The Story of Trace
By Yankee Samurai
I.
The year is 2555. The Human-Covenant War is over, but at great cost of life to Earth and her colonies. Upwards of 23 billion men and women - husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters - are dead. Half of the human population lies exterminated; the devastation wrought over the course of the 28-year conflict has left an indelible scar on the psyche of humanity.
But humanity’s pyrrhic victory is a victory nonetheless. The parasites known as the Flood are contained for the foreseeable future. Elsewhere in the galaxy, the defeated alien races of the Covenant, no longer united by their theocratic leadership, turn their guns on each other in a continuation of the civil war known as the Great Schism.
Neither the Flood nor the Covenant remnant are of great concern to Earth’s wartime government, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC). With the absence of pressing threats, the UNSC turns its focus inward. Rebuild. Repopulate. Unfortunately, lack of a common enemy to rally against causes old problems to rear their heads.
II.
Thirty years ago at the start of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC was embroiled in the Insurrection - a mass secessionist movement centered in the colonies. It was a messy conflict, as most civil wars are. UNSC and Insurrectionist alike were resigned to the war dragging on for decades more, but the onset of the genocidal Covenant compelled both sides’ fighters to begrudgingly put aside differences. While Insurrectionist activity did not cease entirely, it continued at a far-reduced state for the duration of the war. Most Insurrectionist-held colonies would go dark by war’s end, but a few were passed over by the Covenant. One such colony was Trace.
Trace, designated by the UNSC as XF-107, is a terrestrial planet in the Chi-Levita system, located in the outer colonial region. Its single moon is named Wake. UNSC Geologic Expedition Six was the first team to catalog its Earth-like characteristics and recommended the planet for priority colonization. Terraforming began in 2497, and by 2410, Trace was supporting a fully transplanted Earth-native ecosystem. Geologic Expedition Six also made note of several planetary anomalies, including no discernable tectonic activity, an unusually strong magnetic field, and slightly high levels of background radiation - odd, but inconsequential to colonization. The significance of Trace’s abnormalities would not be apparent until the aftermath of the Human-Covenant War, almost two hundred years later.
Turkish settlers arrived on Trace in 2450, bureaucratically overseen by the Colonial Administration Authority (CAA) but largely left to to fend for themselves. Forty-four years later, the Insurrection broke out and Trace found itself playing host to the United Rebel Front (URF), a major entity within the secessionist movement. Trace’s colonists, long having enjoyed functional autonomy with minimal CAA oversight, warmed to the idea of further establishing their freedom. They allowed the URF to stockpile weapons on the planet’s surface and use Wake as a resupply station for their ragtag navy.
III.
Luckily for Trace, the Insurrection itself never reached the system. In 2525, first contact was made with the Covenant, whose Prophets proclaimed the human species as defilers of Forerunner artifacts and an affront to the gods. They called for an extermination of the human species. Outnumbered and outgunned, the UNSC waged lopsided battles in the outer colonies - delaying actions more than anything else.
One by one, the frontier worlds fell silent: Green Hills, Jericho, Harvest, and a dozen others. Communications between the UNSC and Trace were severed, leaving her people with no connection to the outside world save static. Trace’s colonists could do little but wait for their turn, and wait they did.
Having grown accustomed to self-sufficiency, the people of Trace simply went about their lives. Local law enforcement, supported by militia, enforced order and prevented widespread panic. Farmers pitched in to feed their communities, labourers and repair technicians kept the generators running and the sewers clear. Rather than disintegrating into chaos, the colonists banded together in survival.
Years passed and Covenant warships had yet to arrive in orbit. Forces that would have glassed Trace were instead diverted to stop Vice Admiral Cole’s Battle Group X-Ray from running amok in the outer colonies, though the colonists had no way of knowing this. Meanwhile, they managed to eke out a comfortable existence on their own.
IV.
In 2553 the Human-Covenant War comes to an end; a generation of Trace adults has grown up without the UNSC. When UNSC forces land in strength, marching down main street to reinstall an official UNSC government and Army garrison, discontent is rife. Who needs UNSC rule, the people ask. We rode out the Insurrection without the UNSC and we liked it that way. And where was the UNSC for Trace during the War? We made it without the hand-holding of UNSC puppeteers. We have and will get on with life just fine without Earth, thank you very much.
Amid riots and political mutterings, UNSC Survey Team 0320 is dispatched to collect geological data on Trace in preparation for planned heavy industry. Predictably, the team reports the same planetary anomalies documented in Geologic Expedition Six’s survey nearly two centuries prior. But things happen differently this time. UNSC HIGHCOM is notified. Red flags go up.
The UNSC has learned from its experiences at XF-063 Onyx. Absence of tectonic activity, abnormal magnetic fields, and high background radiation are now known to be telltale signs of a Shield World - an artificial Forerunner planet with a natural-looking crust camouflaging ancient facilities and artifacts beneath. At the center of the construct is a Core Room Antechamber containing a Micro Dyson Sphere, a slipspace-enclosed habitat 300 kilometers in diameter (approximately the diameter of Earth’s orbit). However, in normal space the Micro Dyson Sphere exists as a slipspace portal merely a few meters wide. The Forerunners intended the Shield Worlds and their Micro Dyson Spheres to serve as shelters from the Halo superweapons.
If Trace is indeed a Shield World, colonization must be halted immediately. Beneath the crust of a Shield World rest trillions of mechanical Forerunner Sentinels - a dormant army that, if activated, could overwhelm a meager colonial garrison. It happened on Onyx. It cannot happen again.
Additional survey teams converge on Trace, this time with military escort. They have the run of the planet, frantically evicting settlements and cordoning off wide swaths of property for reasons the colonists can only guess at. Frustration builds among the colonials, the more vocal of whom proclaim the heightened UNSC presence as a means by which to bully Trace’s population into submission.
On New Year’s Eve, 2554, masked youths firebomb the UNSC consulate in New Ankara, planetary capital. UNSC troops retaliated by kicking down doors city-wide, detaining known and suspected insurrectionist sympathizers as well as any who associate with them. New Ankara descends into riots and vandalism. And then on January 15, 2555, shots are fired at a group of stone-throwing demonstrators, resulting in the death of four colonists, one of whom is Safiye Bereket - a sixteen year old girl. The insurrectionist propaganda machine has a field day. Cropped images of Becket's pale, blood-smeared face are applied en masse to leaflets which boldly declare her the “Martyr of Trace.”
Waves travel through the underworld network, eventually reaching the ears of the United Rebel Front. Largely out of work during the Human-Covenant War, the URF’s leadership spies an opportunity for business and is eager to jump into the crisis brewing on Trace. The URF’s in-house propaganda outlets are deft in their styling of Trace’s conflict as the culmination of a long-overdue revolution by the people against UNSC oppression. A call for volunteers is sent across the galaxy, a call which is answered by idealists and mercenaries alike. Thousands make their way for Trace, all gunning to arrive before an inevitable UNSC blockade clamps down on travel in and out of the system.
Squatting in encampments deep in Trace’s frontier, out of sight and reach of UNSC garrison troops, the URF struggles to organize its swelling manpower. Its fighters form a diverse array of native colonists, foreign opportunists, and adventurer-idealists; a swirling myriad of socio economic backgrounds, ages, cultures, and motives which constantly threatens to disintegrate the URF from the inside out. Order and discipline is inconsistent. In some units, petty thieving is the norm, while in others stealing is punished by a pistol round to the head.
V.
March 20, 2555. URF forces commence widespread attacks on frontier forts and settlements, whose local militias are outnumbered and outgunned. Captured militiamen are given the option to defect or else face execution; the vast majority gladly take up arms for the insurrectionists. A ragtag fleet of converted freighters, pirate corvettes and vintage naval frigates harass the planetary defense ships in orbit around Trace. Engrossed with quelling unrest in the cities while simultaneously overseeing survey operations, Trace’s garrison command is taken unawares and scrambles to consolidate its resources in New Ankara. UNSC HIGHCOM dispatches reinforcements in the form of the newly formed 133rd MEU. Some of the 133rd MEU’s Marines are hardened veterans of the Human-Covenant war, but most joined after the fighting against the Covenant ceased. They are enthusiastic about their chance to see combat; to “get some.” They are fresh, trained, and eager to kill.
With the 133rd MEU en route, and doubtless more UNSC personnel following, the URF insurrectionists on Trace know time is not on their side. They press the offensive, but the momentum of attack dissipates as the front lines inch closer to New Ankara. UNSC Army troops - professional soldiers - dig in, mounting an effective defense of the outlying region surrounding the capital. By late May, the war of sweeping maneuvers on the frontier which characterized the fighting in early spring has stagnated into a war of fortification and delaying actions on the part of the UNSC garrison, who attempt to hold the line until relief arrives.
The landing of UNSC reinforcements in early June 2555 marks a new chapter in the battle for Trace. Untested Marines and sailors of the 133rd MEU stand poised to break the stalemate as the spearhead of the UNSC counter offensive, codenamed Operation Summer Cyclone. On the other side of the wire, the URF fighters of 24 Volunteer Battalion Revolutionary Guards (24 VBRG) brace to repulse the imminent UNSC assault.
Elsewhere on Trace, life continues much as it always has. Adhering to their tradition of self-sufficiency, communities manage to maintain a semblance of normality despite the UNSC transportation blockade. While the blockade stops some illegal trafficking, it cannot catch everything. Under the guise of legitimate shipping, insurrectionist smugglers maintain a constant trickle of arms and manpower to the fighters on the ground. The admirals in orbit around Trace beg for more ships, but Naval Command (NAVCOM) is all too aware of the UNSC Navy’s depleted state as a result of the Human-Covenant War. The Navy is already too thinly spread and allocating too many vessels to one system, no matter its importance, would be unwise. Meanwhile, the survey teams linger in New Ankara, unsure if they will be evacuated off-planet or released to continue their search for Forerunner artifacts.
At this point, anything is possible. If the Marines and sailors swing the momentum to their favor, the secessionist movement on Trace could suffer an irreparable blow. But if the URF should hold its ground, the tide could turn in humiliating defeat for the already-reeling post war UNSC. Will the seeds of the Second Insurrection come to a decisive close, or will stalemate reemerge, costing countless more lives and livelihoods? And what of the Forerunners’ lurking presence beneath? What happens next is up to you.
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