With Axel's disappearance from the battle, the Ascendency had to quickly move in order to ensure that those who opposed Axel were dealt with. Within hours, Senators part of the anti-war faction were arrested on claims of treason with an overwhelming amount of fabricated evidence being presented to the public.
Those Senators were thrown in prison and elections were to take place to replace them, by the very people that they represented.
Catherine, upon hearing the news, was overcome with tears. One moment Axel was fighting the final battle to finally end the Reaper threat, in the next moment, he was gone. Though she wasn't by his side, she had always supported him from a distance, staying updated on his status and actions.
As the days passed, with Axel being considered MIA, his authority and powers were transferred over to Catherine in a vote by the Senate, in order to ensure that the Ascendency was not left without a leader. Catherine was hesitant at first, but she was aware of the weight of the situation and accepted her new role as the acting Empress of the Ascendency.
His sons weren't chosen because the Ascendency wasn't a hierarchal form of government where the position of Emperor passed down to his first-born son. Upon his death, or any other circumstances, the Senate would elect a new leader to take his place. In this case, he was still alive, so Catherine was elected as the acting leader until his return.
Arthur and Andrew, Axel's sons, had returned to the capital alongside Miranda to support their mother. For the most part, Arthur and Andrew had remained out of the politics of the Ascendency and pursued their own dreams, which Axel fully supported. But they were still given an education in politics and even got a degree in it.
And now they would put that education to use by assisting their mother with anything she needed. While there was no current threat of collapse, nobody within the Ascendency had the same amount of support from the people, even the former Covenant species, then Axel did.
Sure, Imperial Admiral Xytan was the most supported Sangheili, but in terms of the entire Ascendency, Axel far surpassed him by tens of billions.
On Catherine's orders, Axel's disappearance was not kept silent, as she feared what the ramifications would be if later the people found out the truth and started to doubt the transparency and integrity of their leadership. With heavy heart, she announced Axel's mysterious disappearance to the Ascendency through a widely broadcasted public address. The news was met with shock, dismay and grief; yet the same sense of unity and resolve that Axel preached proved to prevail in this moment.
Billions of people offered their prayers and hope for his safe return alongside all the others who disappeared with him. Across the Ascendency, a wave of mourning began.
———
Meanwhile, Axel found himself aboard his flagship in an unknown galaxy, with Omni, the crew of ship, and the onboard soldiers which numbered 100,000. The onboard soldiers consisted of regular army soldiers, marines, 5 Spartan teams (10 members each), and the Airforce.
A separate force was the Yanme'e Queen and her Hive. The Yanme'e Queen was one of the chosen military representatives for the rest of the Yanme'e. The Hive alone numbered in the Millions and were mainly used to overwhelm the enemy. Their lives were short by nature, but they were bred so quickly that their numbers were easily replenished.
"Any luck with the comms?" Axel asked Omni.
"No, sir," Omni reported, "No signals of any kind. It's like we're in a dead zone."
"Analyze our surroundings. See if we can identify at least one celestial body," Axel ordered, knowing well that they needed substantial bearings if they had any hope of finding a way back home.
Omni complied and worked tirelessly, scanning and analyzing the stars in their vicinity. The process took hours, but finally, on the verge of giving up, Omni managed to find something.
"I believe I have something, Sir" he said pulling up the results of his scan. "There's an unknown star system approximately 100 light-years away."
"Let's head there and start investigating what we find." Axel ordered. "And Omni, make sure we don't slipspace jump into a celestial body, we don't want to accidently die in an unknown galaxy."
"Copy, Sir. If we do, I apologize in advance." replied Omni Jokingly. Axel turned his head to look at Omni's avatar which disappeared as soon as he turned. A small chuckle left Axel's mouth as he returned to his duties.
As the ship entered slipspace, Axel took a moment to let out a sigh of frustration. 'We're in the dark here. Without any knowledge of where we're at,' he muttered.
The atmosphere in the flagship was tense as everyone awaited their arrival at the unknown star system. The ship's crew moved with purpose, each focused on their specific tasks. They were all aware of their circumstances, but sitting around doing nothing would not benefit anyone.
———
On the Endeavor, the ship which had gone through a wormhole and had become lost, has managed to make some sort of progress. Their first encounter with aliens didn't go as planned, and after deciding to scout them out, they had discovered a much bigger village of the same aliens that attacked them.
Besides that, they had found a few more systems which they explored, finding various primitive species. They hadn't encountered another space-faring species until 6 months ago, when a strange fleet had appeared within their sensor range. They tried to make contact, but were immediately fired upon, by the aliens who didn't even try to communicate with them.
They managed to escape with minimal damage to the ship, but after that event, they started to encounter more of the same looking ships in other systems that they explored.
A few of the primitives that they found were even invaded by the armies of this new strange alien race. There was nothing that they could do but sit back and watch since they were not a military vessel, and even if they were, they wouldn't be able to fight that fleet.
They had established a small outpost on an uninhabited planet which also had edible food that wasn't poisonous to them. Unknown to them, however, was the fact that the planet they thought was uninhabited was actually the place of a genocide where all the planet inhabitants were killed by another alien race.
For now, the Endeavor and its crew were safe, but who knows how long that would last until they are found and maybe captured.