson's face. "I'll take both."
"Well, sir, the good news is the infection didn't spread from your leg. The bad news is that your left leg..."
Jameson got the message. He tried to appear cheery when, inside, he felt as if he'd been punched in the face, stomach, lungs, and pretty much every other part of the human body. "Well, if I can do without an arm, I can do without a leg, right? Now then, what's with the crowd?"
A Naval officer stepped forward with a salute as the medic helped Jameson sit up. "Lieutenant Commander Lee, sir! An explosive shell hitting the bridge killed every high-ranking Naval and Army officer on the ship. You're now the first-in-command, sir, and we have no idea where we are."
Jameson took a moment to process this statement. He'd been promised that he'd have a purely observatory and advisory role in the task force; something to ease him into the position of Lieutenant Colonel and help him adjust to performing his duties without his right arm. And here he was, having lost yet another limb, in charge of the entire USS Discord. He gave a weak laugh. "You're kidding, right? Is there seriously no one else who can take charge of the ship?"
Lee shook his head. "You far outrank all of the surviving officers on the ship. Protocol says you're in charge, sir."
Jameson looked into the expectant faces of the crowd. It was slowly dawning on him just how bad the situation was, and if there was no one else to take charge then he'd have to do it. His irritation was irrational; he was one of the most experienced soldiers on the ship, and he didn't know of anyone better to guide them out of this.
He gave a sigh of resignation and nodded slowly, much to the relief of the soldiers and crewmembers in the crowd. They began to disperse, leaving Jameson alone with Lee and half a dozen other Navy and Army officers. The medic, who had left a few moments ago, returned with a wheelchair and helped Jameson into it. He found it embarrassing, but beggars couldn't be choosers and at the moment he certainly fit the description of a beggar.
"Who's the highest ranking Naval officer in good health?"
"That would be me, sir," replied Lee. Jameson nodded.
"Can you delegate your current duties?"
"Yessir, but if I may ask, why?"
Jameson grinned. "You're my personal advisor now. Prepare a situation report, have the duties of those dead or unfit to serve delegated, and find where on God's green Earth we are. Get to it." He looked in the direction of the half-dozen officers as his new advisor/secretary left to carry out his instructions. "And you lot, if you're free enough to loiter around and gawp at a handicapped man you're also free enough to set up a command center in the bridge corridor."
The officers hurriedly saluted and went to, presumably, follow Jameson's orders. Left alone in his wheelchair, he analysed the surface damage to the aircraft carrier.
It wasn't as bad as he'd originally thought, despite his faint memory of a huge missile threatening to strike the ship. Patients were being carried down into the ship from the temporary field hospital on stretches or surgical beds, with the worst cases still being treated by bloodied, worn-out medics. Jameson tried not to let his gaze rest on the cheerily white body bags lining the edge of the ship deck, somewhat hidden by the row of Widowmaker jets.
The ship itself was sheltered in a lagoon-like, crystal blue sea. The position of the sun indicated it had only been at most half an hour since the Russian attack, but the tropical island didn't match the cold arctic in the slightest. Perhaps it was best to deal with this later.
Jameson gave a satisfied hum at the sight of crewmembers already working to clear the debris from the bridge and even one or two soldiers sweeping dust and junk metal into empty barrels; it looked as though the ship was recovering despite the annihilation of the command structure. He gave the right wheel of his wheelchair an experimental push. He wasn't entirely unfamiliar with wheelchairs, having used them while recovering back in the USA after losing his arm.
The Lieutenant Colonel was surprised at the dullness of any pain or aches from the stump where his leg used to be, but he chalked that down to the medics perhaps giving him strong painkillers.
He maneuvered the wheelchair as best as he could to the bulky metal door leading to the entrance to the Island of the ship. It was the only indoor place he could reach without a crutch to help him down stairs.
As he wheeled himself down the corridor, Jameson passed by a group of three soldiers welding a thin metal sheet to the bottom landing of the flight of stairs leading up to the former bridge. Just a few meters beyond that one of the officers whom Jameson had previously given orders to was already directing efforts to prepare a temporary command center. Desks with computers, radios, in-ship phones, printers, and everything else needed to effectively command the ship lined the walls of the corridors.
A rusty tracked Sentry drone with the label 'R-6036' buzzed past the Lieutenant, turning its turret to look curiously at him. Jameson ignored it, heading for the middle of the 'command center' where two white-shirted paramilitary crew and a Ranger were worriedly hunched around a desk with a radio and large computer. He shoved his way between the fully-equipped and armed Ranger and a nervous-looking white shirted radio operator.
The two looked at him in surprise, with the other whiteshirt being too absorbed in listening to the radio and scribbling on a blank sheet. He frowned back. "Anything I should know about, people?"
The Ranger nudged the radio operator. She turned to the Lieutenant with a nervous smile. "Oh, well, uhhhh, we couldn't make any contact using encrypted transmissions, so it's safe to assume there's ahhhh… no friendly military in the area."
Jameson stared at her expectantly.
".....sir."
He nodded. "What's your friend over there doing?"
Said 'friend' looked up at the Lieutenant. "I'm writing down the radio content we're receiving from civilian channels, sir. Currently tuned into a music station; the host is English speaking but she mentions some names and places we don't recognise," he said. "It could be a South American or Americo-African station in one of the richer countries."
Jameson gave a satisfied nod, "The two of you keep working on that. Prepare a copy of the radio transmissions and have it delivered to me when you hear anything of note," he turned to the Ranger standing at attention. "And you, Specialist..."
"Specialist Todd Arnold, sir!"
"Specialist Todd, what are you doing here? Last I checked techies didn't lug around heavy machine guns and full body armour."
Todd grinned. "I'm a drone specialist, sir. Just helping deploy the ground drones and making sure none of the radio equipment'll fry them."
The Lieutenant Colonel felt a slight headache coming on. Just a few meters away they were still searching for bodies, and here a perfectly fit soldier was wasting his time trying to fix a nonexistent problem in readying up chunks of metal. "Well, if you're done then make yourself useful. I don't want to see you loitering around during an emergency situation," He snapped at Todd.
Todd replied just as enthusiastically as before, "Yessir, on it!" He saluted as Jameson was approached by a Naval officer with a small set of documents.
"Lieutenant Colonel, sir, Lieutenant Commander Lee has these reports for you." Jameson accepted the files with a nod and skimmed over the top one. It was a general assessment of the damage to the ship, casualties, fatalities, and state of equipment.
There had been no major hull damage except for the bridge obviously. They'd lost two Widowmakers; one was destroyed in combat and the other slid from the ship when the bridge was destroyed. Thankfully, the pilot from the second jet had survived with no injuries. However, things became more bleak when Jameson began reading the section regarding casualties and fatalities.
Of the 1,200 personnel on the ship, at least 130 were dead, with a further 80 being too injured to perform their duties. The Lieutenant Colonel winced at the numbers, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He was simply glad he wasn't part of those 130 who had passed.
For the next hour or so, Jameson continued to give orders and receive reports as they arrived. A Naval officer confirmed the ship was in good condition and capable of moving without issue, so Jameson ordered a Little Bird helicopter to scout out the surrounding area.
Aside from that, there hadn't been any pressing issues he had to deal with. He made sure to keep himself updated on the recovery of the ship, and it looked like it was going well.
It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine though. Three of the critical patients had passed despite the best efforts of the medic, and they still weren't sure what to do with the bodybags. In a regular situation, a helicopter or the tiny patrol craft strapped to the carrier would ship the bodies to the nearest friendly base who could send them home, but they were in an unknown location and it could be weeks before they made contact with allies.
For the same reason, the critical patients weren't getting the advanced treatment they needed. At the moment they were barely stable, kept only alive by advanced machines and supplements that would run out eventually.
The Lieutenant Commander had also managed to compile about 50 reports from various crewmembers about the assumedly Russian attack, which all said the same thing: The bridge was destroyed, the Russians launched a huge, unstoppable missile, and right before it hit, the world turned pure white and they appeared here, a warm island that should be hundreds of kilometers away from the Antarctic. It was always possible that they had all died and were now in some form of an afterlife, but Jameson would like to proceed under the assumption that this was, in fact, the real world.
His thoughts were interrupted by the familiar buzz of an approaching helicopter. With the help of a nearby Ranger standing on guard, he was wheeled out of the Island onto the apron where he could see a Little Bird getting ready to land. A sigh of relief escaped him as he noticed the lack of injury or damage to the crew and helicopter.
Before it could touch down, the three Rangers sitting in the helicopter dismounted; one of them running straight towards a watching female officer nearby. They conversed for a few moments before she walked to the Island, stopping when she saw the Lieutenant sitting outside on his wheelchair.
She saluted. "Lieutenant Colonel sir! I'm Captain Emma Stone, new Captain of the air wing. The Little Bird scouted to the west and spotted a large, industrial city of unknown allegiance on the coast from a distance.
"They say they spotted several smaller towns along the coast and the islands, as well as cargo and fisher ships in the surrounding sea. The city's about 30 kilometers away, and it's clear sea till there. No radio contact was made on the military encrypted frequency. Nothing else to report."
Jameson nodded, dismissing the Captain. The situation worried him greatly. The lack of radio contact meant that this was not an American or allied city; every city and town had at least a small military garrison which would have been able to receive the encrypted radio messages. That meant this city was either neutral- or of an enemy nation. The absence of any military defenses, ships, or aircraft could be due to the city being deep in enemy territory and thus protected against attacks.
He frowned, suddenly irritated that the report was so brief. He certainly hoped that someone was writing a lengthier one at the moment; the barebones description forced him to make dangerous assumptions. After a few moments of thinking, he ordered his helper to get a pen and a paper and drafted a set of orders for the helmsmen.
"Sir!"
The Lieutenant Colonel looked up from his desk, currently full of half-finished map sketches and more accurate printouts of various populated coastal areas, to see a Naval officer rushing down the corridor towards him; Lee. He saluted Jameson and passed him a freshly printed out message from the ship's internal communications system. Jameson grabbed it, scanning the cold, black ink with growing dread.
The message was simple and to the point: "Approx. 23 aircraft approaching. Visual report: identical to Antarctic attack group. Time to engage: Approx. 12 minutes."
Jameson looked up, his mind searching for ways to get out of the situation safely. The ship was currently on its way to the city the Little Bird had spotted, with the lack of any naval interception giving the Lieutenant Colonel hope that it was part of an allied faction. However, the radio operators had reported that they were picking up radio stations which, while still speaking in English, mostly had Russian accents, indicating they were getting closer to a Russian city.
And now this. The same air group which had ambushed them in Antarctica was approaching to finish them off, with only minutes to spare until they came into contact. Jameson gritted his teeth and flipped through the hand-drawn maps until he came to the approximation of the coastline from the description of the helicopter crew. The coast had continued directly south as far as the horizon, but to the north the sea was interrupted by inhabited archipelagos- there was no way they could sneak the carrier past the islands without being spotted.
Taking a deep breath, he dismissed Lee and picked up the phone, hitting '13' for the navigation room. After a brief conversation with the helmsman, he felt the slight force of the huge ship turning in a wide circle. Above, Jameson could hear crewmembers rush to prepare the ship for moving at full speed.
The USS Discord raced south under the mild evening sun, keeping a safe distance away from the coast. Aerial recon drones buzzed over the carrier, keeping a lookout for military ships. The crew occasionally spotted vague shapes on the water in the distance: civilian ships, mostly fishing boats. They kept their distance- alerting an enemy military now would be disastrous.
Jameson's wheelchair was positioned on the roof of the Island, where the bridge had been. The four soldiers required to lug the wheelchair up the stairs was worth it; he had an unmatched view of the ship's top deck and the surrounding sea.
The open sea glittered with the rays of the sun. Any islands or land formations were entirely absent from the area, leaving only the coast to the west and the horizon in all other directions. The coastline was just visible through the haze and fog that had set in in the late afternoon, only a few kilometers from the carrier. Jameson knew it risked them getting spotted by patrolling naval vessels, but with no map of the terrain they needed to keep the coast within sight or potentially end up lost in the huge open ocean. Their aircraft were grounded too; they had concluded that the enemy forces had detected them through radar because of the Little Bird's scout mission.
The evening dragged on. The Lieutenant Colonel occasionally picked up calls from the phone lying in his lap- a wire trailed back into the Island- and received reports from out-of-breath Naval soldiers, but these were getting less and less frequent. The ship's departments were adjusting to the lack of an experienced and high-ranking command group, and had stopped asking him for approval for the most trivial actions.
Just after sunset, an alert sounded through the ship.
"All crew to stations, be ready for combat," blared the speaker system. The message repeated itself.
Without waiting for the soldier assigned to help him, Jameson rolled the wheelchair at full speed down the stairs. A bumpy few seconds later, he reached the command center. It was chaos. Whiteshirts and soldiers struggled to get down the limited space left in the corridor, machines buzzed and whirred loudly, and printers consumed ungodly amounts of ink. Jameson grabbed Lieutenant Commander Lee by the arm and pulled him to the side.
“What’s going on, Lieutenant Commander?”
After an awkward attempt at saluting to Jameson, Lee stated, "We've spotted a large city on the coast, sir. Seems to be American or Japanese, possibly even New York or Seattle. Skyscrapers and all the fancy lights. A fleet of patrol craft and a single warship are approaching us now- and we've received a transmission on the radio. Haven't responded yet though, sir, thought we'd wait on you."
Jameson released his iron grip on Lee's arm and rolled the wheelchair across to the radio table which had expanded immensely throughout the day. It now boasted an unstable wall of radio devices, printers, headphones, and speakers. Five whiteshirts and a Ranger manned them. The Ranger saluted the Lieutenant Colonel and handed him a bulky headset which he accepted and slipped over his ears with a nod. A slightly melodic, worried male tone rang over the radio.
"-hattan Coast Guard, identify yourselves immediately. Unknown naval vessel, this the Manehattan Coast Guard, identify yourselves immediately. Unkno-" Jameson gently took off the headset, grinning at Lee.
"Hell yeah! Men, we've reached New York somehow! The Manhattan coast guard is on their way! Tell the helm to anchor the ship and the crew to stand down."
Lee saluted and picked up a phone, relaying the Lieutenant Colonel's orders. Meanwhile Jameson put the headset back on and, after a query aimed at a researcher, managed to turn on the radio transmitter.
"Manhattan Coast Guard, oh boy are we glad to hear you! This is Lieutenant Colonel Jameson Kayran of the USS Discord, allied military carrier, and we've just been through hell. We need urgent medical care for 9 soldiers, and we've got a lot of body bags to send home. You can board on the boarding deck facing the city. Oh and, I'd like to get a line to Marshal Harper, the naval commander of Manhattan."
Jameson heard a wince from the other side. "Ro-roger that, USS Discord. We'll board the ship and treat the wounded. Uhhh, I'm not military, and I don't know who Marshal Harper is, we don't have any naval forces in Manehattan besides a single warship. Just sit tight, over."
Jameson rolled his eyes at the strange pronunciation of Manhattan. Europeans... The radio crackled to life again.
"Was it pirates or... an enemy ambush? I can't believe they'd attack our guys. Over."
Jameson responded. "No, wasn't pirates. There aren’t any of them where we were. And yes, we were ambushed. Came out of nowhere, killed a good chunk of the crew with shelling. Er, over."
The voice on the other end grunted sympathetically. "Don't worry, they wouldn't dare to atta-"
Lee ripped the headphones off Jameson, ignoring his protests. "Lieutenant Colonel, something's not right about the Coast Guard." He showed a small tablet to Jameson which, if the tag on the top left was to be believed, was a live camera feed of one of the recon drones. It showed the five approaching Coast Guard vessels, small patrol craft, which spotlights focused on the ship. He couldn't make out anything on the patrol craft until one of the vessel's spotlights turned away.
He gasped, not believing his eyes.
It was the Coast Guard, all right. Two members in brightly-colored orange vests were on the front deck of the craft, preparing ropes and hauling medical supplies to the front. There was just one issue.
The two... things... weren't humans. They instead resembled short horses- ponies- albeit with rounder muzzles and unnaturally colorful fur. They evidently weren't regular ponies- they used their front hooves with dexterity, and moved with the purpose of an intelligent human. If that weren't enough proof, one of the ponies, a bright pastel blue, had two folded, feathery wings protruding from its flanks.
Jameson looked up, realising half the command center was gathered around his wheelchair, watching the camera feed. He shoved it into the arms of a crewmember, and shouted at Lee, "Well don't just stand there! Wheel me to the boarding deck, double time!"
Lee was remarkably calm about the whole ordeal, pushing Jameson's wheelchair down the corridor like a maniacal scooter driver. Onto the apron. A brief struggle down the stairs. Standing on the edge of the water-level boarding deck with a loose ring of officers and Rangers holding their guns menacingly. Watching the first Coast Guard ship align itself with the deck, its crews' eyes widening.
Jameson felt a momentous weight on him for some reason. He faced the pony expertly climbing off the patrol craft with another dark grey one and onto the boarding deck. She- he assumed it was a she- was a pony with a fiery sunset red coat and a spiral horn decorating her head. A unicorn. She wore what appeared to him to be a nervous grin, if pony facial expressions were anything like that of humans, and threw an unprofessional salute.
The Ranger standing next to Jameson tightened his grip on his gun.
"Uhhh, heya.", the unicorn said with a little wave. Jameson gave a start with how... human... the voice sounded, despite expecting it from the voice he'd heard on the radio. Jameson stared back blankly.
"Uhh, hello? Ya'll can understand me, right? Jeez, Shield, get me a pen an' paper, will ya?", she continued.
Jameson blinked and broke his silence, "I can understand you perfectly well, Miss..."
The unicorn stepped back slightly in either shock or fear. She recovered quickly, however, and resumed her grin. "Private New Horizons, Mister..."
"Lieutenant Colonel Jameson," he said, returning the grin. New Horizons visibly relaxed. Behind her, the rest of the Coast Guard boats pulled in, their crews in a similar state of amazement.
"Well, Lieutenant Colonel Jame-son, welcome to Manehattan!" she stuck out a hoof, somehow without falling over.
Jameson accepted the handshake with inner relief and wonder, as the crew and soldiers around him moved to meet the other ponies.